Corporate Social Responsibility Research

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been discussed and defined for most of the last half of the 20th century (Rahman 2011). In the 1950s, Heald (1957) gave this definition of CSR: CSR is recognition on the part of management of an obligation to the society it serves not only for maximum economic performance but for humane and constructive social policies as well. Today, the European Commission defines CSR as the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society. The definition of CSR has changed over time and from country-to-country, but its importance to a company’s well-being has steadily increased as has the focus on it by internal and external stakeholders. This focus and the evolving definition of CSR, have given rise to many studies on the theory and practice of CSR. Many of those studies, especially in the last 20 years have used mixed-methods qualitative and quantitative software such as
QDA Miner and WordStat to assist in the analysis of the CSR literature and data gathered from many sources including annual reports, letters to shareholders, 10-ks, environmental reports, press releases, and interviews.

To learn more about how text analytics can be used in Corporate Social Responsibility Research, click on the following link: CSR Research.