Arguing for Corporate Social Responsibility
Introduction:
The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) originated in 19537 with the publication of Bowen’s book Social Responsibilities of Businessmen (Carrol, 1999). Some perceived that at that time, the emphasis is placed on business people’s social conscience, rather than on the company itself. Some argue that corporate entities do not have any social responsibility except the ones that were written in agreement with government while establishing corporate entities, whereas others justify that corporate entities do have social responsibility. The roots of critics of CSR are so old that it is a challenge to the neoclassical business model itself (Valor, 2005). According to Smith (2005), there are five major arguments against corporate social responsibility. These are the problem of competing claims, competitive disadvantage, competence, fairness and legitimacy. We will discuss below the arguments made against the concept of CSR and also we will counter argue these prepositions.
Is only social responsibility of business is to create shareholder wealth?
First important arguments against CSR come from Friedman (2007). He argues that CSR is not in the shareholders’ interest and the idea that companies have a responsibility to act in the public interest and will profit from doing so is fundamentally flawed.. He argues that moral responsibility of the company is also to maximize the benefits for its shareholder. And spending
Corporations are encouraged to conduct their activities in an ethically responsible manner, however neither the corporate world nor academia has produced a single – all encompassing definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The basic problem is that there are too many self-serving definitions that often lean toward the specific interests of the entities involved (Van Marrewijk, 2003). There has even been a quantitative study conducted on the many definitions of the term (Dahlsrud, 2006).
In this review, the primary subject is the ‘business case’ for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.
“Businesses are owned by their shareholders - money spent on CSR by managers is theft of the rightful property of the owners-This is the voice of the laisser-faire 1980s, still being given powerful voice by advocates such as Elaine Sternberg. Sternberg argues that there is a human rights case against CSR, which is that a stakeholder approach to management deprives shareholders of their property rights.” (mallenbaker.net). This is one of the opinions which is against the concept of CSR which blames this theory for violating human rights of shareholders. Moreover, Lantos (2001), in the article ‘The boundaries of strategic corporate social responsibility’, while in agreement with the
This is a persuasive paper defining various business terms like corporate social responsibility and equal distribution of wealth. The thesis statement does state that the CSR programs are applied in various developed organizations to set an example for small and rising enterprises whereas the anti thesis statement is that there are no moral obligations felt by businesses to be involved in CSR. The financial aspect of CSR activities is also discussed; at times it is thought that involvement of business in any environmental friendly work may lead to higher costs whereas an opposite point of view is that CSR increases long run profit (Aras & Crowther, 2009). Now day’s Triple bottom line concept is aligned with business which is another
Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) has been viewed in different ways by different school of thoughts; some see it has a voluntary initiative, while others think it’s a main part of every company’s structure and even an opportunity to improve brand. For this work, we would take the position of the later argument. It is simply giving back to the environment that you gain from. It involves protection of the environment, development of quality of the occupants of the environment and improving their quality of life. Like Barnard (1938), it is analyzing the social, economic, moral, legal and physical aspects of the environment.
Previous writing of corporate social responsibility, and it was cited to more often as a social responsibility(SR) than as (CSR) from several year. Perhaps this was because the age of the recent corporation’s prominence and dominance in the business sectors had not yet occurred or been note.The publication by Howard R. Bowen(1953) of his landmark book “Social Responsibilities of businessman” is debate to mark the beginning of the modern period of literature on this subject (Carroll, et al., (2008)).
Archie Carroll defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as “the social responsibility of business encompassing the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of these organizations at a given point in time.” (Crane, 5) Interesting enough, there has been an abrupt growth of firm’s engagement in CSR within all industries. This is the result of growing requests from the civil society demanding firms, of all sizes, to legitimize their practices. (Crane, 4)
Corporate social responsibility (CSR), has been the centre of debate since the last decade, with the increase in technology and globalization, company policies have come under a lot of scrutiny. Although this issue is not relatively new but with the hype of increasing media coverage and in the wake of high profile corporate scandals (Enron, WorldCom) the emphasis has mounted (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2013). Organizations play a vital and ever so increasing role in the lives of people, other organizations and the wider community in general (Mullins, 2013). Hence it is the responsibility of these organizations to act in such a manner that accommodates the wider society. In 1970, economist Milton Friedman once argued “the business of business
The issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been bantered since the 1950s. Latest analyses by Secchi (2007) and Lee (2008) reported that the meaning of CSR has been changing in significance and practice. The traditional perspective of CSR was barely constrained to charity and afterward moved to the attention on business-society relations especially alluding to the commitment that a company or firm accommodated tackling social issues. In the early twentieth century, social execution was tied up with business execution. Thusly, business makes riches in the public eye and gives better expectations for everyday life.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become imperative on business convention nowadays. CSR can be defined as the way that firms manage the business processes to generate a positive influence on society (Baker, 2004). The term CSR was appeared in the 1950s, but until 1989, Ben and Jerry’s was the first company which truly publish a social responsibility report (Coles, 2012). In recent years, numerous organizations evaluate firms on their CSR performance since the society is concerned about the CSR ranking. Consequently, business managers in various countries may treat CSR as an inevitable priority (Porter & Kramer, 2006). Nevertheless, CSR is still a controversial issue in the world. Some businesses are struggling to balance corporate
As the dramatically growing of economies and development of technology in the last century. The term of Corporate Social Responsibility appears more often into public’s concerned and it has become a hot issue in recent years. This essay is going to discuss and provide an overview of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by debate some key issue in this area.
The classic origin of the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) came from the principle that the purpose of the corporation is to make profits for the stockholders. This view of Milton Friedman came to be referred to later as the classical theory of CSR (Bowie, 1991). Tom Donaldson argued that this theory derived from the concept of the social contract between the corporation and the society where it operates. This perspective, however, faced criticism over its inherently opportunistic and exploitative viewpoint. A corporate vision aimed only at upholding the shareholder’s right to profit for their investment logically will have to qualm of exploiting stakeholders to serve the end game of profit. It will have no qualms at paying
The (Commission, 2015) defines CSR as “companies taking responsibility for their impact on society”. It adds that CSR should be initiated by companies, with public authorities playing a supporting role through policy and regulation. Companies the commission would consider as socially responsible would have to comply with the law, integrate social, environmental, ethical, consumer and human rights concerns into their business and strategy operations. This recent definition of CSR covers most if not all of the angles of the different definitions and models of CSR put forth by writers in the CSR space. However as written by many authors, this is a dynamic field that continues to evolve (Carroll and Shabana, 2010, Geva, 2008, Carroll, 1999, Lee, 2008, Pirnea et al., 2011, Waddock, 2008). According to (Spector, 2008) its roots can be traced to the pre- World War II era (early years of the cold war), but for the sake of this paper we shall not go that far back. We
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization(UNIDO) defines ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’(CSR) as “a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their stakeholders”. The term is explained through a “Triple-Bottom-Line Approach” as being the way through which a company achieves a balance of economic, environmental and social imperatives (“Triple-Bottom-Line”) while at the same time addressing the expectations of shareholders and stakeholders (Elkington, 1997). This approach assumes a very significant light in today’s dynamic world where every aspect of life is inter-connected in a very mysterious fabric, where the alteration of one can affect the others in ways beyond comprehension. Corporate Social Responsibility, both as a term and concept, started becoming popular in the 1960s, when industrialization which sprouted in the Industrial Revolution was fixating its roots all across the world. Industrialization can be defined as the “period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one”. Just like the correlation and dependence of the various aspects of life with each other, it is seen that CSR and Industrialization shared their space of mutual effects as well.