Purpose This paper aims to elucidate the approaches by which corporate social innovation (CSI) generates social impact. It offers a comprehensive analysis of existing literature by identifying categories of CSI practices and the actors involved, while also examining CSI relevance in advancing the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Design/methodology/approach This study undertook a systematic literature review (SLR) on CSI by adopting the PRISMA protocol. The research involved scrutinising 115 peer-reviewed articles extracted from the Scopus database. Thematic analysis grounded on an inductive coding process helped to identify the CSI approaches and related practices and determine their social impact. Finally, the research identified how CSI approaches contribute to the SDGs. Findings The study analysed five distinct categories of CSI approaches: corporate volunteering programs, social inclusion, social procurements, social enterprise projects and tackling grand social challenges. For each approach, the analysis maps the specific impacts and the actors involved and outlines the contribution of each practice to the achievement of the Agenda 2030. Moreover, the findings reveal that multi-level collaboration among actors is essential to achieving meaningful and scalable social impacts. Originality/value The paper proposes a framework that connects CSI approaches (how), the social impacts generated (what) and the stakeholders involved (who). It introduces a multi-level perspective on social impact creation and offers a novel alignment between CSI practices and the SDGs. The study goes beyond theory by providing an implementation roadmap for practitioners.
Amin et al. (2025) studied this question.