Corporate Social Responsibility and Shareholder Value. A Perfect Fit?

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Essen, language: English, abstract: In 1986, Rappaport published the book 'Creating Shareholder Value', in which he described the shareholder value (SV) approach as a new standard for business performance. A quantitative, corporate ethical philosophy is addressed with the term 'shareholder value', which has always been a matter of course for business investment theorists. Basically, shareholder value describes the mathematical maximization of the net present value of investments. This entrepreneurial approach was not viewed with skepticism on a global scale until the banking and financial crisis. An alternative approach was examined to overcome the banking and economic crisis. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach emerged, which was seen as a sustainable and pluralistic alternative. However, the CSR approach is viewed critically from a business perspective. It is questioned to what extent CSR actually influences on the economic success of a company. This will also be the subject of this essay. The aim is to show whether linking CSR and the SV approach creates a corporate strategy that generates monetary gains and represents a perfect fit.