Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2008

Definitional imprecisions in strategic andnon-strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
Glen Kurokawa*
Regional Unit for Social and
Human Sciences in Asiaand the Pacific Region UNESCO Bangkok,
920 Sukhumvit Road, Prakanong,
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
E-mail: gskurokawa@hotmail.com*Corresponding author

Darryl R.J. Macer
Regional Advisor for Socialand Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific
UNESCO Bangkok,
920 Sukhumvit Road, Prakanong,
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
E-mail: d.macer@unescobkk.org
Abstract: A fundamental tension between strategic and non-strategic Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) exists. The former is about CSR for profitmaximisation while the latter is independent of profit. Given, the intensity of
discourse and dialogue underway regarding CSR the distinction between thesetwo classes of CSR needs to be more precisely defined. Well-founded
consensus is harder to build, whether in academia, the business world or the
rest of society, the less informed are the decisions made regarding CSR. This
article argues that the debate between strategic and non-strategic CSR suffersfrom significant definitional problems that plague discussion and debate
involving CSR which involve the terms ‘social benefit’ and ‘profit’. These are
addressed through a perspective that incorporates these definitional
uncertainties. The latter leads to several prescriptions: increased awareness ofimprecision, more case-study approaches for CSR and increased empirical
understanding of definitional imprecisions.
Keywords: business ethics; business social responsibility; corporate ethics;
Corporate Social Responsibility; CSR; definition; strategic Corporate Social
Responsibility; social benefit.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kurokawa, G. andMacer, D.R.J. (2008) ‘Definitional imprecisions in strategic and non-strategic
Corporate Social Responsibility’, Int. J. Management Concepts andPhilosophy, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.121–133.
Biographical notes: Glen Kurokawa has a JD from the University of Toronto
with emphasis on International and Corporate Law. He has directed a private
educational services firm in Vancouver and has been working as a Consultant
to UNESCO Bangkok researching issues on business ethics and corporatesocial responsibility.
Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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Darryl R.J. Macer is a Regional Advisor on Social and Human Sciences in Asiaand the Pacific, in RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok, Thailand. He is also an
Affiliated Professor in Bioethics at the United Nations University Institute ofAdvanced Studies since 2002; and Founding Director, Eubios Ethics Institute,Japan, New Zealand and Thailand (http://eubios.info/index.htm), since 1990.

1

Introduction

While businesses have always existed in the context of multiple relationships with thecommunities in which they interact, the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
has become a popular concept in the past few decades (a casual internet search reported
over 1.35 million results). In addition, CSR is popular in the academic management
literature (over 400,000 hits found on Google scholar).
There is a less agreement over what CSR exactly is. Some definitions are relatively
sophisticated. One of the most well-cited definitions divides CSR into four
responsibilities, economic, legal, ethical and discretionary. The economic responsibility
is ‘to produce goods and services that society wants and to sell them at a profit’, the legal
responsibility is to follow laws and regulations, ethical responsibilities include those‘over and above legal requirements’ which are ‘ill defined and consequently among themost difficult for businesses to deal with’ and discretionary responsibilities are those thatare “not required by law, and not even generally expected of businesses in a general
sense” (Carroll, 1979). Another multi-part definition is given by Lantos who divides it
into ethical, altruistic and strategic CSR. Ethical CSR is the morally mandatory fulfilmentof the firm’s economic, legal and ethical duties, altruistic CSR means philanthropic
commitment (regardless of profitability) and strategic CSR means profitable philanthropy(Lantos, 2001, 2002). Preston and Post have defined CSR in terms of primary (economic
and profitability), secondary (consequence related to primary involvement) and otherlevels of involvement (not required of the firm) (Preston and Post, 1975). Frederick(1994) distinguished a more ethical and philosophical concept (CSR1) from a managerial
concept (CSR2)
Other definitions are less developed. CSR expresses a “relatively simple idea –corporations have obligations to society that extend beyond mere profit-making
activities” (Godfrey and Hatch, 2007), it is a “company’s commitment to minimizing or
eliminating any harmful effects and maximizing its long- run beneficial impact onsociety” (Mohr, Webb and Harris, 2001). Carroll (1979) has provided a tabulation ofdefinitions:x

profit making onlyx

going beyond profit making

xgoing beyond economic and legal requirements

x

voluntary activitiesx

economic, legal and voluntary activitiesx

concentric circles and ever widening

Definitional imprecisions in strategic and non-strategic CSR
xconcern for the broader social systemxresponsibility in a number of social problem areasxgiving way to social responsiveness.

