This chapter aims to provide a general view of corporate social responsibility actions in Latin America and the Caribbean – LAC, from both an academic and a pragmatic perspective. Scientific and gray literature were gathered and systematized to show the past and actual trends of the produced knowledge in the region for the region. The results display that the earlier stages of the corporate social responsibility movement is remarkably effective: in LAC, CSR issues are already institutionalized in national public policies, in organizational practices, and people attitudes and behavior (citizenship, consumer behavior, activisms, for instance), but with an important gap between big/multinational companies and SMEs, even though the last one contributes with more than 99.5% of companies and generate 60% of formal employment. Regarding environmental issues, it is frequent to see that eco-friendly strategies are not widely used due to their organizational structures and levels of financing. Nevertheless, the future agenda is still under construction, especially because it depends on the real interests and foundations of social responsibility among all actors. Some governments are getting involved in the 2030 Agenda, recognizing it as public policy, there has a significant increase in reporting, and the region is looking how to engage with climate finance mechanisms as well as improve their traditional management models into sustainable business models.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-22438-7_32-1
Publication Date: 2020-06-23