Concern of researchers and reviewers on incongruent theoretical exposition and inconclusive empirical results linking corporate social responsible (CSR) actions and firm performance, drives this paper to come up with a three-stage process model which explains how strategic CSR actions contribute to firm performance. This paper also addresses the concern of critics regarding the business value of CSR by espousing a multidisciplinary theoretical approach which covers literature from CSR, social capital and resource based view. Such a theoretical exposition and the exploratory process model- a result of synthesis of fifty-four published business cases-uncover that the relation between CSR actions and firm performance is far from simple and is affected by numerous socio-economic and organizational variables. Recognizing the inter relationship among these dimensions and variables might enrich our understanding of the strategic nature of CSR and might lead to a rich research agenda that links CSR actions with firm performance.