This comparative study explores 499 corporate social responsibility initiatives implemented by 178 corporations in five distinct, institutionally consistent European clusters. This study provides an empirically grounded response to calls to develop comprehensive, nuanced pictures of CSR in the composite European business environment. In so doing, the article stresses three distinct, non-exclusive approaches that characterize the embedding of CSR considerations in corporations’ strategies across Europe and the CSR challenges for corporations operating in different socio-political contexts. Furthermore, the study reaffirms the CSR (...) notion as a contextualized concept, shaped by socio-political drivers, and contributes by bridging macro-level, socio-political facets of CSR with its meso-level, organizational implications. (shrink)