Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the broader question of how business firms are connected to large-scale societal grand challenges such as climate change and inequality continues to be one of the most prominent topics in management studies. This Thematic Collection on CSR showcases the evolution of CSR research published in the Journal of Management Studies from 2006 to 2021. Alongside the mainstreaming of CSR within management studies, research in JMS has progressed from a business-centric to a society-centric focus. The business-centric focus centres on the financial implications of CSR on business firms, and advocates CSR to the extent that it leads to improved financial performance or some other competitive advantage for the firm. The society-centric focus asks broader questions about the appropriate role and location of business in society and its political and institutional contexts, and it reflects a wider set of variables of interest beyond firm financial performance. Understanding this evolution is crucial because it helps to elucidate where CSR research is headed and how the role of business in society is conceptualised. Based on these developments, the introduction to this Thematic Collection outlines three emergent avenues for future research: the reintegration of governments as important actors shaping CSR, the need to reorient the dependent variables used in CSR research toward tangible social and ecological outcomes, and the importance of CSR research tackling interrelated societal crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.

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