CSR: A Lecture, a Book, and a Question...

Last week's guest speaker on CSR was really good. I liked the real-world examples from his everyday working life. Very cool, as it was more concrete than some of the books I've read on CSR (my newest dissertation idea). I am reading a book, however, that is very good, and although it deals with marketing, some of the ideas in it are applicable to the CSR issue. It's called Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber. It's full of concrete detail, as well. But more importantly, it really stresses the idea of transparency by businesses who use social networking as PR / word of mouth marketing tools. Which is really the complete opposite of how PR started out, what with Bernays advocating the behind-the-scenes manipulation of the masses. Interesting how business practices in general have gotten more ethical in the past century. Yea forward progress! Okay, so back to the CSR lecture. I can't decide what part I liked the most...the handy bullet point list of why CSR has come into being in the past decade--especially great for the dissertation!!--or the 5 complaints about / excuses for not using CSR. However, I am not sure that one would have to be a specialist to create a good program for a company. I mean, as a consultant who specializes in creating such programs, of course it makes sense for Mr Garfunkel to make such a statement. But really, since, as stated above, the core elements seem to be voluntary social / ethical best practice carried out with transparency, then it seems to me that such a program could be conceived by the communications team. Is Mr Garfunkel perhaps falling victim to the depiction of PR as insubstantial spin?