Do corporate efforts at "responsibility" count when motivated by a desire to brand their business rather than out of the goodness of management's heart? The question was prompted by a recent paper, which argues that:
In this paper, we ... critically engag[e] with marketing campaigns of so‐called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three‐step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands.
Corporate social responsibility is a problem, IMHO, when, as Milton Friedman observed, a manager spend "someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his 'social responsibility' reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money." If on the other hand, the manager is engaging in corporate activity that is "responsible," "green," "sustainable," or any other buzzword for what left-liberals regard as socially ethical behavior, the manager is pursuing the proper corporate purpose, as Friedman defined it, "to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom."
So it doesn't count as CSR. Just as good advertising to bleeding hearts.
