Authenticity: Is Corporate Social Responsibility the Key to Overcoming Crisis?

The paper aims to develop within the theoretical and normative perspective the concept of the “golden rule” of authentic CSR-driven strategy as a necessary path to overcoming the financial crisis. To this end, firstly a critical review is provided of the recent Encyclical Letter (Pope Francis, Laudato Sì, 2015) focusing on the care of our “common home” that emphasizes the complexity of the crisis and suggests the path to overcoming the crisis through a renewed environmental, economic and social ecology. Secondly, the work provides the business context with a series of examples related to companies which in “hard times” voluntarily persist in investing in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities conceived as an effective and leading way to building the future and replying to the current and future crises. The work intends to feed the scientific debate on the opportunity to focus attention on the origins of entrepreneurial and managerial behaviors that have lead to the crisis and the need for a profound rethinking of the business conduct. Moreover, it provides examples to the corporate world by observing the validity of the strategic and operational behaviors that are based on a durable and tough CSR orientation as well as on an authentic socio-responsibility driven decision-making process.