123

With the level of discourse and dialogue underway regarding CRS it may be reasonable
to assume that the terms of this debate were precisely defined. But, although a debatewith precision requires precise terms, consensus on definitions has been hard to reach,whether in academia, the business world or the rest of society and less informed decisions
are made in these spheres. Empirical research testing linkages between Corporate Social
Performance (CSP) and CSR will be less useful in defining terms. The consensus ofmany authors and commentators, however, is that there is a confused situation. The
fundamental problem with CSR is ‘the lack of precision and guidance for making
concrete choices among competing claims’ (Logsdon, 1996; Preston and Post, 1975),“[o]ne of the factors contributing to the ambiguity that frequently shrouded discussions
about social responsibility was the lack of a consensus on what the concept really meant”(Carroll 1979); Votaw (1972) has said that“[C]orporate social responsibility means something but not always the samething to everybody. To some it conveys the idea of legal responsibility or
liability, to others, it means socially responsible behavior in the ethical sense, tostill others, the meaning transmitted is that of ‘responsible for’ in a causal
mode, many simply equate it with a charitable contribution, some take it tomean socially conscious, many of those who embrace it most fervently see it
as a mere synonym for legitimacy in the context of belonging or being properor valid, a few see a sort of fiduciary duty imposing higher standards of
behavior on businessmen than on citizens at large.”

One way of addressing the imprecision is to discuss the definitional tensions within CSR.
While there are many different ways of describing them (Garriga and Melé, 2004),
economics and moral philosophy (Godfrey and Hatch, 2007) or ‘economics vs. ethics’(Andersson, Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2007; Driver, 2006) are perhaps the most popular.
Others (Lantos, 2001; Graafland and van de Ven, 2006) have used ‘strategic CSR’ todenote their economic view, we may use ‘non-strategic CSR’ to denote the other views
which subsume ethical and deontological perspectives. This article examines thisfundamental tension, finds that it suffers from significant definitional problems that
plague discussion and debate involving CSR, and argues that this problem might be
addressed through a subjective-deconstructionist perspective. Several prescriptions for
future action, based on the preceding discussion, are then presented.

2

The fundamental Corporate Social Responsibility tension: strategic vs.
non-strategic Corporate Social Responsibility

While many public debates as well as literature simply label the internal CSR debate as‘ethics vs. economics’, this article does not because economics may be a subset of ethics.
Terms such as fair profit, social justice, benefit sharing, pursuit of growth anddevelopment, all may be ethical prescriptions. Thus, we simply call this the tension
between strategic vs. non-strategic CSR.

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Strategic CSR refers to ‘strategic philanthropy’ (Carroll, 2001), the ‘shareholder
approach’ (van Marrewijk, 2003) or CSR based on financial performance (Marcoux,
2003). This is the view most commonly associated with Friedman (1970): “there is one
and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage inactivities designed to increase its profits as long as it stays within the rules of the game”,
although he was somewhat cynical about businesses being involved in social causes evenwhen they were purportedly for profit purposes. The essence of the strategic view, at any
rate, is that CSR activity must and does somehow relate to profit-motive. The
mechanisms are long-term, and some of the most widely cited ones include boosting
employee morale and therefore, productivity (Moskowitz, 1972; Parket and Eilbirt, 1975;
Soloman and Hansen, 1985; McGuire, Schneeweis, and Hill, 1986; Riordan, Gatewood
and Bill 1997), attracting better employees (Albinger and Freeman, 2000), improving
corporate reputation (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001) through ‘goodwill banks’ (Vaughn,
1999), better risk management (Coates, 2007) and perhaps ‘ethical premiums’ on capital(Poitras, 1994).
The strategic view regards ‘interest in doing good for society regardless of its impact
on the bottom line’ as unethical (Lantos, 2001) because it would amount to ‘spending(the shareholders’) money’; shareholders could exercise social responsibility throughtheir own dividends rather than collectively through the corporation; the corporation does
not have expertise in general welfare issues; and the existence of democratic welfare
states.
On the other hand, non-strategic CSR refers to incidences where it is undertaken
regardless or independent of profit motives. It can include what Lantos (2001) refers to as‘ethical CSR’ and ‘altruistic CSR’ and what Graafland and van de Ven (2006) refer to as
the ‘deontological’ or ‘moral’ motive. They are more ‘communitarian’-like (Capaldi,2005) or liberal positions. Howard Bowen, in Social Responsibilities of the Businessman(1953) has been cited as triggering the modern era of CSR. The rationale was simple:
businesses were influential; with influence came responsibility. “It refers to the
obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions or to follow
those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of oursociety” (Bowen, 1953). Preston and Post, in The Principle of Public Responsibility(1979), use a ‘public policy’ rationale: “public policy includes not only the letter but also
the spirit of the law, as well as the societal values and commitments reflected in thatspirit” (Preston and Post, 1979). Societal values being referred to in the liberal view
include, among others, altruism.
There are of course many views that attempt to integrate, balance or debunk thedebate. It is pertinent to review some of these to show that the fundamental tension has
not been resolved. Solomon and Hansen (1985) have said that this fundamental CSR
tension rests on a flawed assumption, that “corporations are neither legal fictions nor
financial juggernauts but communities, people working together for common goals”.
However, this does not make the fundamental tension any less relevant, as it takes a viewexternal to the tension. Moreover, it is difficult to argue that corporations are not ‘legal
fictions nor financial juggernauts’: a major paradigm in corporate law views the company
as a ‘nexus of contracts’, and it is difficult to argue that large corporations sitting on large
stockpiles of cash and investments looking to maximise shareholder returns are notfinancial juggernauts. Undermining both well-established legal and neoclassicaleconomic perspectives is difficult.

