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SBR
8,1 The ethics of care as a
determinant for stakeholder
inclusion and CSR perception
32
in business education
Received 1 June 2012
Accepted 1 June 2012
Kévin André
Institute for Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship,
ESSEC Business School, Cergy-Pontoise, France and
Sorbonne Business School, Paris, France

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of the paper is to show that, among business students, care ethics is a
determinant for CSR perception and stakeholder inclusion.
Design/methodology/approach – The research was conducted utilising a quantitative approach.
The population for this study consisted of students from a leading French business school.
Findings – Stakeholder inclusion is related to care ethics among students. CSR perception is related
to stakeholder perception. CSR perception is related to care ethics.
Research limitations/implications – Population sampled has cultural and curricula specificities.
Further research should extend the findings to other populations.
Practical implications – If business schools want their students to implement CSR when they later
become managers, they should build a bridge in the curriculum between business ethics education
based on care theory (“educare”) and CSR teaching.
Originality/value – Empirical exploration of the relationship between teaching CSR and teaching
care ethics has not been undertaken. Relationship between care ethics and stakeholder theory has been
addressed in the literature but only from a theoretical perspective and not from an empirical
perspective.
Keywords Care ethics, CSR perception, Stakeholder inclusion, Business education, Business and society,
Corporate social responsibility, Education, France
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
It has been established that business ethics and CSR can be regrouped under the
“Business and Society” umbrella, but there is some ambiguity as to how the two are
related (Schwartz and Carroll, 2008). De George (1987, p. 204) states that business
ethics “embraces” CSR, while Carroll (1979, p. 499) considers on the contrary that the
“ethical” dimension is “embodied” in the “social responsibility” of the firm. Joyner and
Payne (2002, p. 300) argue that these two concepts are “interchangeable”.
This ambiguity in the literature also prevails in teaching. As stated by a recent
survey, the majority of The Financial Times top 50 global business schools require
Society and Business Review their MBA students to study one or more of the three following topics: “ethics, CSR and
Vol. 8 No. 1, 2013
pp. 32-44 sustainability” (Christensen et al., 2007). However, there is no consensus on whether or
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1746-5680
not these topics should be taught together. Ethics and CSR can be either taught
DOI 10.1108/17465681311297667 together or in separate courses. Nothing in this survey is said about how the two
are related. In this paper, we propose an empirical exploration of the relationship The ethics of care
between teaching CSR and teaching ethics.
We aim to show that when teaching CSR, one cannot set aside the question of moral
education, especially if we focus on care ethics. We assert that caring education –
which we propose to call “educare” (Pesqueux, 2011a) – is necessary in a business
curriculum if we intend to positively influence students’ perception of CSR. It is only
through the development of a personal care ethics that students will be inclined to 33
perceive CSR as valuable in their future career.
Indeed, CSR literature often gives great weight to collective aspects, whereas
individual perceptions are fundamental in nurturing a sustainable approach:
[. . .] a company’s social responsibilities are not met by some abstract organizational actor;
they are met by individual human actors who constantly make decisions and choices, some
big and some small, some minor and others of great consequence (Wood, 1991, p. 699).
This is why, in this paper, we focus on CSR perception, which is consistent with other
research involving surveys which aim to understand how CSR is individually
understood and perceived (Balasubramanian et al., 2005). We propose herein to explore
how business students’ perception of CSR is primarily determined by their individual
care ethics.
Rozuel and Kakabadse (2011) have already addressed ethics as a “prerequisite” to
CSR. They show how people, more than roles, have to be taken into account
to understand how CSR is implemented. However, their analysis relies on a
“virtue/character” model of morality. From our standpoint, as we will show here, care
ethics seems more relevant as a moral grounding for CSR than virtue ethics because of
the basic similarity between care ethics and stakeholder theories: “just as stakeholders
theories of corporate obligations are articulated in terms of a web of relationships, so too
an ethics of care focuses primarily upon relationships” (Palmer and Stoll, 2011, p. 115).
To our knowledge, no empirical research has yet been conducted on the correlation
between the ethics of care and CSR. This paper aims to fill this gap and show that care
ethics is a determinant of CSR perception among business students. We will first list five
types of perceptions of CSR, and then we will give a two-sided definition of care ethics.
Once this foundation is established, we will show how both constructs are related via
stakeholder inclusion in the context of business education.

