Introduction: Strategic Public Policy Vision for Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR). In the last seven years, this phrase has made an impressive entrance on the economic and business scene and also the political and social scene. Just listing the terms that have been laid on the table during that time, and clarifying them, would be enough to fill a book: social action, socially responsible investment, management by values, corporate citizenship, business ethics, the triple bottom line, reputation, and so on. But it is not merely a question of terminology: the diversity of names is only the visible part of the existence of a multitude of initiatives, proposals and experiences that neither share the same quality nor respond to the same type of options. It is precisely this issue of quality and options that we still need to address.