Following several decades of scholarship with several disciplinary points of departure, there is today a great heterogeneity of theories and approaches to Corporate Responsibility (CR). Taking a pragmatist position, this paper takes some of the most central theoretic perspectives on CR and exposes them to an evaluation by three panels: corporate leaders, MSc students and NGOs. The purpose of the paper is to clarify and compare what these panels think motivates mangers to pursue CR from a positivist and normative perspective. We find that the three panels are in surprising agreement as to what they assume motivates managers to pursue CR and what should motivate the same managers. We also see a large discrepancy between what they think motivates and what should motivate managers. Branding, stakeholders, and value maximization are assumed to be key motivators, whereas sustainability and branding should be the key motivators. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Corporations are spending a substantial and increasing amount of money on corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, little is known about the effects on key stakeholders of these activities. This study investigates if CSR activities have an effect on employees’ affective commitment (AC). Two models test to what extent employees’ CSR perception, involvement in decision processes, and demographic variables are related to their AC relative to their perception of positive organizational support (POS). The analysis is based on a sample of 512 employees from 4 Scandinavian companies; 3 Norwegian and 1 Swedish, randomly selected from a population of 6,710 mostly Norwegian and Swedish employees in those 2 countries. The results indicate that CSR perception is a significant predictor of AC, although how employees feel that the company cares about them (POS) has stronger explanatory power on AC. Contrary to the few other studies addressing AC and CSR, gender was not found to be a significant variable in the model.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate perceptions of the relative importance of different stakeholders (owners, employees, customers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental authorities) as agents motivating managers to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). The aim is to determine which stakeholders are viewed as key motivators and which the respondents think ought to be key stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach -This is an empirical study. Three stakeholder groups -corporate leaders, MSc business students and NGOs -were consulted through a paper survey ðn ¼ 264Þ: Findings -The findings reveal that the three stakeholder groups roughly agree that owners are the main motivators for managers to pursue CSR, followed by customers, governments, employees and NGOs, in that order. The paper then turned from perceptions of how things are to opinions about how things ought to be, asking who should be the main motivator. In this case, customers moved up to first place, followed by employees, owners, government and NGOs. Age, but not gender, was a significant variable. The older the respondents, the smaller the discrepancy between perceptions of what is and opinions about what ought to be.Research limitations/implications -This study was conducted in Norway and generalization is therefore limited. By replicating the study in other countries cultural differences can be investigated.Practical implications -The findings are applicable for evaluating different avenues for understanding and influencing managerial and stakeholder CSR behaviour.Originality/value -Several studies have concluded that stakeholders are of key importance in the CSR setting. However, few studies so far have compared the perceived relative ''power'' held by stakeholders. This type of knowledge can provide a key to understanding the development of CSR.

The role of the individual translator in introducing CSR into the corporate vocabulary, and the effect of this process. Key words: ABSTRACT PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is interpreted, introduced and applied in corporations from the point of view of the person in charge of this process, the translator.

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