Instinctive Behaviour, Producer Surplus, and Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper addresses a phenomenon that cuts across many disciplines of the formal tradition of learning. Out of numerous multifaceted academic disciplines involved in the argument, psychology, economics and business management stand out, as reflected in the title of the study. The research on the topic is carried out by adopting an inductive approach involving intangible aspects of psychology and tangible parameters of sociology centred around the disciplines of economics and business. The author maintains that the phenomenon of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) represents a challenge of finding the resolution to the paradox of selfish and altruistic human motives. It is argued that quality of that resolution will be determined by the quality of positive laws of socio logy and the quality of intrapersonal regulation to help appreciate social responsibility in the presence of opportunities for maximising self-interest. The review of the literature on CSR underpins factors of international political economy responsible for promotion of the phenomenon in North and South during the last century and in the new millennium respectively. The findings lead to the conclusion that rhetoric of CSR in countries like Pakistan merits the analysis of both its motives and fall out within a North-South divide.