Evolution of Corporate Social Responisbility - Essay Example

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has grown as a part of management and corporate governance during the last two decades. However, it is hard to imagine that this concept, corporate social responsibility, only started in the Western world in the end of the 18th century. Discussion includes the evolution of CSR and how this concept has come to life during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. But what is noticeable through this regurgitation of history remains the hard battle that common people had to fight in order to have a humane society to live in; hence the crucial foundation of corporate social responsibility.

The actual term came to light in the beginning of the 20th century, in which this ideology was concerned with a series of corporate scandals in the United States. According to a variety of sources CSR was accepted in different companies and corporations as a part of corporate management in different periods of the 20th century. In recent times, one can clarify four main opinions about CSR and corporate social investing habits in CSR: classical and modern view, cost and beneficial view of such investing in long-term run (Quazi and O'Brien, 2000).

This paper examines the evolution of CSR, in terms of the development and integration of this social responsibility into corporate behaviour. . Section three discusses the Second Industrial Revolution, time in which the world was stricken by different corporate scandals, and in response, the on-set of firms announcing CSR as a part of management and private organisations. Section four highlights the basic changes, which were brought by World War II. These changes were critical in defining the development of CSR.

Modern times and establishing CSR in different companies and countries, particularly in Japan, are described in sections five and six, respectively.2. First Industrial Revolution (1760-1830)This section will discuss the transformation of job structures, capitalism and suffering people for the First Industrial Revolution. Our discussion of the evolution of CSR begins with the First Industrial Revolution because it was an important step in economic transformation. 2.1 Transformation of job structure: New TechnologiesThe First Industrial Revolution was a great step in economic transformation.

Its birth is attributed to the introduction of new technologies of production. There was rapid growth in productivity and living standards. The First Industrial Revolution originated in Great Britain around 1760. It was marked (Chandler, 1977) by the adoption of three new technologies:the steam engine, relying on the energy of the fossil fuel, coal;machines for spinning thread and weaving cloth;furnaces- to make iron ore into finished metal by using coal.During the period of the First Industrial Revolution, 1760 till 1830, the transformation of societies took place.

It was a marked change from agricultural and rural society to industrialize and urbanize. Before those processes all of the factory's employment was domestic labour, or the so-called cottage