Convergent and divergent corporate social responsibility

Evidence suggests that many socially responsible firms converge on non-differentiating practices instead of developing their own solutions to the social issues they have to deal with. This convergence is puzzling, since convincing arguments in support of a “business case” for corporate social responsibility (CSR) imply that firms should compete for stakeholder favour and try to differentiate themselves from rivals. I introduce a distinction between two types of CSR – convergent and divergent – and analyse six possible causes of the former (institutional isomorphism, environmental uncertainty, rivalry mitigation, low barriers to imitation, economies of scale, reputation interdependencies). The distinction between convergent and divergent CSR is autonomous from others proposed in the literature and has implications for the research on the societal benefits of CSR and on the link between the social performance and the financial performance of firms