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treating their employees as ends in themselves and not merely as a means?
When Carroll says that the essence of these philanthropic activities is that
they are "not generally expected of business in an ethical sense' (1993: 33,
emphasis added) this raises the question of exactly when an activity can be
considered ethical as opposed to philanthropic according to Carrolls treatment
of these two domains. For example, is a corporation's contribution to a chari-
table organization an ethical activity (i.e*, expected by society) or a philanthropic
activity (i.e., merely desired by society)? Evidence currently indicates that the
majority of companies donate to charitable organizations (Carroll 1993: 387),
with a majority of the population expecting that companies make charitable
donations (Sexty 1995: 274). Do these findings not suggest that society now
expects corporate philanthropic contributions? According to Carroll's defini-
tions, the paramount example of a philanthropic activity, giving to charitable
organizations, could arguably fall under the ethical domain, rather than needing
to be separated into a philanthropic domain as currently defined.
Even if one is able to make a theoretical distinction between ethical and phil-
anthropic activities, there is still an issue as to whether such a distinction could be
applied by empirical researchers in the field. Clarkson (1995: 95) for example,
raises concerns over the ability to define and measure discretionary activities in
the actual corpoxate world. Aupperle, Carroll, and Hatfield (1985: 455) state that
Carroll's philanthropic domain is '4difficult to ascertain and evaluate." Strong and
Meyer conclude in their study that while there was strong support for the exist-
ence of the economic, legalS and ethical components of corporate social responsibility, it may be appropriate for the philanthropic category to be removed
from Carroll's framework when attempting to measure managerial perceptions of
responsibility. They state: "The results for discretionary (philanthropic) responsi-
bility do not support the survey's use as a general measure of managerial perception
of responsibility of this component of social responsibility" (1992: 92, emphasis
added). Although many researchers have found support for a philanthropic com-
ponent, the concerns raised by other researchers suggest that its use as a distinct
component of CSR might be re-examined.
In addition to ethical reasons, corporate philanthropy might also be based
primarily on economic motives (Shaw and Post 1993: 748), often referred to as
"strategic giving" or "strategic philanthropy" (Yankee 1996: 9-10). Whether to