A Special‐Purpose Taxonomy of Corporate Social Performance Concepts

The first iteration of a nonstatic special‐purpose taxonomy of corporate social performance concepts is developed from a mailed, self‐administered survey completed by managers of U.S. socially responsible mutual funds. The study combines the traditionally disparate research areas of Corporate Social Performance and Socially Responsible Investing. As a partial update of Rockness and Williams (1988), a descriptive account is presented of what mutual fund managers regard as the social issues that constitute corporate social performance. The resulting taxonomy represents an empirically derived framework useful in considering social accounting in general and accounting standard setting in particular.