No CPR for CSR: A Call to Abandon Search for the “Holy Grail”

Abstract

Aguinis and Glavas (2013) offer a new attempt to explain the consistently weak but consistently inconsistent findings regarding the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to financial performance. Like many others writing in the field, Aguinis and Glavas appear to believe that further efforts to categorize types of CSR will somehow identify CSR forms that are financially rewarding. In this response, I challenge four assumptions underlying the Aguinis and Glavas manuscript: (a) that CSR has received little attention in the micro literature; (b) that CSR can be meaningfully conceptualized and operationalized; (c) that a continued search for the “holy grail” of a CSR–financial performance link is likely to be fruitful; and (d) that the “peripheral–embedded” distinction is useful and appropriate.