No matter whether the discourse is of corporate social responsibility or of sustainability there exists a high degree of scepticism about the reality of corporate activity. Accusations of greenwashing – presenting a false picture – abound.
We argue that this is a legacy of past behaviour when such an accusation could reasonably be made about many organisations. Our argument is the CSR is a developmental process and changes as organisations mature in their behaviour and attitude towards both their stakeholders and their ideas concerning social responsibility. Of course we also acknowledge that there is a growing body of evidence to show that social responsibility behaviour becomes reflected positively in the financial performance of a company, thereby providing a financial imperative for changing behaviour. Moreover, we argue that there are stages of growth as far as CSR is concerned which become reflected in corporate behaviour. These can be seen as increasing levels of maturity.

CSR theories

Those theories generally include a certain vision of the human being and society within a social philosophy framework, although sometimes in an implicit manner.

Three key approaches to CSR:
1, ethical responsibility theory, which presents strong corporate self-restraint and altruistic duties and expansive public policy to strengthen stakeholders’ rights. 伦理责任理论,提出了强大的公司涵养和利他主义的职责和广阔的公共政策,加强各利益相关者的权利。
2, economic responsibility theory, which advocates market wealth creation subject only to minimalist public policy and perhaps customary business ethics.
3, corporate citizenship, which language invokes a political metaphor which provides neither true intermediate positioning nor theoretical synthesis.

Four theories:
1, Corporate Social Performance, a theory basically grounded in sociology.
2. the theory sometimes called ‘ Shareholder Value Theory’ or