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Stakeholder theories (Freeman, 1984) attempt to ‘balance’ the strategic and nonstrategic CSR elements by exercising sensitivity to all affected stakeholders. However,this leaves significant unanswered questions, e.g. the operational kinds: from whose
perspective is the balancing to take place? What criteria are to be used? An action taken
by a corporation can be sensitive or not to stakeholders, but the choice of what packageof strategic and/or non-strategic CSR will be undertaken is still relevant. Donaldson and
Preston (1995) assert that stakeholder theory can be justified because they accurately
describe CSR (companies involve stakeholders other than shareholders – e.g. their local
communities), have instrumental power (stakeholder inclusiveness adds to corporate
performance – e.g. greater profitability) and are normatively valid. However, these
represent rationales and justifications for stakeholder inclusivity, rather than explaining
how these elements are precisely combined to form CSR. Multi-part definitions sufferfrom similar issues as stakeholder theories (such as Carroll’s) because they leave do not
integrate their component parts, but rather serve more to describe the concept.
Driver (2006) implies that the fundamental CSR tension is not relevant, as ‘CSR is
not a question of how self-interested the corporation should be, but how this self isdefined’. The more ‘egoic’ or narrowly construed the concept of corporate self, the more
profit-maximising the corporation will be; the more ‘post-egoic’ or broadly the self isdefined (i.e. more inclusive of society), the more concerned with values the corporation
will be. In addition, This may not make the fundamental tension any less relevant because
identity definition may be independent of whether the corporation should pursue profit orincorporate value-based concerns. Suppose, a manager was to define the corporate
identity as being very inclusive of elements in greater society. In fact, this is quite
popular in public relations approaches for gaining social support for a company.
Despite this, shareholder profit-maximisation may be pursued during business, as one of
the manager’s strongest held values may be property rights. Thus, although there may becorrelations, an expanded concept of the corporate self does not necessarily lead to more
liberal CSR conceptions. Corporate self-identity may be independent of the fundamental
tension. Moreover, people can rationally hold conflicting values or even hold irrational
beliefs.
Sacconi’s (2006) game-theoretical argument for extended corporate governance may
also be viewed as an attempt to integrate the fundamental CSR tension. He says that:“It is evident that if fiduciary duties attach only to ownership, thosestakeholders without residual right of control will not be protected by thefiduciary duties of those who run the firm… Various stakeholders will ex ante
have a reduced incentive to invest (if they foresee the risk of abuse), while
ex post they will resort to conflicting or disloyal behavior…. In the belief thatthey are being subjected to abuse of authority. In the economist’s jargon, this isa ‘second best’ state of affairs (less than optimum): all governance solutions
based on the allocation of property rights to a single party may approximatesocial efficiency, but they can never fully achieve it.”

