Recovering the past: reviving the legacy of the early scholars of corporate social responsibility

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate and explain the origins and transformation of the study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over its half‐century history.

This paper is a historical study in two parts. The first and larger part examines the CSR literature of the 1950s from both an intellectual and social perspective. It not only analyzes the content of these writings, but it also places them and their authors in a political and economic context. The second part explains why so many of the themes and approaches of this first generation have been abandoned by more recent CSR scholars by pointing to decisive changes in the American social and political environment.

Early CSR research was a product of the cataclysmic events that the scholars in this field experienced personally and professionally, most importantly the labor conflicts of the 1930s and the uneasy labor peace that subsequently followed. By contrast, the more modern approach that emphasizes the ethics of executive decision making became the dominant paradigm in the 1980s when institutional support for a macro perspective disappeared.

The first generation of scholars were concerned with issues of economic fairness and the independence of governments from interest group pressures. With these issues currently reasserting themselves on a global level, modern scholars could learn a great deal from studying the insights and practical experience of these neglected thinkers.

This is both the first in‐depth study of the content and origins of early CSR scholarship and an explanation of its limited influence.