Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation redefines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as being central to the value-creating purpose of the firm. Based on a theory of empowered stakeholders, this bestselling text argues that the 'responsibility' of a corporation is to create value, broadly defined. In this new Fourth Edition, author David Chandler explores why some firms are better at CSR and how other firms can improve their CSR efforts. Keep your course content up-to-date! Subscribe to David Chandler's 'CSR Newsletters' by e-mailing him at david.chandler@ucdenver.edu. The newsletters are designed to be a dynamic complement to the text that can be used for in-class discussion and debate. Past newsletters are archived as a freely-available resource for instructors and students at: http: //strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

About the Author :
David Chandler (david.chandler@ucdenver.edu) is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. His research focuses on the dynamic interface between the firm and its institutional environment. His research has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, and Strategic Organization. Additional related publications include the book Corporate Social Responsibility: A Strategic Perspective (Business Expert Press, 2014). He received his PhD in Management from The University of Texas at Austin.

Review :
I've been using this text to support learning in two classes I teach, Managing for Sustainability and Global Corporate Social Responsibility. I found it to be a strong support for my approach, which involves situation studies and roundtable discussions pertinent to each course. David Chandler's approach works well for many reasons. - Current discussions in our US government particularly render it difficult to focus on public policy influences on sustainability and social responsibility, or to promote ethical actions based on altruism. Business administration students may be biased toward a tendency to perceive profits as paramount, and non-business students attracted to the course topics may end up affirming one another's perceived goodness without learning how to negotiate corporate-influenced environments. - A vision of perfection may supplant the good that can come of more strategic CSR approaches. A firm's capacity to genuinely address social challenges ranging from environmental concerns to social equity need not preclude profitability. Corporations' opening to, and funding of, design and innovation can be important drivers to managing the natural resources left in the world and creating new ways to benefit everyone. - While taking some issue with Milton Friedman's notions of what business responsibility comprises (solely to make money), Chandler believes that CSR students have much to learn from the Nobel-prize winning economist, and I agree. Profitability, however, does need to be viewed over the long term as much as the short term. What do we profit in a desolate, ruined environment? If corporations come to the table in meaningful discussion surrounding the balance we "sustainers" seek, perhaps we would move in the right direction. There would be no losers, only investors. - Strategic CSR seeks to assure profitability through enhanced relationship with all stakeholders, not just shareholders. As Chandler asserts, CSR is a responsibility among firms to meet the needs of their stakeholders and it's a responsibility among stakeholders to hold firms to account for their actions. Today's interplay of business and society is complex and fraught with nuance. Conversations and understanding must evolve further to ensure a sustainable global future. This book offers plenty of material - and outstanding faculty resources - to support an instructor's approach to helping students learn to mindfully manage people and resources in the world as it is, to the benefit of all: people, planet, and economic stability.--Linda Clark-Borre