Abstract

This article suggests an approach to formulating a strategic posture toward corporate social responsibility that is based on empirical data relating activities in corporate social responsibility to the profit of firms. It has become an increasingly perplexing problem for corporate strategists to find an appropriate posture for what may be called corporate citizenship or social responsibility. Among the things that make it difficult are two prevalent myths: that activities in this area are in fundamental conflict with the interests of the investor, and that resources committed to such activities come, net, out of the equity holder's pocket; and that the motivation for such activities lies only in a sense of noblesse oblige on the part of the group formulating the strategy, and, again, is an interest not directly related to the equity holder's welfare. One of the difficult tasks in raising the empirical issue of the relationship between social responsibility and profits is construction of an appropriate scale to measure the amount and worth of a firm's activities in the area of social responsibility.