CONTRIBUTION À UNE GÉNÉALOGIE DE LA RESPONSABILITÉ SOCIÉTALE DE L’ENTREPRISE

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon for companies and their partners.
Many scholars consider it as a fashion. However, we cannot ignore its historical roots. Many companies, especially in industry, developed social and environmental policies and practices a long time ago. These practical
and historical dimensions remain yet absent from the academic literature on CSR. In this article, we propose
to study a case over a long period of time, from 1954 until 2005, in order to understand how manufacturers
took into account the various economic, social and environmental aspects of their activity, at the time of an
investment, then during the exploitation of a production site of aluminium. The case of the company Alucam
established in Cameroun shows how the manufacturers integrated the Triple Bottom Line (economic, social
and environmental), well before the ’invention’ of CSR.