Corporate Social Responsibility: The Experiences of China, Japan and Bhutan. A Comparative Approach

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has its roots in the United States, between the 1930s and 1950s. Following the first definition proposed by Howard Bowen, who is today considered the father of CSR, it soon became a concept of great interest to the scientific community. Over the decades, this community has gradually shifted its interest from a definition of CSR to its implementation. Nevertheless, in today’s highly globalized and pluralized economies, affected as they are by new social issues, deficiencies in the theorization and conceptualization of CSR are still considered significant and pending challenges, which need to be resolved before there can be a univocal and global understanding of CSR. In this context, culture plays an important and distinctive role: the more global and de-territorialized a corporate’s activities, the wider the differences to which its CSR approach is exposed. Consequently, when applied to a pluralized and globalized market service, the more difficult the theorization and conceptualization of CSR become. The experiences of Japan and China, both deeply touched by Confucianism over time, represent two interesting examples of special dimensions of CSR from which Western countries can learn much. The CSR approach of Bhutan offers another interesting perspective. Recognising that the objective identification of corporate duties is extremely complex, and that it is equally complex to identify criteria, on the basis of which a corporate practice may be considered to conform to the principles of CSR, the chapter wants to stimulate debate around the question: Does CSR need to be regulated and defined, as ‘something’ new in corporates’ management experience, or is it perhaps something that has always existed, and in some situations, is self-regulating and therefore it translates only in a tool for competition?

Keywords: Comparative law, CSR, Culture, Eastern – southern asian countries, European union, United nations.