The Paradox of Corporate Social Responsibility Standards Simone de Colle • Adrian Henriques • Saras Sarasvathy Received: 28 November 2012 / Accepted: 20 September 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide a con- structive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards. After pointing out a number of benefits and limitations in the effectiveness of CSR standards, both from a theoretical point of view and in the light of empirical evidence, we formulate and discuss a Paradox of CSR standards: despite being well-intended, CSR stan- dards can favor the emergence of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset which is counterproductive of their aim of enhancing the social responsibility of the organization. We analyze three problems that might underlie the Para- dox—namely the problem of deceptive measurements; the problem of responsibility erosion and the problem of blinkered culture. We apply the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism to reflect on these issues in relation to different types of existing standards, and conclude by suggesting a number of considerations that could help both CSR standards developers and users to address the Paradox. Keywords Corporate social responsibility Á CSR Standards Á American pragmatism Á Paradox Á ISO26000 Á Corporate accountability standards ‘‘When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly.’’ Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1958: 219; emphasis added) Introduction The purpose of this paper is to provide a constructive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) stan- dards—the wide set of national and international standards aimed at advancing the social, ethical and environmental performance of organizations 1 —addressing both their the- oretical design and their practical implementations, by pointing out three specific problems that are intrinsic to any CSR standard. We argue that these three distinct but intertwined problems can generate what we call the Par- adox of CSR standards, that is the risk of the emergence within organizations of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset that is counterproductive with respect to the aim of enhancing the actual CSR of the organization. This risk rises as more standards are implemented. Our discussion around the Paradox of CSR standards is based on a clear philosophical foundation—namely, the American Pragmatism of the early writings of James (1896, 1912) and Dewey (1927), and the more recent contributions of Rorty (1982, 1990, 1991, 1999) and Putnam (2004). S. de Colle (&) Institute of Ethics, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: sd7ua@virginia.edu A. Henriques Middlesex University Business School, London, UK e-mail: adrian@henriques.info S. Sarasvathy Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA e-mail: sarasvathys@darden.virginia.edu 1 Our definition of CSR Standards is very similar to the definition of International Accountability Standards (IAS) recently adopted by Gilbert et al. (2011) in a Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue dedicated to IAS. According to the authors, IAS are ‘‘intended to encourage and guide corporate responsibility, and to provide multi- national corporations (MNCs) with ways to systematically assess, measure and communicate their social and environmental perfor- mance.’’ (Gilbert et al. 2011, p. 23). 123 J Bus Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1912-y