Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Motivations behind CSR 2 2.1 Self-Interest 2 2.2 Ethics 2 3. Arguments for CSR 3 3.1 Innovation 3 3.2 Cost-Saving 3 3.3 Brand Differentiation 3 3.4 Long-Term Thinking 3 3.5 Customer Engagement and Employee Engagement 3 4. Arguments against CSR 3 4.1 Misdirections 4 4.2 Controversial Industries 4 5. Conclusion 4 6. References 4

Is Corporate Social Responsibility a way to cover exorbitant charges?
1. Introduction
Various authors have different definitions of what Corporate Social Responsibility. According to Lorde Holmes and Richard Watts, 1998 in their publication ‘Making Good Business Sense,’ they define CSR as “the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce, their families, and the community.” Others like Mallen Baker, 2013 define it as “how business manage their business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society.” The underlying concept of CSR is that it's a form of self-regulation by firms to ensure they comply with both legal and ethical standards of a community.
2. Motivations behind CSR
To argue for or against whether CSR is a way of covering exorbitant charges or not, we need to look critically at the core motivations behind CSR and other arguments made for or against it. According to Richard E. Wokutch, 1990 in his journal Corporate Social Responsibility Japanese Style, he identifies two key motivations behind CSR in most literature; self-interest and ethical/altruistic reasons.
2.1 Self-Interest
Under the concept of self-interest, he argues that a business will only engage in activities that are beneficial to most stakeholders in a society, when only it will benefit from the actions e.g. a company may be willing to partake in producing clean energy just because of the high demand by the