CSR perceptions
When we look at the prolific literature on CSR, we observe that there are numerous
different ways to understand the concept. Many literature reviews exist to map the
territory (Taneja et al., 2011). We will not focus on the CSR theories taught to students,
but rather on the opinions they have regarding them (Balasubramanian et al., 2005). This
paper proposes to classify CSR perceptions into at least five categories: critical,
normative, instrumental, supererogative, and sustainable. They correspond to
perspectives that can be found both in the research and in grey literature.
First, the critical conception argues that CSR is irrelevant and inconsistent. It can
take many different forms. CSR can be considered, for instance, to be a “passing
fad” (Nelson, 2002; White, 2005), a “sideshow,” an “utopia” (Gokulsing, 2011), or “not
useful” (Freeman and Liedtka, 1991). Even Bowen, the father of the concept of
“social responsibility,” criticizes the relevance of the notion of CSR because of its
SBR “minimal effectiveness” (Acquier et al., 2011). Probably the most famous critical
8,1 perspective on CSR is that of Friedman (1970), who argued that the social responsibility of
a firm is to make profits, meaning that CSR is nothing more than what the firm already is.
This vision of CSR is certainly widespread among businessmen, but other, alternative
visions are beginning to emerge, especially among students. Net Impact Studies conducted
over several years by the Aspen Institute show that there is a growing concern among
34 business students about the social value they may produce (McGaw, 2011). In 2008,
33 percent said that one of the primary responsibilities of a company is to “create value for
the local community in which it operates” (as opposed to only 25 percent in 2002).
If one assumes that CSR is indeed relevant, two primary conceptions typically
emerge. One can be called “ethical” or “normative” and the other “instrumental”
(Donaldson and Dunfee, 1994; Garriga and Melé, 2004; Van Parijs, 1991). In the
ethical/normative vision, CSR is relevant because business has a duty toward society.
This obligation can be strictly moral, but it can also be – and tends to be – enforced by
law or regulations. In both cases, it is about doing what should be done, even if it means
not doing well and losing profitability. On the contrary, the instrumental perspective is
morally neutral but considers CSR to be a way to sustain profits. It is less a constraint
and more an opportunity. Indeed, numerous studies strive to demonstrate the empirical
relationship between corporate financial performance and corporate social performance
(Margolis and Walsh, 2003). The instrumental power of CSR has been analyzed from
many different perspectives. It can be considered a driver for innovation (Nidumolu et al.,
2009). Through employee volunteerism, it may also enhance human resources
management (Gatignon-Turnau and Louart, 2010). Very often, its instrumental value is
perceived as a way to improve one’s corporate reputation (Siltaoja, 2006), with the risk of
these efforts being reduced to a kind of “greenwashing.”
A fourth way of perceiving CSR is to consider it to be an option and not a (moral, legal
or instrumental) obligation. In this case, CSR is voluntary and at the discretion of the firm
(Wettstein, 2009). We propose to call this approach “supererogative:” it is good if
companies opt for it, but it is not bad if they do not choose to do so. Corporations can
freely choose to engage in CSR, but it is not seen as their duty, nor in their interests. It is
consistent with a contractual vision of the firm:
[. . .] as long as the contracting parties are clear about the firm’s intentions, even if those
intentions include something other than wealth creation, Easterbrook and Fischel (1991; 36)
argued, “no one should be allowed to object” (Margolis and Walsh, 2003, p. 272).
Finally, a fifth perspective is to bring CSR closer to sustainability issues (Montiel, 2008).
In this sense, the question is not about the responsibility of business. The question is:
what is business about? What is its goal? How can we transform business as usual into
sustainable business and move toward sustainability? (WBCSD, 2005). It is neither a
question of opportunities nor obligations. Yet, it is not supererogative because, in the
long term, companies will have no choice but to transform into sustainable enterprises
(Parrish, 2007). CSR is considered here as the future of capitalism; the element which will
shape it in the coming decades.

