literature review for csr

Literature Review of Corporate Social Responsibility

• First Online: 01 January 2014

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• Shuo Wang 4 , 5  

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

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The early roots of corporate social responsibility can be traced back to 1917, when Henry Ford announced that the aim of Ford Motor company is that “To do as much as possible for everybody concerned, to make money and use it, give employment, and send out the car where the people can use it… and incidentally to make money” (Lee 2008, p. 54). Eighty years later, Henry Ford’s great-grandson, William Clay Ford Jr emphasised that Ford company valued all stakeholders’ interests as well as the social welfare of employees and shareholders, as he said that “we want to find ingenious new ways to delight consumers, provide superior returns to shareholders and make the world a better place for us” (Meredith 1999, p. 157).

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Wang, S. (2015). Literature Review of Corporate Social Responsibility. In: Chinese Strategic Decision-making on CSR. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44997-4_2

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Journal of Applied Accounting Research

ISSN : 0967-5426

Article publication date: 13 January 2023

This paper aims to synthesize the corporate social responsibility decoupling (CSRD) literature, CSRD's causes and consequences and discuss other organizational attributes examined by CSRD scholars during 2010 and 2020. The authors provide suggestions for a future research agenda in this domain.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors' systematic literature review (SLR) uses the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework to extract CSRD studies. The authors filter collected articles against quality and relevancy criteria and finally review 175 published articles.

A theme analysis identifies and structures the many themes related to CSRD. The authors discuss the drivers of CSRD and reveal the consequences companies face after CSRD. The authors also provide a comprehensive CSRD discussion in the context of developed and developing economies. CSR communication is also identified as a tool for decoupling and recoupling.

Research limitations/implications

The identified themes provide a thorough illustration of CSRD literature for new CSRD scholars. The authors also provide suggestions for future research, such as examining country-level policy-making and implications of CSRD variance and identifying cultural and economic hurdles to achieving core CSR purposes.

Practical implications

Policymakers and scholars may adopt the approach that CSRD is a misreporting of information similar to accounting fraud. This is particularly relevant given that an increasing number of CSRD scandals indicate that the purpose of bringing change through corporate CSR has not been adopted well by corporations.

Originality/value

The authors' study offers a comprehensive literature review for the period of 2010–2020. The studies identified are structured into meaningful themes which can provide groundwork for future researchers.

• CSR decoupling
• CSR walk and talk
• Greenwashing
• Systematic literature review

Talpur, S. , Nadeem, M. and Roberts, H. (2023), "Corporate social responsibility decoupling: a systematic literature review and future research agenda", Journal of Applied Accounting Research , Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAAR-08-2022-0223

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Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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