The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility started evolving many years ago but the concept of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) is still not satisfactorily explained. Some of the scholars Sethi (1979) and Preston (1978) tried to shed some light on this issue such as explaining categories for assessing CSP, but were lacking in exactly defining the concept (Wood, 1991). According to Carroll (1979) CSP is a multidimensional concept which encompasses economic responsibilities to investors and consumers, ethical responsibilities to society and legal responsibilities to the government. The problem with the concept of CSR is that it is too broad that it becomes difficult to measure because there is a lack of systematic reporting and social reporting standards are also generally not accepted, but many scholars agrees that the concept of corporate social performance could be transformed into a measurable variable based on Carroll’s CSP model (Mahoney and Roberts, 2015).
The term CSP has been used as a proxy for other terms such as corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsiveness, or any other steps that business might have taken to fulfill its societal obligation. However, the concept of CSP started growing and Carroll (1979) is the first scholar who presented the three-dimensional model for assessing CSP, which comprises of corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsiveness and social issues. The concept of CSP grew under the shadow of CSR until it managed to prove its own importance. Wartick and Cochran also presented their CSP model and they based their model on the work of Carroll’s model of CSP and defined it as: “the underlying interaction among the principles of social responsibility, the process of social responsiveness, and the policies developed to address social issues” (Wartick and Cochran, 1985).
These definitions attracted a lot of attention of many scholars over the years but it wasn’t until in 1991 when Wood presented her own definition on CSP model. The definition presented by the Wood of CSP model follows as: “a business organization’s configuration of principles of social responsibility, processes of social responsiveness, and policies, programs, and observable outcomes as they relate to the firm’s societal relationships” (Wood, 1991). Criticizing the work of Wartick and Cochran (1985) because in view of wood it left some of the issues unattended and wood tried to overcome these problems. First, wood considers “action” is an essential component of the CSP model which was not addressed in the previous definition thus, “performance speaks of actions and outcomes, not of interaction and integration.” Second, social responsiveness is not a single set of process in fact it based on a multiple set of processes. At last, the third and final problem which wood addressed is that policies of firms just give a one-dimensional view of the firm while evaluating a firm’s social performance, as in previous definition it stated, “the policies developed to address social issues” makes it too restrictive to evaluate. Additionally, other than the problem which were mentioned above overcome by this definition and it is free of time constraint and allows “CSP to be viewed either as a static snapshot or as a dynamic change-filled sequence” (Wood, 1991).
In 1997, researchers Waddock and Graves continuing the work of previous scholars conducted and empirical study on the link between CSP and financial performance. While analyzing the measurement problems related to CSP/CFP link they came up with their own definition for CSP which follows: “CSP is a multi-dimensional construct, with behaviors ranging across a wide variety of inputs (e.g., investment in pollution control equipment or other environmental strategies), internal behaviors and processes (e.g., treatment of women and minorities, nature of product produced, relationship with customers), and outputs (e.g., community relations and philanthropic programs)” (Waddock and Graves, 1997). This definition is very similar to the one presented by Wood, the only difference it has that it describes CSP as multi-dimensional construct rather than a one-dimensional. Many of the researchers have identified the problems that they have faced while measuring CSP/CFP link is that most of the time CSP is being treated as a one-dimensional construct.