The ethic of care

The “ethic of care” construct arose in the context of the controversy between Carol
Gilligan and Lawrence Kohlberg in the field of moral development psychology
(Donleavy, 2008; Reiter, 1996; Thompson, 1995). Gilligan (1982) assumes that, while The ethics of care
men conceptualize morality as a problem of rights, women tend to conceptualize it as
involving empathy and compassion for others. This feminine moral orientation should
not be considered inferior, simply different: what she calls “a different voice.” If this
link between women and care ethics is relevant from a historical perspective, it is
questionable from a theoretical and empirical perspective. We agree with scholars such
as Sherwin (quoted in: Borgerson, 2007, p. 485) who “do not believe it is appropriate to 35
characterize the ethics of care as specifically feminist.” We propose herein a two-sided
definition of care ethics based on human nature (valid for men and women), as being
both a “disposition” and “practice” (Tronto, 1993).
First, most care theorists agree that ethics is not only about reasoning. Emotions are
essential for acting as a moral agent, and “cold-bloodedness” can lead to undesirable
moral actions (Damasio, 2000). For some care theorists, morality relies heavily on
the disposition for empathy (Skoe, 2010; Slote, 2007), which can be defined as
“a psychological disposition to put oneself in someone else’s shoes”[1] (Berthoz and
Jorland, 2004, p. 19). Noddings prefers to speak of “engrossment” rather than empathy
(1984), as the former involves a more active and less receptive attitude than the latter.
Some other authors focus on “attention,” on the fact that it matters to be attentive
(Molinier et al., 2009). The words use to describe it may vary, but morality is most often
seen to go beyond reasoning, as it is contextual, and involves sensitivity and
receptiveness. From a business point of view, this means that “with care theory, the
emotional becomes part of the occupational”[1] (Pesqueux, 2011a, p. 5).
However, Tronto (1993) criticizes authors who do not include a practical aspect in the
ethics of care. If care ethics is only dispositional, it is in danger of disappearing or staying
purely theoretical. Actually, many care practices are part of our day-to-day lives and can
easily be brought to mind: helping the elderly cross the street, spending time working in
community services, helping a younger brother/sister do his/her homework, etc. The
specificity of those practices is that they aim at sustaining relationships and responding
to the needs of others. With its reliance on “relational anthropology” (Renouard, 2011)
and its acknowledgement of the need for social connection embedded in human nature
(Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008), the originality of care theory is that “maintaining
relationships is becoming a moral issue as important as the search for justice” (Garrau
and Le Goff, 2010, p. 43). We thus propose to define care ethics as an empathic disposition
which is translated into practices for the sake of other human beings.

