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Now, taking into account these three views, let’s try and discover the essence of each of them, and let’s play Devil’s advocate for an instant. In the first case, the CSR management is interpreted as how companies carry out their activities to achieve their aims. This would mean to be aware of the impact the activities of the firms have on the environment, community, and so on. But, I wonder: Shouldn’t this be the standard procedure for a company? If the goal of an enterprise is indeed to get profit, so, is it taken for granted that until the appearance of CSR any means to reach those goals was valid? If it is necessary to pay low salaries, to exploit workers and pollute the environment in order to generate profit, would the company do that? It seams the message here would be: “From now onwards, our firm is engaged with the CSR so we are going to start doing things correctly and take the rest into account. We are not going to pollute and we are not going to exploit workforce because we believe in Corporate responsibility”. Really, why should we celebrate something we all expect them to do, to be serious and, naturally responsible? Isn’t that their duty, their responsibility, rather than some business strategy? Nowadays, there are lots of companies that speak of corporate responsibility as if it was a great finding, they have discovered that good business can be made “in spite of” good practices. To this effect, I remember reading an invitation to a seminar on Corporate Responsibility in Rosario organized by Enterpreneurs Christian Association from Rosario, and the abstract reads in its opening lines: This seminar offers a space for discussion among company leaders who wish to operate based on CSR principles, even in times of crisis. And I’d like to examine closely the word “even”, which is a revealing statement in itself: so, in times of crisis, good practices should be forsaken? Or, even so,  crisis and everything, should things be done correctly? In the second case, the idea is to destine part of the profit or the company resources to some action for the community, a small social club, a school or some projects of a NGO. These actions are also considered CSR activies. However, very often, the company did not achieve its aims or didn’t generally profit in a responsible way. It is ethical and consistent then that a company that pollutes the environment with its production processes should give out money to an NGO and proclaim its commitment to CSR. There are also companies that really act properly and perform external actions of this kind but perhaps they are not wholly committed with the cause they intend to embrace and they end up supporting projects that lack real impact or that they are not aquainted with.

Finally, we get to the case of companies that only intend to improve their image and they see the CSR as an added element to marketing, an added element to the identity of the brand. Without becoming wholly involved, they only search for mediatic effect. The irony of it all lies in the fact that many NGO, eager to receive support, end up becoming part of the swindle. In the presentation of an organization that works in Africa with the problem of HIV, I was astonished to hear how the presenter closed up his talk mentioning their future strategies in these words: “We will adjust and adapt our mission in agreement with the central economic interests of our sponsors”. The mission, nothing less, which is like the DNA of any organization! This announcement was ratified by the sponsors –represented by their CSR Director- who were also among the audience. The message was clear: the priority lay in the economic interest of the company that supported the project, not in the project itself.

To end up, I think we must keep a critical attitude and be sure of what we mean when we talk about Corporate Responsibility. To my mind, the CSR should not be a business strategy but a philosophy present in all company activities, both internal and external. An outlook that leads the company to do things correctly, not because this will result in larger profit but because the firm is persuaded this is the only way to do it. The enterprises should be focused firstly in making profit ethically and correctly, respecting people, the environment and the world in which they carry out their activies. Secondly, as they generate wealth, they may –and must, if they are responsible- contribute to create factors of social change. These are never individual but collective, and that is why the company has to keep in touch with other actors of society, offering its resources for common welfare. The NGO play an important role for this social changes and they need the companys’ resources as well as the latter need the know-how and expertise of the organizations. That is why it is important for both parts to listen to each other, to discuss, to work together and to complement themselves to generate the desired impact. It is amazing to see how in seminars and congresses of CSR no social leader or NGO representative is included, thus leaving an empty space that seriously threatens the company’s possibilities of success where external actions are concerned. Lastly, it is clear that generating profit or convenience should never be the reason why a company decides to undertake corporate CSR actions. The company must be responsible and that will eventually pay off, so that competitive advantage becomes just a secondary effect of good practices and social responsibility.