Beyond the Business Case for Social Responsibility

It has become increasingly common for advocates for various social issues—the environment, diversity and inclusion, supply chain workers, and others—to make the business case for pursuing these goals. Even “shared value” approaches insist that the win-win formula always meets the needs of the bottom line first. Recently, however, scholars have called into question the effectiveness of the “business case” justification and have even suggested that it might do more harm than good. The problems arise because the business case may not actually motivate managers to act, it may be alienating to those for whom the business case is being made, and it may create moral struggles for the people who feel they must make the business case to justify social action. As a result, although the field of strategic management and management more generally has been focused on establishing if, or under what conditions, corporate social responsibility is associated with financial performance, emerging research suggests that this kind of evidence would not necessarily have a positive impact on making a change.