Care ethics, stakeholder inclusion, and CSR perception

Care ethics has been linked in the literature only indirectly to CSR, most of the time
through stakeholder theory. First, it has been described as a way to replace CSR and to
conceptualize “corporations as a network of relationships makes possible a social world
in which ‘caring’ has primary significance” (Freeman and Liedtka, 1991, p. 92). Second, it
has been seen as a way to improve stakeholder theory. It can help to do away with the
“masculine metaphors” which underlie the stakeholder concept, such as autonomy,
control, competition, conflict, objectivity, power, and authority (Wicks et al., 1994). It can
provide the moral foundations stakeholder theory lacks. Whereas justice and utilitarian
theory seem irrelevant, the care framework could provide a useful perspective
(Burton and Dunn, 1996). Because stakeholder theory has been criticized as
“ambiguous” (Pesqueux, 2006, p. 17) and has “so far had little to say about how
SBR managers and other decision makers in business are made aware of morally
8,1 significant relationships” (Palmer and Stoll, 2011, p. 115), some contributions relying on
care theory try to give more details on what principles can help managers to make
practical decisions regarding which stakeholders should be cared for in priority. Burton
and Dunn made an initial attempt at this, but their approach was criticized as being still
too vague (Wicks, 1996). Engster (2011) drew upon it and tried to make it more precise,
36 giving an order in the priority to care: stockholders and employees are first on the list;
local communities are second, and finally customers. Suppliers and competitors are not
considered as being in the scope of caring for managers.
This potential link between care ethics and stakeholder theory is very important for
CSR issues, since stakeholder theory “has emerged as the dominant paradigm in CSR”
(McWilliams and Siegel, 2001, p. 118). Even though the notion of corporate social
responsibility emerged (Bowen, 1953) much earlier than the notion of the stakeholder
(Freeman, 1984), “Bowen’s description of the corporation is extremely close to that
adopted subsequently by stakeholder approaches” (Acquier et al., 2011). Obviously,
other theories of CSR exist and the stakeholder approach is far from being consensual
inside this field of research. This absence of consensus is increased by the fact that
Freeman has proposed more than one version of the stakeholder theory, shifting from an
instrumental to a normative perspective. Nevertheless, as we focus herein on individual
attitudes toward CSR and not on theories, we assume that CSR perception is correlated
with stakeholder inclusion. If we can also assume that care ethics is a foundation for the
stakeholder approach, care ethics could be therefore considered as a determinant for CSR
perception.

Hypotheses
We propose to test three different hypotheses in this paper. The first one is about the
relationship between the ethics of care and stakeholder inclusion. We assume that the
more caring business students are, the more they will be inclined to incorporate a
variety of stakeholders in a CSR approach. We specify H1 as follows:
H1. Stakeholder inclusion is positively correlated with care ethics among business
students.
Second, we will verify that our experimental design shows a relationship between CSR
perceptions and stakeholder inclusion:
H2. CSR perception is correlated to stakeholder inclusion among business
students.
Third, we will verify the transitivity between H1 and H2. Hence, we assume that
business students’ individual ethics of care has a positive influence on their perception
of CSR. We specify H3 as follows:
H3. CSR perception is correlated to care ethics among business students.
To be more specific, we assume that this correlation will be negative concerning the
critical perception of CSR:
H3a. Critical CSR perception is negatively correlated to care ethics among business
students.
Method The ethics of care
Participants
The population for this study consisted of students from a leading French business
school. In total, 535 first-year Masters of Science in Management students were sampled.
In total, 450 questionnaires were properly completed, 84 percent of the sample. They
were 51.6 percent men. The students ranged in age from 18 to 39 (M ¼ 21.2, SD ¼ 2.39).
The majority (66.4 percent) are students that entered the masters just after specific 37
French preparation for top business schools. The others entered the school after
graduating from another program. About 15 percent report to be scholarship recipients,
which, in France, is one of the most used criteria to assess the social origin of students.
About 30.8 percent report having previously had coursework on CSR.

Measures
Stakeholder inclusion. A six-item dependent variable (Z) was designed using a scale
ranging from 0, “I do not agree at all,” to 4, “I fully agree.” Each item of Z refers to a
different category of stakeholder that is considered to be incorporated in a CSR
approach. We have chosen the stakeholders that are given by Engster (2011) when he
discusses the link between care ethics and stakeholder theory: shareholders,
employees, clients, suppliers, competitors, and communities. Z is the average of the
scales of the various stakeholders (M ¼ 2.8, SD ¼ 0.73).
CSR. We designed items to illustrate the five different conceptions of CSR
previously discussed. For each item, we asked the students to rate on a scale that
ranges from 0, “I do not agree at all,” to 4, “I fully agree.” In Table I, the items for each
type of perception can be found. Interestingly, the critical vision of CSR is the least
adopted by students. We can also note that CSR is perceived to be more a moral
obligation than a legal requirement. In addition, the instrumental value of CSR relies
mostly on reputation management.
Care ethics. To our knowledge, the ECI metrics built by the Norwegian psychologist
Skoe (1993) is the only existing assessment tool for the ethics of care. It is based on an
interview consisting of four moral dilemmas, including a dilemma in a real context.

