Down with "CSR"

I think it's finally happened. I'm ready to abandon the term "Corporate Social Responsibility."

In the mid-90s, the "CSR" term hadn't yet taken hold. Once it did, it felt like the field was more unified and more accepted. The bandwagon had a name, and so I was more able to join it.

Sure, the term has its weaknesses - I've heard criticisms of all three words:

• Corporate (what about other institutions? and the role of government?)
  
• Social (and the environment? what about internal stakeholders?)
  
• Responsibility (shouldn't we talk about opportunity instead? and how about going above-and-beyond?)

But I've stuck by the CSR term, because I like that various groups had rallied around it. Over the past year, however, those at the top of the field seemed to be shying away from it. Now, perhaps the people using it are a different sort of people.

The clincher was this line from a New York Times article yesterday ("Capitalism With Heart"):

"It sounds like the 'corporate social responsibility' mantra used by executives trying to be hip -- and impress young trophy wives' friends -- by financing politically correct boondoggles with shareholders' money."

That wasn't really what I had in mind.

So, what's the next big term? The article I just mentioned uses the term "Compassionate Capitalism" - and if you read it in the New York Times, it must be real and it must be big, right? (I only wish I were entirely joking).

That may, in fact, be the best term on offer. There are the advantages of looking not just at what companies do, but at how our entire market system works to either further or hinder the greater good. And compassion has a wide connotation - social, environmental, ethical, etc. Finally, if liberals can get past the connotation of "compassionate conservativism" (a big if) then this term might help bring the red states to the cause-formerly-known-as-CSR.

So, do we have a winner?

Other candidates: corporate citizenship, conscious capitalism, sustainability, corporate social opportunity.
Subsets: business ethics, philanthropy, socially responsible investing, corporate governance, environmentalism, bottom of the pyramid.