The concept of social responsibility, or social responsiveness as some now prefer to call it, is a continually evolving concept and means different things to different people.  Numerous studies conducted during the 1970s and 1980s have tried to arrive at a consensus definition of social responsibility but have failed to do so. Much of the research attempts to identify various kinds of socially responsive activities, present the list of these activities to the business manager and then measure and tabulate the relative frequency of response to which the activities are practiced by those agencies or people being questioned.  Since different issues are more or less relevant to different industries, the results from these studies are often confounded and confused. Although this may make it difficult to present a precise definition of social responsibility that will be acceptable to everyone, at least the major components that go into making up what social responsibility is can and should be explained.

The concept of social responsibility has been with us since the beginning of mankind and has slowly evolved to its present state. The first comprehensive approach to modern era social responsibility was ushered in 1953 with the publication of Howard R. Bowen's book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. Bowen felt that public responsibility, social obligations, and business morality were synonyms for social responsibility and described the term social responsibilities of businessmen as: "It refers to the obligation of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of objectives and values of our society."

In 1971 the Committee for Economic Development (CED) published a book in which they treated the relationship between business and society as a social contract between the two groups, with business' major obligation being the providing of those goods and services that society needs. Traditionally, these needs have been economic, such as production of goods and services, job opportunities, an improving standard of living, and a higher gross national product (GNP). This traditional contract between business and society has been changing because of the addition of new social value responsibilities placed upon business. Some of these new social value responsibilities include: stricter compliance with local, state, federal, and international laws; social problems; human values; health care; pollution; quality of life; equal employment opportunities; sexual harassment; elimination of poverty; child care and elderly care; support of the arts and universities; and many others. Basically, each of these areas of social value responsibility can be placed in one or more of three broader categories or headings of social responsiveness; these three categories are legal, moralethical, and philanthropic.

Many people and groups (the stakeholders) feel that business has a moral obligation to correct the social problems that beset society; at the same time, many of these stakeholders feel that much of the business community has not and is not adequately dealing with many of these social problems of concern. All of these forces place pressure on business to respond to the emerging major social issues of the day.

Many businesses today feel that in order to respond effectively and efficiently to the major social issues and demands of the day, corporate social policy must be integrated into corporate strategy. Corporate executives will have to include social policy guidelines into the strategic plans from which the functional policies and operational plans will be derived; the burden of implementing and achieving the social goals will lie on the shoulders of middle and lower management. . .