Mean SD

Critical 1.63 0.98

CSR is an utopia 2.02 1.15
CSR is a passing fad 1.23 1.15
Normative 2.60 0.80
CSR meets a legal requirement 1.83 1.17
CSR addresses a moral obligation 3.36 0.90
Instrumental 2.19 0.68
CSR maximizes profit for shareholders 0.92 1.02
CSR responds to a need for innovation 2.46 1.13
CSR increases employee engagement 2.20 1.13
CSR is an issue of image and reputation 3.20 0.94
Supererogative 2.99 1.03
CSR is a voluntary process Table I.
Sustainable 2.68 1.12 Items for the five types
CSR is an idea for the future of capitalism and trade of CSR perceptions
SBR Raters score the interview to assess the level of ECI (from 3 to 12). This scale does
8,1 indeed seem to be statistically robust and has been used in many different areas in the
field of moral development psychology. Unfortunately, it considers care to be mainly a
reasoning ability, whereas we stated earlier that care has to be defined not only as
cognitive but also as an affective disposition.
DeMoss and McCann (1997) carried out a study based on an adaptation of the
38 sentence completion test (SCT). This methodology has been tested only once in the
literature. Moreover, it was used to show if students were either “justice-oriented” or
“care-oriented,” which is not our intention here. And just like Skoe’s ECI, the SCT is
based only on individual dispositions, whereas, as we stated previously, care also
includes “practices” (Tronto, 1993).
This was our reasoning behind our decision to create a new scale. We paid particular
attention to conceptualization in this process of scale development, as recommended by
MacKenzie et al. (2011). We used focus groups, a literature review, and pre-tests to aid in
designing a final list of 14 Likert scale items including “dispositions” and “practices”
items (see Appendix). This scale, which we propose to call the care ethics scale (CES),
ranges from 0, “I do not agree at all,” to 4, “I fully agree.” Cronbach’s a is 0.86. CES is the
average of all the scores for the items (M ¼ 2.71, SD ¼ 0.6). Controlling variables were
also used: gender, age, social origin (scholarship recipient or not) and self-reported
previous CSR coursework (binary scale, “yes” or “no”).

Results
As shown in Table II, the Pearson’s correlation between CES and Z is significant and
equal to 0.34 ( p , 0.0001). The correlation between CES and each category of
stakeholder constituting Z is also significant.
We can make several remarks based on these results. First, they clearly support our
first assumption (H1) that stakeholder inclusion is related to care ethics among students.
Second, the assumption made by Engster (2011), about the order for stakeholder
inclusion according to care ethics, seems undermined by this survey. If employees are
indeed at the top of the list, suppliers and competitors are not excluded and shareholders
are not prioritized. Communities appear to be central and not secondary. We note that for
business students, care ethics is not obviously equated to the actual capitalistic model
that puts the shareholder at the center of the interests of the company’s strategy. This is
in line with some authors that see in care ethics a theory that leads to the wholesale

