CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Myth and Reality

Companies nowadays strive to be socially conscious in the way they do business by taking up corporate,social responsibility (CSR) activities besides maintaining profitability. Similarly consumers modulate their purchase choices to be made up of products that have been produced and marketed through socially responsible processes. But the congruence between achieving gain and being responsible to the community has ethical contradictions due to the presence of self interest. This paper proposes to examine the dimensions of this conflict and towards the end suggest a new orientation that foregrounds social responsibility relative to profit or gain.