Internal Senses vs. External Senses in Corporate Social Responsibility: Challenges for Social Sciences

Abstract

This article is part of a reflection about different underlying senses in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on the review of certain authors, the paper suggests, to begin with, that contemporaneous organizations are facing deep and complex changes; second of all, that it is possible to discuss the existence of certain articulation senses and methods that imply the company’s social actions; and third, that neoliberalism has supported the imposition of corporate social responsibility in financial terms and on a global level. Finally, a reflection is made of the way that professionals and academicians in the area of social sciences have answered to these social responsibility implementation and contrasting processes. The text concludes with a call for the necessary intervention of specific contexts in order to be able to build a series of theories and tools in the future that will better meet the demands of our social groups.