10 corporate stances in Corporate Social Responsibility

Ditlev-Simonsen and Midttun (2010)'s paper neatly summarizes 10 alternative corporate stances on Corporate Responsibility (CR). This I takes to be a discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The 10 alternative stances help us to understand more clearly the various viewpoints on CSR from an overall perspective. Their work is useful as a summarization effort in view of the huge CSR literature that we now have. Here, I recap the 10 corporate stances identified from their paper (which they call perspective on CR):

1. Profit maxim
2. Value maxim
3. Stakeholdership
4. Cluster-building
5. Branding
6. Innovation
7. Copying/ imitating
8. Ethics/ morals
9. Managerial discretion
10. Sustainability

To study their article, you do need to have reasonable good knowledge on the subject of CSR and on business management. The paper explains these 10 stances briefly but vividly.

Their paper also provides findings based on a survey exercise, which is relatively easy to grasp.


Reference
Ditlev-Simonsen, C.D. and Midttun, A. (2010) "What motivates managers to pursue corporate responsibility? A survey among key stakeholders" Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 18, pp. 25-38.