CES Previous coursework Age Gender Scholarship recipient

Stakeholder inclusion (Z) 0.34 * * * 0.05 0.02 0.07 0.00

Employees 0.33 * * * 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.05
Customers 0.24 * * * 0.02 20.01 0.08 0.04
Suppliers 0.28 * * * 0.11 0.03 0.09 20.01
Competitors 0.19 * * * 0.02 0.00 0.10 * 20.02
Shareholders 0.15 * * * 0.01 0.01 0.04 20.02
Communities 0.32 * * * 0.05 0.01 20.01 0.00
Table II.
Pearson’s correlations Notes: Significant at: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, and * * *p , 0.001; gender was scored 0 for men and
between CES and 1 for women; previous coursework was scored 0 for “no” and 1 for “yes” scholarship recipient was
stakeholder inclusion scored 0 for “no” and 1 for “yes”
rejection of capitalism (Hamington and Sander-Staudt, 2011). We can note also that The ethics of care
women do not include more stakeholders than men. This is interesting, since we
indicated earlier that care theory has often been considered to be a feminist theory.
Finally, we can also observe that taking a course on CSR does not create more desire for
stakeholder inclusion. Here again, this would point favorably to the care assumption
that morality is not based mainly on reasoning and classroom teaching.
The second assumption, that CSR perception relies on stakeholder inclusion, is 39
supported by the results reported in Table III. The relationship between CSR and
stakeholder inclusion is present among students whatever their perception (negative
correlation for critical perception, positive correlation for other types of perception).
Concerning the third and final assumption about the positive relationship between
care ethics and CSR perception, the results are reported in Table IV.
These results support our assumption that care ethics is determinant for all kinds of
CSR perception. The specific assumption that CES is negatively correlated to critical
perception of CSR is also supported.

Discussion and suggestions for further research

These figures show the existence of an empirical relationship between ethics of care,
stakeholder inclusion, and perceptions of CSR. However, when we look at the
correlations between the different kinds of CSR perception, we see that, apart from the
critical perception, they are all correlated positively (Table V).
Scholars do not agree on the meaning that should be given to CSR, but they do
agree on the fact that the existing meanings are not consistent. Normative validity and
instrumental power are not usually considered to be compatible. The normative CSR
approach is clearly not consistent with the supererogative approach. We can see here a
confirmation that CSR is actually a concept which is vague and ambiguous

Stakeh. incl. (Z) Employ. Custom. Suppl. Compet. Shareh. Comm.

Critical 20.15 * * 20.15 * * * 2 0.13 * * 2 0.16 * * * 20.09 0.07 0.18 * * *

Normative 0.34 * * * 0.24 * * * 0.23 * * * 0.25 * * * 0.18 * * * 0.16 * * * 0.28 * * *
Instrumental 0.33 * * * 0.25 * * * 0.18 * * * 0.24 * * * 0.22 * * * 0.29 * * * 0.24 * * *
Table III.
Supererogative 0.22 * * * 0.28 * * * 0.22 * * * 0.14 * * 0.04 0.09 0.20 * * *
Pearson’s correlations
Sustainable 0.22 * * * 0.23 * * * 0.17 * * * 0.18 * * * 0.08 0.02 0.27 * * *
between CSR vision and
Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, and * * *p , 0.001 stakeholder inclusion

