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[This post has now been updated with the new edition of our textbook and a new free download. Go to the post " Corporate social responsibility in a global context - a new free download "] We've just posted online our introduction to CSR from our 2008 text co-written with Laura Spence, Corporate Social Responsibility: Readings and Cases in a Global Context . It's available for free download here at  the Social Science Research Network , albeit only in the pre-typeset version.  In the paper we examine the nature and definition of CSR, and its emergence in different national and organizational contexts. It should be a good basic CSR 101 for anyone trying to get their head's around the subject. Of course, the question of what corporate social responsibility (CSR) is should be pretty straighforward. It is obvious that CSR is about the stuff that companies do to improve society, right? Or at least what they do to make it less worse. Or perhaps its what they tell us the...

Target, the American discount retail giant that has for years been trying to claw market share from its mammoth rival Wal-Mart, was generally regarded as a more socially responsible alterntive to its big box competitor. That started to change with Wal-Mart's sustainability u-turn a few years ago, prompting Fast Company magazine to recently proclaim Walmart the winner in the "sustainability face-off" between the two companies . One area of social responsibility where Target has continued to outpunch its rival though has been in diversity and human rights. For example, Target scored a maximum 100 points in the most recent Corporate Equality Index published by Human Rights Campaign , the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization in the US. Among other things, Target extends its employee's health care coverage to same-sex partners. Wal-Mart, by comparison, until recently provided coverage to less than half of its own employ...

Ten years ago last month, Jem Bendell published what turned out to be one of the most influential books yet on business-NGO partnerships called Terms for Endearment: Business, NGOs and Sustainable Development . To mark the anniversary, the publisher Greenleaf is offering a big discount on the book (50% off) and making a number of the chapters free to download. Included in the free chapters is Andy's chapter, "Culture clash and mediation: exploring the cultural dynamics of business-NGO collaboration" . We're really pleased to see this and some of the other chapters made freely available. The book itself was a great collection of articles and it really helped kick start a critical perspective on partnerships and an engagement from the academic community with the political ramifications of corporate responsibility practice - a theme that regular readers will notice that we've become ever more interested in. So in support of the anniversary Andy has written a blog pos...