Milestones in forging the contemporary perception of CSR. An overview

Abstract

Acting in a socially responsible manner did not simply materialize in modern times. Social Responsibility has been of concern to mankind since antiquity, being intertwined with the need to help people whose economic and social circumstances may be dire. Adam Smith was the first to introduce the notion of ethics in economic theory while at the beginning of 1920s, the first samples of corporate social responsibility came as a result of social action by enterprises at the time. First, Howard Bowen highlighted CSR in the context of academic research in 1950 whereas in 1992, at the Rio Summit where the representatives of 178 nations gathered, the natural environment got associated, first time ever, with the notions of economic and social development, thus triggering an entire period of developments in the field of CSR. What followed, over the years leading up to date, were actions, decisions and formal initiatives that forged, to a great extent, the perception of CSR. This article points to the most important landmarks of the whole itinerary of CSR and its eventually becoming an institution. It, moreover, provides field researchers with a tool to describe, analyze and proceed with a comparative evaluation of different periods and events.

Deriving factors for library corporate social responsibility using thematic and weighting analysis

“…LIS literature in social responsibility focused on the scope of libraries and related fields. It is noteworthy that Arundell Esdaile was the first to write about the social responsibility of libraries in 1933, who identified the library social responsibility by preserving the records of the nation's literature (Esdaile, 1933), whereas the first definition of CSR in the corporate world was appeared in 1953 by Howard Bowen that refers to "the obligation of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society" (Tsilikis, 2020). However, there are clear indications of the relationship between LCSR and CSR in the corporate world, where some concepts of CSR have been transferred to libraries.…”

“…The impact of the charitable school in social responsibility on libraries was an evident, for example, what was done by Andrew Carnegie (Moxley and Abbas, 2016). Moreover, many of the principles established by scholars in the United States in the sixties and seventies of the last century, such as Milton Friedman, Johnson, William Frederick and Carroll, and their calls for common good (Tsilikis, 2020) were transferred to the field of libraries in the light of a great national movement calling for the values of equality and justice. Finally, attention to environmental issues and spread of the concepts of the sustainability and sustainable development in its various models and frameworks since the nineties of the last century onwards, transferred and influenced libraries in various ways such as the spread of the green library movement and adoption and implementation of the UN SDGs.…”