What Ethics? Economizing the Carroll Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR)

This paper analyzes the conceptual foundations of an economic ethics debate that can ground CSR research and practice. I utilize Carroll’s framework of a pyramid of corporate social responsibilities (CSR) as my base point: All of Carroll’s four domains of CSR – of economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of the firm – are reconceptualized through institutional economic theory that grounds itself in and continues Smithsonian economics. Significantly, economic reconstruction is ethically argued for through the concept of ‘economics as ethics’, directed at all domains of the Carroll pyramid. Implications are spelled out which economic ethics debate has for empirical research on the much debated link between CSR and corporate financial performance (CFP, or ‘profitability’).