However, this perspective introduces duties for the purpose of achieving social
efficiency. The tension within Sacconi’s argument, reduces to the unresolved debate
between act and rule utilitarianism, and thus does not accept certain values, such as
altruism, as ends rather than means. Although it may be argued that the rule (i.e. extended
fiduciary duty) can be an end value in itself, other rules based on values may not receive
the same kind of utilitarian support – ultimately, this occurs because the rationale isstrategic.

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Despite attempts at resolving the fundamental CSR tension, the tension remains
relevant. There may be greater need, therefore, for attempts to address this. However, it
may be difficult to move towards better resolution unless the definitional foundations of
the debate are precise. We argue here that they are not. To begin, the essence of thefundamental CSR tension can be distilled from the above review. If social benefit
increase and/or social cost decrease is intended, and if it is for the purpose of profit
1

it is strategic CSR

2

if it is not for profit.

Then, it is non-strategic CSR. It is difficult to distill a more precise definition from therepresentatives of each of the two sides. Already at this point, then, there is a possible
source of confusion as perhaps not all will agree with this very precise distillation ofdifferences. Nevertheless, this algorithmic definition is taken to strike a reasonablebalance between agreement and precision.

3

The fundamental tension’s definitional issues

The definition of the fundamental tension, as precise as it may be, still suffers fromsignificant imprecisions. They are divided in this subsection into those involving ‘social
benefit’ and ‘profit’.

3.1 Social benefit
The first issue with ‘social benefit’ is its inherent normative aspect. Whether a certain
activity or action constitutes a social benefit can rest on controversial moral positions.
Lantos (2001) illustrates this:“The question is, ‘Whose agenda and values should be followed?’. For
instance, liberal and conservatives have very different viewpoints on issues
such as the value of recycling, supporting ‘faith-based initiatives’, providing‘safe sex’ education to teens, ridding the Internet of ‘smut’ and fighting for‘gay rights.”

Since it is not known with certainty whether there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, it is impossible
to determine whether a certain action or activity constitutes a social benefit.
Secondly, the issues scope is not clearly defined. While corporate donations forcharities may clearly constitute a social benefit, it seems less clear whether, for instance,
consumer economic surplus represents a social benefit since this occurs in almost every
free market transaction. If consumer surplus is included as a social benefit for the
purposes of CSR, virtually every free market transaction would constitute strategic CSR.
Even illicit drug trafficking can fall under this category, despite its possibly large
negative externalities. To call a mere free market transaction CSR is counterintuitive. On
the other hand, eliminating consumer surplus from the scope of social benefit may
eliminate, for instance, consumer protection and product quality from CSR, when these
are considered to be part of CSR.
It is possible to define social benefit in comparison to some standard, such as anindustry standard, to address this second issue. However, this too raises questions. How is
an ‘industry’ defined? Even if this were defined, should we use national, regional orDefinitional imprecisions in strategic and non-strategic CSR

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international companies to construct the group to compare what is normal or better? Andeven if that were also defined, how are companies with transboundary operationsclassified? Other standards would also need to be used, such as size, as a small company
that produces environmentally friendly products may constitute social benefit, but a large
company that does not may not constitute social benefit after adjusting for size.
Thirdly, there are issues when social benefits and costs add in some way. If social
benefits increase at the same time social costs increase or if social benefits decrease whilesocial costs do likewise, do these constitute ‘social benefits’ for the purpose ofdemarcating strategic from non-strategic CSR? In other words, what level, if any, of net
social benefit is required before being included in strategic and non-strategic CSR? If
there is a minimum level, this minimum level needs to be better defined and methods ofdetermining the social benefits and costs for certain activities may be required. The latter
may be difficult for most issues such as pollution, occupational hazards and accidents,
consumer injury and unintended impacts of advertising (Pollay 1986).

