Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Social Investment: The South African Case

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social investment (CSI) have become terms that are used to examine some activities of businesses. With globalization pressures and increasing burdens on governments to provide comprehensive social services, the microscope has been trained on how firms play their part in sharing this burden. Views vary from those who believe that CSR and CSI are a distraction from profit maximization to those who argue that participation in such activities contributes to positive social transformation, while benefiting participating firms themselves. In this article, the author seeks to organize these debates within particular theoretical frameworks, positing CSR and CSI, together with the Socially Responsible Investment Index that has been used to evaluate corporate behavior in South Africa, as a novel way of addressing pressing development problems.

KEYWORDS:

• corporate social investment
• corporate social responsibility
• New Institutional Economics
• South Africa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Neil Eccles (University of South Africa), Dr. Dima Jamali (University of Southampton), Ms. Cindie Maidment (Strate Limited, South Africa), and three anonymous referees for their perceptive comments that resulted in the rewriting of this paper. Thanks also go to Prof. Stella Nkomo (University of Pretoria), Prof. Brij Maharaj (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Ms. Pat Ayers, Ms. Susan Evans, and Mr. Bujor Avari (Manchester Metropolitan University), Ms. Monica Singer (Strate Limited), and Ms. Diana Harris for making suggestions and editorial comments on earlier drafts.