A third approach to CSR is what we call the hybrid approach. The hybrid approach tries to reconcile the instrumental and ethical approaches to CSR. It is characterized by rejecting or downplaying the potential conflicts between financial and moral considerations, i.e. supporters of this position believes that the interests of companies and society at large (mostly) coincide. In the (characteristically) optimistic jargon of much business literature, social demands (roughly what we have called ethical demands) and profit match each other, offering a “win-win”situation. The hybrid position has one main advantage, namely that it seems to solve
the dilemma between economic and ethical considerations facing business leaders worldwide on a daily basis. By asserting that the conflict between companies’ self interests and society’s interests is by and large an illusion, the hybrid position seems like a very attractive alternative. It is not difficult to muster examples that support the intuition that society and businesses prosper in conjunction. Businesses provides goods and services, they employ people and hence give them a livelihood, the workplace is very important for person’s sense of self-esteem etc. and businesses need profit to provide all these good things. The question is, however, whether the hybrid approach is empirically realistic. We will not go into a thorough discussion of the matter here. However, one general point seems appropriate: It is an empirical
question whether doing the right thing always pays off—whether there is never a conflict between maximising profit and acting morally. It seems very unlikely that this should always be the case, and supporters of the hybrid approach should provide an answer about what companies should do when such conflicts occur. The problem here is that if they argue that profit should prevail when there is a conflict then the hybrid approach is indistinguishable from the instrumental. Likewise, if they argue that the ethical choice is the right one, then the hybrid position
collapses into the ethical. In the absence of the (happy but improbable) circumstance that profits and ethics always coincide, the hybrid approach lacks cogency and we shall limit ourselves to a discussion of the instrumental and the ethical approach. In this part, we shall focus on the instrumental approach, only to zoom in on the ethical in the next.