3.2 Profit
The concept of profit at first seems obvious. It refers to profit-maximisation (rather thanmere profitability) which is conceptualised through expected value and highest Net
Present Value (NPV). NPV back-calculates a future sum to its present expected sum
based on interest. Expected profit and any factor that affects it (e.g. dividend policy)
under efficient capital markets should be reflected in the share price for public
corporations. However, There are still some ambiguities.
First, whose perspective are we viewing profit-maximisation either from thecorporation excluding shareholders or the corporation including shareholders? These candiffer. For instance, the existence of altruistic shareholders (or directors) who express
their desires to be met through the corporation can cause the corporate directors, officers
and employees to produce non-strategic CSR. From the perspective of the corporation
including shareholders, the share price has not been maximised and action was taken
without regard for profit-maximisation. It is non-strategic CSR. However, from theperspective of the corporation excluding shareholders, the action may have been
produced the desired effect by the shareholders in the most efficient way and also
performed so as to maximise profit. This is then strategic CSR.
Secondly, it may be difficult to determine whether social benefit produced by acorporation was for the purpose of profit-maximisation or not. In addition, the issue is
one that involves corporate identity. If a corporation produces social benefit and is profitmaximising whose intent should we examine to determine whether the social benefit wasfor the purpose of profit? The board of directors? Shareholders? Managers? Employees?
Individuals will have different views on whether the social benefit is for the purpose ofprofit-maximisation or whether social benefit is being pursued without regard to profitmaximisation (and where profit follows social benefit). This situation occurs in virtually
every corporation. For instance, in improving product quality or reducing pollution,
directors and shareholders could rationalise in either way – strategic or non-strategic.
A third issue is whether profit is an appropriate term in the fundamental CSR tension
debate. If we are primarily concerned with the interests of the shareholders, thenshareholder utility-maximisation may be a better measure of whether strategic CSR was
achieved or not. Profit-maximisation is a derivative of shareholder wealth maximisation(Poitras, 1994).

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Using a shareholder utility-maximisation approach may cause certain actions to be
included in strategic CSR that otherwise would not be and certain actions excluded.
Regarding the former, shareholders may prefer CSR which can only be obtained throughtheir invested company. For instance, they may prefer stringent human and labour rights
for their company. Regarding the latter, profit-maximising activities that ignore humanrights are not shareholder utility-maximising if shareholders’ utilities decrease more fromthis action than the utility increase from the profit gained.
There are criticisms of using utility. First, utilitarianism involves unquantifiablevalues and utilitarian calculus is difficult. However, the same kind of issues are involved
in financial accounting. Numerical values being sought in financial accounting, suchas profitability of enhanced corporate reputation, may not be quantifiable or involve
large statistical uncertainties. In most – if not nearly all – cases, CSR deals with suchdifficult-to-quantify variables. Often, only opinions and estimates are available; yet these
are what utilitarianism also employ. While it may be argued that financial accounting canquantify to a greater extent than utilitarianism, financial accounting can also produce
highly plastic statistics that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Secondly, there may bedecreased transparency from using utility rather than profit. With the latter, shareholders
can see the estimated values for variables such as the benefits from enhanced corporate
reputation; they may disagree with the estimated values and use this as information forfurther action (e.g. voting or selling/keeping shares), however, imprecise or inaccurate
such values are. With utility, there may not be transparent accounting. However, annual
reports and sustainability reports contain information that can allow each investor toestimate utilities. For instance, the amount and variety of environmental pollutants
emitted by a company, described in its sustainability report, may allow each shareholder
to decide whether or not to change their voting behaviour or whether to sell or keep theirshares.

4

Conceptualising imprecision

There are significant imprecisions in the fundamental CSR tension debate. To provide amore comprehensive understanding of how CSR decision-making is undertaken, a model
which incorporates definitional imprecision in its foundation is sketched and justified.

4.1 Subjectivity
Several problems were identified with ‘social benefit’. It is impossible to determine
which position to adopt in morally contentious issues. It suffers from lack of precision
over its scope and measurement and it is difficult to determine when net social benefit
has been achieved. These issues arise from the pursuit for objectivity. However, withsuch seemingly large problems, it may be more practical to use a subjective conception ofsocial benefit. That is, whether a given action is ‘social benefit’, and possibly its extent,
are determined by each individual.
Morally contentious issues can of course be dealt with subjectivity. A shareholder canbe liberally minded in the abortion debate, and a decision by a corporation to promote
pro-choice policies in a CSR decision would constitute a social benefit as far as s/he isconcerned. If a shareholder is conservatively minded, a corporation’s decision to promote
pro-life policies would be a social benefit. Yet, another shareholder can be completely

