Extending Paradigms: Corporate Social Responsibility

Professor Harry Van Buren III

University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

The past decades have heralded a business and human rights perspective (BHR) on corporate responsibility, which is particularly relevant for business and society scholars but largely unnoticed in its larger implications for the business and society field. Because BHR has evolved separate from and parallel to corporate social responsibility (CSR) while addressing similar issues, there have been tensions between CSR and BHR. We embrace these tensions and advocate for a perspective of BHR as an extension of CSR. This perspective allows for a constructive confrontation of the paradigms underlying CSR and BHR and offers an opportunity for CSR and BHR to open and expand their thinking and scholarship. We conduct an intellectual history review of CSR and BHR to illustrate the different trajectories that both fields have taken and underline their respective paradigms. We advocate for a constructive relationship between CSR and BHR and outline avenues for future research. Keywords: business and human rights (BHR); corporate social responsibility (CSR); intellectual history review; research paradigms.