CES Previous coursework Age Gender Scholarship recipient

Critical 20.19 * * * 0.03 20.07 20.07 0.02

Normative 0.30 * * * 0.11 * 20.05 0.10 * 0.04
Instrumental 0.23 * * * 0.07 20.02 0.03 20.04
Supererogative 0.21 * * * 0.00 0.00 0.02 20.11 * Table IV.
Sustainable 0.26 * * * 20.02 0.03 0.16 * * * 20.02 Pearson’s correlations
with dependent variables
Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, and * * *p , 0.001 on CSR vision
SBR (Pesqueux, 2011b), at least in the minds of the students at this leading French business
school. The implications of this are not only for CSR, but also for stakeholder theory.
8,1 Since stakeholder inclusion is correlated to the different kinds of CSR perception, the
concept of stakeholder can be criticized as being usable for defending any position
(Pesqueux, 2011 a, b). It is a form of utopia which could possibly be dangerous. Because
of its vagueness and ambiguity, it can legitimize any kind of corporate decision. Thus,
40 we can assume that the students surveyed express actual sensitivity for the social
dimension of business, more than a clear vision of what CSR is and who the
stakeholders should be.
We would like to discuss the implications of these results for business education. Two
avenues could be pursued concerning the teaching of business and society and the links
between ethics of care and CSR. In the case of normative, instrumental, or sustainable
settings, business education should require students to learn how to implement CSR
when they later become managers. Educare is therefore needed in the curriculum, since
we have shown that a positive perception of CSR is primarily determined by personal
care ethics. If one chooses the critical perspective, nothing has to be done in terms of
educare, since CSR is not targeted as a managerial practice. In a supererogative setting,
CSR should be encouraged as a possible good practice, but not as something which is
part of the core business curriculum. In this case, the development of care ethics should
certainly be considered as an optional track. Concerning the inclusion of stakeholders,
one way to address this issue indirectly would be through the ethics of care. We could
shift from a focus either on the link between CSR and stakeholders or between
stakeholders and ethics of care to a stress on the link between CSR and ethics of care.
This could help recenter the focus on individual empowerment for sustaining
relationships, and put an end to the collective disempowerment created by the
stakeholder notion.
Future research could take a variety of directions. First, researchers could try to
consolidate these results by extending the survey to other business schools and also to
employees or managers on the job. Second, the CES could be strengthened, as its validity
could be challenged for at least two reasons. First, is care ethics really assessable since
the very nature of the ethics of care is that it is “hidden”? (Molinier et al., 2009). Second, is
it possible to say that someone is more caring than someone else, since care is always
embedded in the context of a specific relationship? (Noddings, 2002). Lastly, following
some recent research, we could investigate what kind of CSR vision generates the most
sustainable mutual benefit for society and the firm (Gyves and O’Higgins, 2008). It could
help business schools to clarify the place of ethics and CSR in their curriculum in order to
be consistent in building a “Business and Society” curriculum and sidestep the current
ambiguity of the notion of CSR.

Critical Normative Instrumental Supererogative Sustainable

Critical 20.12 * 0.05 20.09 20.20 * * *

Normative 0.23 * * * 0.12 * 0.26 * * *
Instrumental 0.24 * * * 0.21 * * *
Supererogative 0.20 * * *
Table V. Sustainable
Pearson’s correlations
between CSR perceptions Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, and * * *p , 0.001
Note The ethics of care
1. This citation was translated from the French by the author.

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Appendix. Items for the CES

.
I am particularly sensitive to other people’s suffering.
.
Sometimes I think about people who are less fortunate than I am.
.
I feel affected by people who are vulnerable or dependant on others.
.
Generally speaking, other people’s problems do not bother me much.
.
When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them.
.
I would describe myself as a rather empathetic person.
.
I understand people who feel they are not fully appreciated.
.
When I pass homeless people in the street, I sometimes wonder how our society can find
that acceptable.
.
I feel profoundly outraged by the suffering or poverty that some people are forced to live
with.
SBR .
When I see a pregnant woman or an elderly person in public transit, I willingly get up to
let them have my seat.
8,1 .
When I see someone who has trouble crossing the street, I offer to help them.
.
I sometimes help my friends who are having trouble.
.
I regularly check in on people who I know are going through a difficult time.
.
I do volunteer work for people in need.
44
About the author
Kévin André is Research Officer for IIES ESSEC and currently PhD student at Sorbonne
Business School. He holds a Master in Management from ESSEC Business School (2000) and a
Master in Philosophy from Paris-I Sorbonne University (2006). His research interests in the
business and society field include: social value assessment, human development and capability
approach, sustainable business, equality of opportunities, care theories and business ethics
education. Before joining IIES, he has co-founded and managed the community organization
“Zup de Co” implementing mentoring programs for disadvantaged students. He also taught both
in public primary school and in business schools (EMLV, MIP). Kévin André can be contacted at:
andrek@[Link]

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