Special Issues Dedicated to CSR and Corporate Sustainability: A Review and Commentary

In this paper we examine the status of the research concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in the management literature. Specifically, we investigate the special issues dedicated to CSR and sustainability published in the CSR-specific, as well as general management and international business journals since 2009. Our review indicates that the majority of the identified special issues have been publicized in the CSR-specific journals; however, few dedicated volumes in the core management journals seem to signal an increased interest in CSR topics among these journals. The variety of topics in the identified special issues can be categorized into two groups: one concentrating on the contemporary corporations as agents of change in modern societies; and the other endeavouring to explicate the infiltration of responsibility-related values through corporate organizational structures and functions. A look at the recently open calls for papers suggests that scholars will continue their efforts to shed more light on the two topics. In the concluding remarks, we highlight some promising and rarely investigated in the CSR literature subjects.