We address the question of how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) differs among countries and how and why it changes. Applying two schools of thought in institutional theory, we conceptualize, first, the differences between CSR in the United States and Europe and, second, the recent rise of CSR in Europe. We also delineate the potential of our framework for application to other parts of the global economy. In this paper we address the question of why forms of business responsibility for society both differ among countries and change within them. We do so by comparative investigation of corporate social responsibility (CSR), historically and contemporarily, in the United States and in Europe. 1 The paper is inspired by two commonplace observations. The first observation is that while many U.S. corporations have both been attributed, and ready to claim, social responsibilities, this has not been so common elsewhere. Comparative research in CSR between Europe and the United State has identified remarkable differences between companies on each side of the Atlantic. This pertains, first, to the language companies use in describing their involvement in society. In a comparative study of corporate self-presentations on the internet, Maignan and Ralston (2002) found that while 53 percent of U.S. companies mention CSR explicitly on their websites, only 29 percent of French and 25 percent of Dutch companies do the same. But these differences clearly transcend language: in a recent study of voluntary codes of conduct in the global coffee sector between 1994 and 2005, Kolk (2005a: 230) identified a total of fifteen corporate codes globally, of which only two were European (both by the same company, Nestlé), while the remaining thirteen codes were issued and adopted by exclusively U.S. corporations. In a similar vein, Brammer and Pavelin (2005) found, in a United States-United Kingdom comparison of one of the most long-standing areas of CSR-corporate community contributions-that the value of contributions by U.S. companies in 2001 was more than ten times greater than those of their U.K.

Although organizations have embraced the sustainability rhetoric in their discourse and external reporting, little is known about the processes whereby management control system contributes to a deeper integration of sustainability within organizational strategy. This paper addresses this gap and mobilizes a configuration approach to theorise the roles and uses of management control system (MCS) and sustainability control system (SCS) in the integration of sustainability within organizational strategy. Building on the levers of control framework, we distinguish two possible uses of a MCS and a SCS-a diagnostic use and an interactive use-, and we specify the modes of MCS and SCS integration. We rely on these two core dimensions to identify eight organizational configurations that reflect the various uses as well as their modes of integration of SCS and MCS. We characterize these ideals-type configurations, explain their impact on the triple bottom line, and describe which mechanisms allow organizations to move from one configuration to another. In so doing, we highlight various paths toward sustainability integration or marginalization within organizations. Finally, we explain how our framework can support future research on the role of MCS and SCS in the integration of sustainability within strategy.

 In this paper we investigate the status of corporate social responsibility (CSR) research within the management literature. In particular, we examine the focus and nature of knowledge, the changing salience of this knowledge and the academic influences on the knowledge. We present empirical evidence based on publication and citation analyses of research published from 1992 to 2002. Our results demonstrate that, for CSR research published in management journals, the most popular issues investigated have been environmental and ethics; the empirical research has been overwhelmingly of a quantitative nature; the theoretical research has been primarily non-normative; the field is driven by agendas in the business environment as well as by continuing scientific engagement; and the single most important source of references for CSR articles was the management literature itself.

In the context of some criticism about social responsibility education in business schools, the paper reports findings from a survey of CSR education (teaching and research) in Europe. It analyses the extent of CSR education, the different ways in which it is defined and the levels at which it is taught. The paper provides an account of the efforts that are being made to ''mainstream'' CSR teaching and of the teaching methods deployed. It considers drivers of CSR courses, particularly the historical role of motivated individuals and the anticipation of future success being dependent on more institutional drivers. Finally it considers main developments in CSR research both by business school faculty and PhD students, tomorrow's researchers and the resources devoted to CSR research. The conclusion includes questions that arise and further research directions.

This paper considers the motivations for and nature of business contributions to sustainable development though the medium of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It compares CSR with sustainable development, given that they are both 'essentially contested concepts'; it introduces CSR's changing meaning and it explains why there has been a recent increase in CSR with reference to the increasing socialization of markets as a result of narrow market drivers, along with other social, governmental and globalization drivers. It uses Hart's 'A natural-resource-based view of the firm' to explain the way in which these drivers give rise to sustainable development agendas in companies and provides illustration of these. The concluding discussion identifies some limitations to CSR as a vehicle for sustainable development and signals important avenues of research for policy-makers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

This paper investigates CSR as an institution within UK MNCs. In the context of literatures on the institutionalisation of CSR and on critical CSR, it presents two main findings. First, it contributes to the CSR mainstream literature by confirming that CSR has not only become institutionalised in society but that a form of this institution is also present within these MNCs. Secondly, it contributes to the critical CSR literature by suggesting that unlike broader notions of CSR shared between multiple stakeholders, MNCs practice a form of CSR that undermines the broader stakeholder concept. By increasingly focusing on strategic forms of CSR activity, MNCs are moving away from a societal understanding of CSR that focuses on redressing the impacts of their operations through stakeholder concerns, back to any activity that supports traditional business imperatives. The implications of this shift are considered using institutional theory to evaluate macro-institutional pressures for CSR activity and the agency of powerful incumbents in the contested field of CSR.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has experienced a journey that is almost unique in the pantheon of ideas in the management literature. Its phenomenal rise to prominence in the 1990s and 2000s suggests that it is a relatively new area of academic research. This book seeks to offer such a critical reflection on some of the major debates that coalesce around the subject of CSR. Bringing together a range of voices from within, across, and around the management literature, this book is intended as an authoritative account available on the CSR literature as it stands today, from the world's leading scholars in the area. This introductory article provides an overview of CSR as a subject of academic inquiry, discusses the institutionalization of the CSR literature, and outlines the guiding principles adopted in assembling this book and selecting the contributors.

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