Creating Shared Value - Comparison With Corporate Social Responsibility

Comparison With Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) differs from Creating Shared Value, although they share the same ground of "doing well by doing good". Mark Kramer, the co-writer of Harvard Business Review article on Creating Shared Value, states in his "Creating Shared Value" blog that the major difference is CSR is about responsibility, whereas CSV is about creating value. Whether it is an extended "new form of CSR" or "shared value", CSV is fundamentally different from the CSR activities of the past.

Rather, CSV is a transition and expansion from the concept of CSR. Business responsibility has evolved from Traditional CSR 1.0 (Stages: Defensive, Charitable, Promotional and Strategic), Transformative CSR 2.0 and to CSR 3.0 what is similar to CSV. Such development of stages by redefining CSR has laid theoretical foundations for companies and society to sustainably and communally overcome societal issues. As capitalism matures, it is companies’ duties to break itself out of the traditional CSR by realizing its limitations and try to restructure and pursue new market strategies that value both economic and societal development.

CSV concept supersedes CSR for it is a way for corporations to sustain in the competitive capitalistic market. Whereas CSR focuses on reputation with placing value in doing good by societal pressure, it generates both economic and societal benefits relative to cost in real competition of maximizing the profits. Instead of being pushed by external factors, CSV is internally generated not confined to financial budget as CSR is. With the advent of CSV and following strong worldwide advocacy for it, companies started to overthink about their vision for their sustainable growth.