Corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility have become hot topics of debate for business, academia and organised civil society in Latin America. However, although there is a lot of material in Spanish and Portuguese, there are few publications available in English. This special issue of JCC opens the discussion in English across different countries in the region.

Corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility have become hot topics of debate for business, academia and organised civil society in Latin America. However, although there is a lot of material in Spanish and Portuguese, there are few publications available in English. This special issue of JCC opens the discussion in English across different countries in the region.

This chapter provides an overview of the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in Latin America to understand the impact these practices have had on communities. We will review the research and practice of CSR in Latin America, then highlight successful and unsuccessful community development experiences resulting from CSR activities.The focus is on communities composed of low-income populations and the lessons learned from their experiences. The final sections describe current CSR trends in Latin America and the research that needs to be done.