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neutral – a theoretical possibility; in that case, any action on abortion, whether liberal orconservative, will neither increase nor decrease social benefit. Issues scope can be also
defined subjectively; whether to use absolute conceptions of social benefit, changes insocial benefit, whether industry-comparisons are suitable, etc. Finally, the individual candetermine whether social benefit ignores or includes social costs and if they are included,
how they are calculated to arrive at a net social benefit.
Subjectivity can be applied to definitional issues arising from ‘profit’. The first issue,that determining whether profit-maximisation occurred depends on the group (i.e.
corporation with shareholders or corporation without shareholders), is virtually
redundant. There is no need to artificially distinguish these two conceptions of thecorporation; both can be correct, depending on the individual perspective. Secondly,
whether a given corporate decision was strategic or not depends on the perspectives of
the individuals involved in that CSR decision and/or action. If a director decides that
product quality increases are merely necessary for profit-maximisation, but anotherdecides that it is for social benefit regardless of profit, the resulting decision is strategic
from the first director’s standpoint and altruistic from the second. Thirdly, subjectivity iscompatible with utility, as the latter is best evaluated by the individual and is difficult toobjectively measure.
One new issue that arises due to subjectivity is rationality. It can be criticised that aminimum level of rationality needs to be enforced in determining whether an individual’s
assessment of social benefit or profit should be acceptable. Further, a minimum level ofrationality prevents inconsistent perspectives by the same individual, preventing arbitrary
decisions based on politics and personal circumstances. However, this may raise evenmore significant issues. First, imposing a minimum level of rationality can itself be a
relativistic decision: from whose perspective are we to determine the minimum level ofrationality? Secondly, imposing rationality considerably weakens the concept ofindividuality and moral relativism. Morally contentious issues like abortion would again
be difficult to deal with. So would decisions about the valuation of the environment andalternative views of the world to the economic valuation. The point of moral relativism is
to address this very issue. Thirdly, open and transparent discussion and debate are toolsof addressing rationality and arbitrariness. A CEO could argue that his or her firm isengaging in altruistic CSR, because it is developing more environmentally-friendly
products and accuse a rival CEO of doing so purely for profit-maximising purposes. Withtransparency and information dissemination, stakeholders can judge for themselves
whether this is rationally consistent by scrutinising situational details. The CEO can thenbe, at least indirectly, rewarded or punished.

4.2 Aggregating subjectivities
Leaving the distinction between strategic and non-strategic CSR to mere individuals is
sterile. To make this concept more usable, subjectivities are aggregated. They willcontain a mix of strategic and non-strategic motives and reasons. For instance, five
directors may make a CSR decision based on strategism while two may do so on the basisof altruism. Assuming equal influence, the final CSR decision may have a ratio of 5 : 2 ofstrategic-altruistic considerations. Strategic and non-strategic intentions may both beconsiderations in the same individual, if for instance, a person may have two reasons thatreflect strategism and three that reflect not, and all reasons are equally treated. In cases
like these, the ratios can be added up. For example, person ‘A’ may make a CSR decision

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based on a 2 : 3 ratio of strategic to altruistic considerations while person ‘B’ may do sowith a 1 : 4 ratio. Assuming both have equal influence in the decision, the CSR decision
is then based on a 3 : 7 ratio of strategism-altruism. A given decision probably cannot be
expressed as percentages, as other considerations (e.g. ‘ethical CSR’) may be involved.
There are several additional considerations. The first is the scope of persons to beconsidered in the calculation. Should only those involved directly in the CSR decision beconsidered or should we extend consideration to those with indirect influence?
Employees may express their preferences to managers, managers may consider
employees to keep employee morale high. The husband or wife of a corporate manager
may also indirectly influence the decision. If we extend to aggregate conception to thosewith indirect influence, what, if any, minimum amount of influence should be accepted?
A second consideration is the weight of different individuals in the calculation above.
Both vertical and horizontal differences can emerge. Political influence differs between
directors and managers who may jointly make a decision and directors may be more
influential in a policy-type decision while managers may be more influential in an
operational decision, for instance. Even between directors influence will vary as nodirector is precisely equal to another in influence. Whether they are outside or insidedirectors, how much experience they have, the political situation, etc. will all create
inequalities in influence.
Our model converges with that of Driver (2006) where the ‘more authentic
conceptions of the organisational self’ arise from ‘multiple subjectivities’:“… the good is defined here not egoically as an absolute standard that can be
defined simplistically or rigidly as a permanent, once-and-for-all answer.
Rather the good defined post-egoically refers to a good that is negotiatedamong multiple others or stakeholders and reflects a complex web ofrelationships and connections and interests which are fleeting, forever changing
and discursively and socially constructed and re-constructed.”

