The authors analyze the creation and capture of private and social value by firms that adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Strategic CSR is defined as any “responsible” activity that allows a firm to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, regardless of motive. To provide a roadmap for managers to accomplish this objective, the authors integrate the resource-based theory (RBT) framework with concepts and tools from economics, such as hedonic pricing, contingent valuation, and the new literature on the economics of industrial organization, where CSR is referred to as “the private provision of public goods.” By linking CSR, RBT, economic models of private provision of public goods, and pricing models, the authors demonstrate how RBT can provide a structure for determining the strategic value of CSR. They then discuss the conditions under which CSR can contribute to sustainable competitive advantage.

The past few decades have been characterized by a growing body of profit-seeking public service areas with the understanding that profit-seeking organizations will deliver public services more efficiently than government can. These sectors include, but are not limited to, health care, corrections, education and garbage collection. Governments have created quasi markets to attract private providers of services in these sectors, with varying results. Organizational economics has provided the primary explanation for quasi markets, but questions about the sought-for efficiencies actually realized through these markets persist. We integrate resource dependence theory and organizational economics to provide a more comprehensive explanation of the persistence of quasi markets.