Back in the 1990s, stock analysts tended to produce pessimistic recommendations for companies with high expenditures on corporate social responsibility, but over the subsequent decade-plus, they came to view these firms optimistically, according to Ioannis Ioannou of London Business School and George Serafeim of Harvard Business School. Analysts formerly saw CSR as a detriment to profitability - something whose main purpose was to make executives feel good about themselves - but they came to view CSR as essential to corporate standing and to perceive that it may generate financial value in the long run, the authors say.

(Source: Harvard Business Reviews)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 19th, 2014