A New Approach to CSR: Company Stakeholder Responsibility

22 Pages Posted: 30 Jul 2008

See all articles by R. Edward Freeman

R. Edward Freeman

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

S. Ramakrishna Velamuri

CEIBS

Date Written: July 29, 2008

Abstract

In this paper, we propose to replace "corporate social responsibility" with "company stakeholder responsibility." This is not just semantics, but a new interpretation of the very purpose of CSR. "Company" signals that all forms of value creation and trade and all businesses, from start-ups to large publicly held corporations, need to be involved. "Stakeholder" suggests that the main goal of CSR is to create value for key stakeholders and fulfill our responsibilities to them. And "Responsibility" implies that we cannot separate business from ethics. We will argue that taking a stakeholder approach to business is ideally suited to integrate business, ethics, and societal considerations. Stakeholder theory is about value creation and trade - it is a managerial theory about how business works. It asks both business and ethics questions about each stakeholder relationship.

Keywords: business ethics, ethics, stakeholder, corporate social responsibility, company stakeholder responsibility, value creation and trade

JEL Classification: A10, M10, I20

Suggested Citation

Freeman, R. Edward and Velamuri, S. Ramakrishna, A New Approach to CSR: Company Stakeholder Responsibility (July 29, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1186223 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1186223

R. Edward Freeman (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
804-924-0935 (Phone)
804-924-6378 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/freeman.htm

S. Ramakrishna Velamuri

CEIBS ( email )

Shanghai-Hongfeng Road
Shanghai 201206
Shanghai 201206
China

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