Responsabilidad Social empresaria y construcción de su significado. Estudio de Caso

In the study of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a main conflict is generally accepted: the coexistence of economic goals, environmental impacts, and social impacts. Thus, it is possible to identify the different evolutionary levels which assign meaning to it, from pre-capitalist thoughts, capitalist criteria, and responsibility as a voluntary concept to the business depending on society. The purpose of this paper is to describe the CSR evolution and the discourse of businessmen and workers, as well as the community around them, to find evidence about the impact of educating consultants and future professional management consultants in CSR. To this effect, the case of the Argentinian city of Tandil was studied, where different economic sectors and a university that educates management professionals converge. This study includes 3 stages: the “internal” discourses, the “external” discourses and the “economics students and graduates” discourses. The findings can be summed up in a high evolutionary level of discourse which converges much more in businessmen and workers (i.e., internal level) than in the rest of the community (i.e., external level). The CSR evolutionary level in the discourse of economics students and graduates is related to the awareness built, the knowledge received or the practices developed in relation to the concept.