In tougher times firms use more, not less, CSR as a vehicle for product differentiation
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is playing an increasingly prominent role in today’s business environment. For example, investments in socially responsible funds – funds that use socially responsible investing strategies – have rocketed in the United States from $639 billion in 1995 to almost $3 trillion in 2009. This means that nearly one out of every ten dollars under professional management in the United States today is invested in socially responsible assets.
[This research paper has been reproduced with permission of the authors, professors of IE Business School, Spain http://www.ie.edu/]