What Do We Mean by CDR Values and Where Do They Come From?

Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) governance mechanisms are increasingly visible, yet the underlying values that guide them are often taken for granted. This chapter addresses that gap by asking what CDR values are and where they come from. Drawing on literature from the digital ethics and general management domains, I outline a values-based perspective that illuminates some of the novel aspects of CDR compared to previous approaches to corporate responsibility. I ground this perspective in ongoing empirical work illustrating how firms articulate values within their specific CDR regimes. For researchers, a closer engagement with values represents a potential mode of enquiry into whether CDR represents a fundamentally new phenomenon or rather an extension of existing moral frameworks. This has implications for practitioners depending on whether the most successful instances of CDR resolve ethical dilemmas by relying on established ethical frameworks, by developing novel approaches tailored to the digital context, or through a hybrid solution.