Corporate Social Reporting: Emerging Trends in Accountability and the Social Contract

The article suggests that discord in Corporate Social Reporting (CSR) can be related to differing assumptions about (a) society, and (b) the role of CSR in the society/organisation relationship. It is then argued that, with this perspective, the major trends in CSR can be seen to be built around differing views of the world and that recent major developments in the subject focus upon the concepts of accountability and the social contract.