Social Darwinism didn't shape Carnegie's business practices.
Carnegie began to worship Herbert Spencer after he became wealthy,
and he was comforted by Spencer's views, feeling that they
justified what he had done, but he ignored some of Spencer's
theories and became a philanthropist after he retired. He provided
pensions for his workers and supported the 5 day work week, which
Spencer would not have, although his actual philanthropy involved
building libraries and contributing to them. Carnegie had begun
life poor and believed that people could improve their situation in
life. That wasn't part of Spencer's philosophy. Darwin didn't
actually coin survival of the fittest, and his book On the Origin
of the Species came out after Spencer's. Spencer expanded Darwin's
theory of evolution to connect it to society. The problem with that
is that all people are in the same stage of evolution, and no one
is any more evolved than anyone else, some are just more greedy. So
evolution really has little or nothing to do with social Darwinism,
and probably should be called laissez faire Spencerism.
Rockefeller said that the growth of large business (monopolies)
was survival of the fittest and that some people were destined to
live off the hard work of others. So it is safe to say that Social
Darwinism didn't shape their business practices, but that they used
it to justify them.