Corporate Social Responsibility. It seems any companies prefer to be identified as a CSR over a non CSR business but for what reasons?

Maintaining good public relations is a challenge most businesses face. The pessimistic view is that corporate socially responsible businesses are designed this way because of the purpose to maintain good public relations, which leads to increase in sales and thus, creates a long term marketing strategy.  Others would have a more optimistic view of CSR, where businesses truly believe in making the world a better place by contributing to social and environmental causes, as well as maximizing their profits. The issues here is how to clearly identify if a business is “at the core” a socially responsible business, and can existing businesses adopt a CSR business model?

I think the fundamental determinant of identifying whether a business have a corporate conscience or not, is to look at there core values. For example, Microsoft was voted the most socially responsible business in 2012 by Forbes. Their values include being held accountable to all their “customers, shareholders, partners, and employees” and “help people and businesses throughout the world.” Microsoft has also started a range of initiatives for just social and environmental causes.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/12/10/the-companies-with-the-best-csr-reputations