**5. Conclusion and implications**

The evolvement of social and ecological requirements created a dynamic corporate framework that leads to alternate business practices. This evolution has widened the CSR scope. Hence, CSR went from a defensive or a philanthropic extra activity to a part of the core business. These successive mutations influenced the CSR-innovation link. In this chapter, we analyzed the evolvement of the CSR conception based on four ages: the age of greed, the age of philanthropy, the marketing age and the management age. Moreover, we presented the links between the different CSR versions and corporate innovation. This link is associated with corporate competitiveness.

CSR forms a road map for an emerging innovation paradigm if it is strategically perceived. Indeed, the CSR and innovation nexus is influenced by the managerial perspectives, which are the cores of the CSR understanding and innovation initiatives. However, the managers' social commitment is not an independent factor. It is affected by the institutional framework. In other words, it depends on the legal, social and economic pressures as well as the digital transformation. With an economic system similar to a Matryoshka doll, decision-makers have to predict future evolutions through strengthening their social network. They have to identify the right moments and persons with whom they should collaborate to create shared value, enhance their innovativeness and improve their environment comprehension. Regulators should consider the continuous evolvement of the business-work and the technological improvement to control the irresponsible behaviours. They can help firms to identify the appropriate timing of the CSR and innovation synergetic effect occurrence.

Finally, we draw attention that the strategic CSR version is not the last one. Nowadays, a transformative CSR is taking place. The difference between these two CSR versions is that while strategic CSR has been included in the core business, the transformative CSR is the trigger of the business. Investors are creating new social start-ups where business innovativeness is driven by social and ecological matters. Thus, their innovativeness is a responsible innovation.

*Corporate Social Responsibility*
