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Introduction
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been contested since the beginning of the era of its modern interpretation in the 1950s. The debate about adequately defining the concept has led a plethora of definitions to emerge over time, and the discourse within the CSR domain about the conceptual interpretation of the term remains vivid. Despite the proliferation of definitions, discussions about their interpretation and the varying theoretical orientations that scholars have taken to investigate and reflect on the concept, different evolutionary phases of this peculiar definitional construct can be distinguished (Carroll, 1999). Most of the definitions are composed of similar epistemological components (Dahlsrud, 2008; Rahman, 2011) and by implication have a considerable degree of overlap.
The development of ISO 26000, a comprehensive CSR standard developed under the auspices of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), is one of the most recent and ambitious contributions to both the development of CSR in practice and the discourse on the concept[1]. This global, multi-stakeholder standardizing initiative that exemplifies a novel form of private governance and soft law relating to establishing the societal responsibilities of companies (Schouten, 2007; Thirarungrueang, 2013; Ihugba, 2014) has resulted in an interpretation of CSR that is well worth investigating. The first reason to do so is that this definition has, as a consequence of the nature of the standard’s development process, a high degree of legitimacy and the aura of a universal definition of CSR. Second, on closer inspection, it seems an “out of the ordinary” definition when compared to most other contemporary definitions. Although the standard and its development process have attracted some scholarly attention (Castka and Balzarova, 2008; Schwartz and Tilling, 2009; Ward, 2011; Hahn and Weidtmann, 2012), in-depth appraisals of ISO 26000’s contents in general and the peculiarities of its CSR definition have so far been absent. This article is primarily concerned with ISO 26000 definition of CSR (not the process of defining the concept within the broader standardization project ISO 26000 as academic has been particularly focusing on) with the intention to analyze its contents and to position the definit v bion vis-à-vis other definitions and within the discourse of defining CSR as a concept. Also, the article aims to add to the literature on CSR...