Over the past several decades, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) ‘pyramid’ (Carroll, 1991) has established itself as a landmark in the landscape of CSR theories, definitions, approaches, and frameworks. A growing body of international research is however now posing a serious empirical challenge to the hierarchy, scope, number, and importance of the CSR pyramid’s responsibilities. To gain a better understanding of this influential model in the business and society academic field, a systematic CSR pyramid (CSRP) literature review is conducted in terms of: (1) the influencers of the CSRP; (2) the CSRP’s four social responsibility dimensions (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic); and (3) the consequences of the CSRP’s dimensions. Several features of the CSRP are discovered including context-dependent CSRP hierarchies, trade-off tensions between the economic responsibility dimension and the other three CSRP dimensions, and its highly contested narrow responsibility definitions. The paper concludes with its implications for future CSR research.