Company Q's Social Responsibility

In (Cohen, 2008), the author quotes (Drucker, 1946) in noting that “Every organization must assume full responsibility for its impact on its employees, the environment, customers, and whomever and whatever it touches”. According to (Cohen, 2008; Drucker, 1946), that is the very definition of social responsibility. There are many ambiguities surrounding the concept of social responsibility; everything from definition to terminology, even what actions constitute responsible behavior is unsettled (Vogel, 2005). For purposes of this paper we will use the term corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This essay will analyse the strengths, limitations and challenges of ethical and socially responsible business practice. The purpose of this essay is to identify the advantages and limitations of following business ethics and act socially responsible in business operations. In order to help me analyse those further I will use the case study from food industry - McDonald’s corporation.

Company Q is a corporation whose stakeholders have not placed a major emphasis on social responsibility, instead it appears that the primary focus is placed on profit. With their profits on the decline, they are shying away from opportunities to help their community. By placing a higher priority on social responsibility Company Q will have the opportunity to help the community through charitable donations, employee volunteer initiatives, and creating quality jobs for the persons who live in the community. At the same time, Company Q will can also improve their public image and potentially increase profit.

Social responsibility in business can be defined as the obligation an organization has to minimize its negative social impact on stakeholders and to maximize its positive impact. In this case study we are introduced to a small local grocery chain referred to as Company Q. Located in a major metropolis, Company Q has recently closed some stores in areas of the city with higher crime-rates. They have started to stock a very limited amount of organic and health-conscience products after years of requests from their customers. Management has declined participating in a program to send expired food to a local food bank based on fears of employee theft by means of taking advantage of the situation. Based on the

Company Q is a small local grocery store chain that has a poor attitude toward social responsibility. After reviewing the given, I feel the chain is more committed to profit than social responsibility. Most companies are in a business to make a profit, however, the difference in what is considered reasonable and what is considered ridiculous comes into play. Most people start companies because it something they are interested in and to make a living. In today’s society the line between outright social responsibility

In this paper I am going to discuss and explain my opinion on why a company Q is or is not socially responsible in the following areas company Q close a couple of stores in high crime areas, company Q started offering a very limited health conscious an organic products, company Q was approached by the local food bank for donations of day old food and company Q declined the donation request from the food bank and started throwing the food away, and company Q suspected possible fraud among its employees.

There are four levels of social responsibility – economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Let us evaluate one by one for the given scenario.

Company Q’s attitude toward social responsibility reflects a negative reputation on them as a corporation in their current community. The geographical location in a major metropolitan area should sustain the business with a solid consumer base and maintain reliance of current investors. However, they closed two stores in high crime areas for consistently losing profits, waning investor trust and damaging employee faith. The decision to close the stores limits their ability to be socially responsible to its stakeholders and potentially contributes to the areas crime level.

Companies today are heavily influenced by the demands of customers and stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the social and environmental responsibility policies and practices developed by an organization to increase its positive influence and reduce its negative activity towards society (Parks, 2008). The business approach and corporate philosophy of an organization is easily altered due to economic pressures, technological improvement and stakeholder needs and demands. "Going green" or being eco-friendly is one such demand. Environmental and sustainability concerns originate most often from governments, consumer activists, and the general public (Schlosser, 2008). Thus, organizations must implement sustainability into daily practices. In addition, sustainability alters the nature of competition and drives companies to think differently about products, processes, and technologies (Parks, 2008).

needs of the community and customers they are serving it could directly increase profits and bottom

Company Q is a grocery store located in a high traffic area. As a company they are socially responsible when it makes them money. Company Q was socially responsible when it came to giving the customers what they wanted, in this instance it was organic food. As a company they knew that they could make money off the customers buying higher end food. However Company Q wasn't socially responsible when they were asked to donate the day old food to the food bank. They wouldn't be gaining any money from this, they would be loosing money. The money that they spent to either buy this or make the product would be gone. Overall I would say that Company Q is not a socially responsible company. You can't be socially responsible only when it is a convenient

Nowadays, many international companies take sustainable development seriously. They understand that sustainable development can enhance their quality of life and their reputation in public. Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Brundtland, 1987) Sustainability requires monitoring and managing all the person to ensure that our economy and society can continue to exist without destroying the social and natural environment during development. The sustainability includes three pillars, which are economic, social and environment, forming a triple bottom line. The triple bottom line demands that a company 's responsibility lies

Corporate social responsibility is a company’s way of making sure that they comply with the law and ethical standards whilst increasing its positive affects on society. For today’s socially conscious shopper, selling a good product or service is no longer enough to attract customers. Company Q displays little regard for social responsibility within the community that their company operates in.

In the scenario involving Company Q, I do not believe that the company was being socially responsible, but instead are acting only on what benifits their company. Social responsibility is defined as "an ethical framework which suggests that an entity, be it an organization or an individual, has an obligation to actfor the benefit of a society at large" (Kalinda, 2001) and there were two examples described that proved Company Q was only concerned with its' own profits. Firstly, the company decided to close two stores in needed areas simply because of the crime rate and they were losing money, even though consumers needed somewhere to buy their groceries. In a socially responsible situation, the store would've remained opened, reinforcing security,

In April (ALDI) over took Waitrose at the UK’s sixth-biggest supermarket with 5.3% of the market share, and aiming to increase its UK workforce to 35,000 by 2022 (ALDI) is going from strength to strength, is excessive profit earning related to this business applying an ethical and socially responsible business practice? This essay aims to explore the strengths, limitations and challenges of being ethical and socially responsible.