News & Events

Executive Inaction

Klaus Weber on how executives fail to support corporate social responsibility more from a lack of moral motivation than from ignorance of the facts.

By Corey Binns

What might prevent executives from backing investments to improve their company’s social behavior and performance? A popular view holds that they require reassurance that such investments will not hurt the bottom line—that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is compatible with financial performance. Once the facts show that there is money to be made from investments in CSR, such executive holdouts will then happily put their money behind it.