INTRODUCTION

Ethics appeared during the Antiquity with the Greek philosophers. Aristotle declared “all human activity aim at some good, and the good which is chosen for its own sake rather than as means to an end is the highest good”. During the Age of Enlightenment, ethics was considered as an apology of the reason, because she allowed dominating the nature. Ethics is thus grounded on the appropriate values for each, which evolved over time until reach the business market and companies.

Since the Brundtland report (1987) then the conference of Rio (1992), companies are more and more confronted with the awareness of a society turned toward environmental and social considerations, the respect for the nature and the human rights with the responsibilities of each with regard to the future generations, and henceforth have to integrate them into their strategies, and by the same, in search of profits. This new “business model” is called "Corporate Social Responsibility".

If the Society isn’t well, the market won’t be well and these are the economy and business that won’t be well. (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Walking the talk, 2003).

There are numerous definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility.

The BNET business Dictionary defines Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as « a voluntary approach that a business enterprise takes to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations by integrating social, ethical, and environmental concerns together with the usual measures of revenue, profit, and legal obligation ».

The European Commission defines companies socially responsible as those who "decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment”.

Corporate Social Responsibility thus appears as a realization of the integration of ethical consideration in business (Sautré, 2003); which seemed to be previously only governed by the logic of the profit. However, Corporate Social Responsibility is far from having