Corporate social responsibility: How it is defined by occupational social workers and corporate leaders

The purpose of this exploratory and descriptive study was to examine how occupational social workers and corporate leaders define and conceptualize corporate social responsibility and what roles social workers actually perform in this area. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifty pairs of occupational social workers and corporate leaders with whom they work to gather in-depth information. Information was collected from all the study pairs on personal, professional and organizational demographics; how corporate social responsibility was defined or conceptualized; how corporate social responsibility was expressed or operationalized in practice in their organizations and what role(s) and activities occupational social workers currently perform in corporate social responsibility. In addition, information was obtained regarding respondents interest in expanding occupational social workers roles in corporate social responsibility and the level of agreement between the pairs on the above dimensions.; Overall, occupational social workers and corporate leaders had a similar definition of corporate social responsibility. They agreed that human resources/employee benefits and external donations in the form of in-kind services were the key areas making up their organization's definition of corporate social responsibility. The most frequently mentioned area in respondents' personal definition was human resources/employee benefits. Two-thirds of occupational social workers and corporate leaders defined corporate social responsibility according to the ethical norm of meeting community and societal needs. Both groups ranked corporate leaders as the key decision makers in corporate social responsibility.; Forty to fifty percent of the respondents viewed numerous external corporate social responsibility activities as not being relevant activities in their organizations, yet the same activities were reported as currently practiced. Employees other than occupational social workers performed more than half of the corporate social responsibility activities reported as currently practiced in the organization. Overall, occupational social workers reported more activities as being within the preview of corporate social responsibility than did corporate leaders. Occupational social workers most frequently performed corporate social responsibility activities and roles related to internal human resource/employee benefits; the least performed activities performed by social workers were related to external social policy issues.; The majority of occupational social workers wished to increase their level of involvement in corporate social responsibility activities in their organizations. Half of the corporate leaders wished occupational social workers to increase their level of involvement in corporate social responsibility activities in their organization. Support of the top echelon of the organizations' management is considered necessary for the expansion of occupational social workers role and activities in corporate social responsibility by both occupational social workers and corporate leaders.