Author(s): Paolo D Anselmi
The coronavirus provides an opportunity to review some key features of the theory of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) outlined in my books on CSR and in my PhD thesis under the brand name of Reformulated CSR.
Major emphasis is called by the coronavirus outbreak to the necessity to extend CSR to public administration. Such necessity is relevant because I consider the public health care system as part of public administration. This might be true not only for health care provided through public employees, but also for health care provided by contracted services, according to a New Public Management approach to public services. I concentrate on the health care system and will however devote some paragraphs to other public organizational systems that have been engaged by the virus crisis.
CSR has traditionally been applied to private businesses, according to the United Nations Global Compact. This is what I call Mainstream CSR. My theory of Reformulated CSR argues CSR should be extended to all organizations, private and public. Mainstream CSR identifies special and ad hoc CSR programs that ought to be put forth by private businesses. Reformulated CSR tries to identify CSR in the ordinary way of carrying out the core business of all organizations. Thus public organizations should report about their own performance in their core businesses. Performance reporting is ordinarily done in some Anglo-Saxon countries, but it is seldom done in other countries of the world where the CSR movement also tries to be influential.