This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the economic performance of corporations. It first examines the theories that suggest a relationship between the two. To test these theories, measures of CSR performance and disclosure developed by the New Consumer Group were analysed against the (past, concurrent and subsequent to CSR performance period) economic performance of 56 large UK companies. Economic performance included: financial (return on capital employed, return on equity and gross profit to sales ratios); and capital market performance (systematic risk and excess market valuation). The results supported the conclusion that (past, concurrent and subsequent) economic performance is related to both CSR performance and disclosure. However, the relationships were weak and lacked an overall consistency. For example, past economic performance was found to partly explain variations in firms’ involvement in philanthropic activities. CSR disclosure was affected (positively) by both a firm’s CSR performance and its concurrent financial performance. Involvement in environmental protection activities was found to be negatively correlated with subsequent financial performance. Whereas a firm’s policies regarding women’s positions seem to be more rewarding in terms of positive capital market responses (performance) in the subsequent period. Donations to the Conservative Party were found not to be related to companies’ (past, concurrent or subsequent) financial and/or capital performance.

Any debate about the validity of extending the marketing concept beyond the domain of the classical commercial organization seems to have been settled. The plethora of textbooks and articles on the topic of marketing in non-profits witnesses not only the acceptance of the validity of the extension but an elevation of the status of marketing in this sector. However, in practice many non-profit organizations seem to have equated marketing with visible communications and certain marketing techniques used to raise funds-rather than an overall guiding philosophy (Lovelock and Weinberg, 1989). As Mokwa (1990, p. 49) argues, the challenge for non-profits is "to expand marketing beyond public relations function and beyond communications dimensions into a coherent philosophy and methodology for effecting and integrating multipublic exchange relationships". This plea is echoed in almost every marketing textbook on non-profits but there is little empirical evidence that the sector has taken it on board. The implicit or explicit claim attached to this plea is that such an initiative would improve performance. However, mostly this claim remains empirically unsubstantiated. It emerges that the main issues are not to what degree charities have applied marketing techniques but to what degree have they adopted the marketing concept as a guiding philosophy, and how this has affected their performance. The objective of this study is to measure the degree of adoption of the marketing concept, as a management philosophy, in (the top 200 British) charities over the last five years and to assess its effects on performance. This paper initially reports the role and nature of marketing in charitable organizations and the hypotheses to be tested are formulated. The research methodology used is then described and the measurement instrument is discussed. Subsequently, the observed differences in market orientation in the last five years are considered. After examining the effects of organizational size

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