However, the perspective in this article differs in other ways. First, the fundamental CSR
tension is constantly present in every corporation, regardless of whether there is a low orhigh level of discourse regarding CSR in the corporation. Secondly, our model does notnecessitate causation between awareness of corporate or self-identity and ethicalbehaviour. The example earlier where a manager with a widely inclusive definition of thecorporate and self-identity may still take a strategic CSR perspective because of strong
belief in property rights shows that the link is questionable. Most importantly, however,
our conceptualisation applies and incorporates some precise definitional imprecisions in
the debate between strategic and non-strategic CSR.
This model provides a useful and new direction in the CSR definition debate. First, it
exposes some of the questions that need to be answered for a clearer CSR definition to
emerge in an integrated model. One could say that it takes ambiguities in previous
definitions and integrates them into a more coherent framework. For instance, whilestakeholder theories may deftly describe the component parts of CSR, they have notintegrated them. Our model attempts to show how integration might occur, and what sorts
of moral and ethical questions need to be addressed. Previous deconstructionist models,
as another example, have not examined the definitional imprecisions in the debate
between strategic and non-strategic CSR. Our model shows how such imprecisions
should be incorporated and the kinds of questions that need to be answered to more fully
accommodate them. Secondly, this model can factor in irrational and conflicting beliefs.
While one might argue that this is a sign of problems in the model, irrational andDefinitional imprecisions in strategic and non-strategic CSR

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conflicting beliefs are always encountered in this debate and the underlying philosophicalfoundations have not been, and perhaps never will be, completely resolved. As such,incorporating this philosophical realism into a CSR definition is more realistic andencompassing than previous models and definitions.

5

Prescriptions

Building on the earlier parts of this article, we present some prescriptions that may
improve CSR decision-making. First, greater attention needs to be focused on definitions,as they can affect the outcome of normative discussions. Whenever a debate involves thefundamental CSR tension, an agreement on what strategic and non-strategic CSR are oran awareness of its definitional limitations can increase discourse quality. It is not as
essential when making a concrete decision because it can be seen by different persons indifferent ways. For instance, a chemical company’s decision to implement responsiblecare, a set of guidelines for pollution control, may be seen strategically or nonstrategically. However, when discussing at a more general level between strategy andnon-strategy CSR, there is greater value in achieving definitional precision.
Secondly, more case-studies approaches to define the distinctions between strategic
and non-strategic CSR would aid the formation of a clearer definition. Because,
definitional imprecision may cause difficulties for general discussions of the fundamental
CSR tension, case studies of what are agreeable and not agreeable can be advantageous,skirting around this issue when practicality becomes more important. Casuistical
approaches have been often employed in ethics:“How exactly, the casuist asks, is a moral judgment made? Whatever the fullanswer, the casuist believes it cannot come through traditional appeals togeneral principles and rules….First, various forms of moral thinking andjudgment do not involve appeals to rules, rights or virtues. The casuist holds
that we sometimes appeal to narratives or paradigm cases, to classification
schemes, to precedents and even to immediate intuition….. Second, althoughrules or principles need not be excluded from patterns of moral thinking, thecasuist insists that moral judgments are made when there can be no further
appeals to principles. For example, when principles rules or rights conflict andappeal to higher principle, rule or right has been exhausted, we still must makemoral judgments. Again, we may invoke a paradigm, a model, a story, ananalogy, an intuition or a discerning insight; but we cannot rely purely on
principles.”Using this kind of method may create a jurisprudence of normative CSR which can thenbe applied to CSR decision-making.
Thirdly, empirical investigations to determine the range of definitions may describe
the variety of individual definitions and the extent to which certain definitional
imprecisions exist as well as new imprecisions. Awareness may facilitate better dialogue(which can lead to better normative decisions) as well as a better understanding of thelimits of previous empirical investigations. For instance, the determination of a link
between CSP and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) has been undertaken by manyin the management literature and meta-studies of these have also been conducted bynumerous authors. Results are often mixed (Margolis and Walsh, 2003) while in others
CSP and CFP are positively correlated (Wu, 2006). However, the exact constitution of
CSP is difficult to determine if imprecision in definitions is not fully acknowledged.

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G. Kurokawa and D.R.J. Macer

Moreover, current CSR rating systems (DeBakker, Groenewegen and den Hond, 2005;
Graafland, Eiffinger and Smid, 2004) and future rating systems (Charles and Hill, 2004)
may also benefit from increased awareness of definitional imprecisions.

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