Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly seen as an imperative for sustainable business and there is a growing literature on the effect of CSR on corporate reputation. Despite this, a pall of ambiguity and uncertainty remains around what CSR means and how it should be practiced....

This paper places corporate social responsibility in the context of the resource-based view of the firm, and then uses relationship management to explain the growing involvement of business in corporate social responsibility activities. It argues that the value of the public relations function...