A systematic analysis of the past and development of corporate accountability in corporations

Abstract

The development of the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has a long and diverse history behind it. Nevertheless, the academic literature requires a systematic analysis that depicts the development of an intellectual understanding of the concept amid the domestic and international events that shaped social expectations with regard to corporate behaviour. The aim of this paper is to include a distinctive historical background on CSR's emergence as a philosophical framework by examining the most critical influences that influenced its interpretation and meaning, such as scholarly interventions, foreign policies and significant social and political events. To do so, the approach used is a systematic literature review that discusses the most important scholarly findings and public incidents that shaped CSR's evolutionary cycle and how they did so. The results indicate that the definition of corporate responsibility has changed from being confined to income creation to adding a larger range of obligations to the current assumption that mutual interest production will be the primary obligation of the businesses. The results also show that as company behaviour, social norms shifted, so did the Corporate Social Responsibility definition. The results indicate that CSR appears to be important in scholarly literature and can be assumed to be part of the market language in the near term at least, and as a consequence, the authors propose a realistic vision for CSR that takes its historical history into consideration. Furthermore, this paper gives way to potential academic research to investigate how CSR can help address the current social expectations of shared value creation as a major business target, which in effect can have practical implications if CSR is applied in this regard.