Corporate Social Responsibility is the ultimate grey area: at best, a messy, organic process of uneven improvement in standards; at worst, a morass of soft law and industry guidelines, self-regulation and self-reporting. Formal CSR standards come from everyone from independent UN-affiliated organisations to industry-funded, self-appointed gatekeepers with a strong financial interest in papering over the cracks. It is often criticised as a toothless substitute for real regulation of business practices, an exercise in window-dressing that masks the need for more fundamental change. As Cormac Lucey put it in this journal in May 2012: “There is now a real risk that talk, lectures and essays about ethics may be seen as a substitute for what is required: robust enforcement of rules and of ethical standards.” So can CSR as a broad, loosely-connected discipline make a real difference to the way in which business is carried on? Where can this enforcement come from?
To shed some light on this question, it is useful to consider some cases on how standards of responsible corporate behaviour, vary, both over time and geographically. These are discussed in more detail in Corporate Social Responsibility: a Guide with Irish Experiences.