In a Wall Street Journal article yesterday an Aneel Karani (a business school professor) argued how it doesn't make sense for corporations to pursue Corporate Social Responsibility strategies. Dr. Karani argues that such strategies may do more harm than good, particularly for the corporation. The basic argument (my interpretation): corporations should do what they do best, make money, and if they do, they will likely have some positive social impact. Dr. Karani creatively uses the demand for nutritional food as an example.
Harrumph is all I can say! Evidence suggests otherwise. As one example: Wal*Mart. Another -- all the manufacturing that has been moved off-shore because, essentially, it was just too expensive to reinvest in infrastructure. We can see the results of these actions. Harrumph!