The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.

AuthorMarshall, Jeffrey
PositionBrief Article - Book Review

The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility. By David Vogel. Brookings Institute Press, 222 pages. $28.95.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has made a lot of noise this year, with corporate giants like Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co. making major announcements about their commitment to the environment. But CSR clearly has a cost that some companies are loath to embrace.

That argument serves as a strong backbone for The Market for Virtue. David Vogel, a professor of business ethics at the University of California, maintains that despite the CSR movement's progress in prodding companies in areas such as labor, human rights and the environment, "CSR's potential to bring about a significant change in corporate behavior is exaggerated."

Why? Simply because business is motivated principally by profit, not by idealism, and the bottom line tends to win out. The result, he writes, is that the business case for CSR is relatively weak, voluntary and market-driven--meaning that companies...

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