A Broader Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility Research in Accounting

In this paper, the authors suggest that corporate social responsibility (CSR) research in accounting could benefit significantly if accounting researchers were more open to the possibility that CSR activities and related disclosures are driven by both shareholders and non-shareholder constituents, and the use of experiments to answer important CSR questions that are difficult to answer with currently available archival data. They believe that adopting these suggestions will help accounting researchers obtain a more complete understanding of the motivations for corporate investments in CSR and the increasing prevalence of related disclosures. The authors' two suggestions are closely related. Viewing CSR more broadly as being motivated by both shareholders and a broader group of stakeholders raises new and important questions that are unlikely to be studied by accounting researchers who maintain the traditional perspective that firms only engage in CSR activities that maximize shareholder value.