"Why do corporations increasingly engage in good deeds that do not immediately help their bottom line, and what are the consequences of these activities? This volume examines these questions drawing on historical documents, interviews, qualitative case comparison, fieldwork, multiple regression, time-series analysis, and multidimensional scaling among others. Informed by neo-institutionalism and political economy approaches, the authors examine how global and local dimensions of contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR) intersect with each other. Their rigorous empirical analyses produce insights into the historical roots of suspicions toward cross-societal economic actors, why and how global CSR frameworks evolved into current forms, how conceptions of CSR vary across societies, what motivates corporations to participate in CSR frameworks, what impacts such participation might have on corporate reputation and actual practices, whether CSR activities shield corporations from targeting by boycott campaigns or invite more criticisms, and what alternative responses corporations might have to buying into CSR principles"--

"The global expansion of corporate social responsibility in recent decades has been spectacular. While much debate continues on the content and efficacy of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the notion that corporations are accountable for the social and environmental consequences of their activities has become widely accepted in the worlds of business, government, and civil society. Global CSR frameworks such as the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative include thousands of business participants across multiple countries and industries, attracting wide support from governments and civil society organizations. Corresponding to the rising global profile of CSR, scholarly attention to CSR has grown tremendously (Crouch and Maclean 2011; Haufler 2001; Hoffman 2001; Hoffman and Ventresca 2002; Lindgreen et al. 2012; May, Cheney, Roper 2007; Potoski and Prakash 2009; Prakash and Potoski 2006; Smith et al. 2010; Soule 2009; Utting and Marques 2010; Vogel 2005). Building on this literature, this volume examines two key issues in contemporary CSR activities"--