Law, Strategy, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

Over recent decades, the notion that corporations should engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has matured from a nice-to-have accessory to a fundamental strategic priority for business. At the same time, governments are increasingly adopting laws that regulate CSR. While the literature on law and strategy has made great strides in showing how law can be a source of competitive advantage, and how it contributes to the creation of shared economic value, it has paid less attention to a law and strategy approach to creating societal value. An overly instrumentalist approach to law as a source of competitive advantage runs the risk of losing sight of the normative implications of corporate activities. It is the purpose of this chapter to encourage scholars to engage more with the societal implications of legal strategy, while cautioning against an overly instrumentalist use of CSR. To this effect, the chapter first defines CSR with a particular attention to the legal component in CSR. It then reviews scholarly approaches that connect law, strategy, and CSR, and concludes with suggestions for future research.