Corporate Social Responsibility Essay

Businesses, specifically larger corporations, play a major role in what occurs in society therefore, they are responsible to their stakeholders not only to pursue economic goals but the greater social good as well. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) means that a corporation should act in a way that enhances society and its inhabitants and be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities, and their environment. (Lawrence, 2010). Social responsibility is becoming the norm so much so that some businesses have incorporated it into their business model. There are three components of the bottom line of social

While many use the fact that 5 percent of its workers are on Medicaid against the company, the fact remains, that such a number is common for large retail firms and the nation average is just 1 percent below that of Wal-Marts. For the same people who loudly fought for a system that allowed Medicaid workers to work while keeping benefits, Mallaby declares it, “ironic” that they would now be critical of the policy being used to help its workers.

However, nowadays CSR is simply defined as ?operating a business in a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society demands of business? (Gillis & Spring 2001: 23).

Company Q is a small grocery store chain who has struggled to maintain social responsibility. The company decided to close down two of their stores which were operating at a loss due to being located in high crime areas. In the existing stores, Company Q has answered to the demands of their customers by offering a limited amount of health-conscious and organic products, but has declined to help out the community by throwing out day-old foods instead of donating them to the local food bank. The decision to throw out the day-old foods was brought on by lost revenue due to possible employee theft and fraud.

Shared value is a business strategy which focuses on creating overall value while addressing social problems. This concept of management strategy was expressed in the “Creating Shared Value” article by Porter and Kramer. Shared value is not just an aspect of a company’s growth strategy or general business operations. It is well integrated in the way a company operates along with what their goals are as an organization. The value created for a company’s targeted end user also has some sort of social impact which benefits their company purpose. Creating social impact is a company goal and success is measured through creating a shared value network. Porter believes that “The ability to address social issues is integral to profit maximization instead of treated as outside the profit model.” He is addressing that profits are not measured by impact not just monetary gains for the company, we can change our mindset to think of profit in a different way. Profit can be a benefit or some sort of added value. In this approach Porter argues that “Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them.” This relationship is the driving force for a company’s development and future growth, and it goes beyond corporate strategy it also incorporates investments and key stakeholders for each company. Quantifying a monetary figure and amount for social impact may be extremely difficult, however it has progressed with awareness and

Drawing from these debates, Archie Carroll has developed “the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility”, one of the most significant concepts of CSR. There are four kinds of social responsibilities that contribute total CSR, he suggested, Economic, Legal, Ethical, and Philanthropic (1991). Therefore being socially responsible does not mean forgetting the fundamental aspect of business, to make profit. The obligation of Law restricts business activities and they are the rules of the game which businesses have to obey. Being ethical is to perform actions that are fair, morally good, and of stakeholders’ interests, even outside the boundary of law. Considering corporate citizenship, philanthropic responsibilities are responses to the rising society’s expectations to business (Carroll, 1991). The notion of discretionary and voluntary distinguishes philanthropic responsibilities to ethical responsibilities. A good CSR firm should “strive to make a profit, obey the law, be ethical, and be a good corporate citizen” (Carroll, 1991, p.43) and without simultaneous fulfillment of the four responsibilities, the business should not be characterized as operating within CSR.

The board of directors is also highly influential to a corporation and should therefore also be held accountable for supporting a corporation’s ethical code of conduct. The board of directors is responsible for looking out for the best interests of shareholders (Cross & Miller, 2012). The board of directors was designed to monitor executives, however in practice this is not always the case (Cross & Miller). Obviously this is monitoring is a necessary duty. A proposed change to ensure that the board of directors is monitoring the corporation’s top executives is to require that the board submit quarterly a report on the financial information of the corporation as provided to the board by the CEO and CFO. If this information does not

Corporations deal with a wide variety of social issues and problems; some directly related to their operations, some are not. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be defined as “the actions of an organization that are targeted toward achieving a social benefit over and above maximizing profits for its shareholders and meeting all its legal obligations” (Ghillyer 78). If this is the case, establishing appropriate and practical ethical guidelines in the workplace seems to be a reasonable request as a basis for corporate operations. Wal-Mart should be an example in determining what constitutes the values associated with its fundamental purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility. The four

In April 2015, Corporate Responsibility Magazine released their annual list of the most socially responsible companies in the United States. The top ten companies included Microsoft, Hasbro, Johnson & Johnson, Xerox Corp, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel Corp, and the Campbell Soup Company (Corporate Responsibility Magazine, 2015). Corporate accountability was measured in seven categories: financial, employee relations, governance, human rights, environmental, climate change, and philanthropy (Adams, 2015). Microsoft topped the list because of transparency, accountability, and excellent employee relations while Hasbro came in second because of their environmental commitments to reduce landfill waste by 50% and gas emissions by 20% by the end of 2020 (Adams, 2015). Corporations rarely make the news due to social responsibility but often make the front page because of corruption, fraud, or general lack of concern for the public and the environment. Corporate Accountability International generates a list of the top corporate offenders of social responsibility that included Monsanto, SeaWorld, Walmart, and JP Morgan Chase (Troutman, 2015). Monsanto has been targeted due to their promotion, support and development of genetically modified corps and SeaWorld was recently exposed for their cruel treatment of orca whales at their parks (Troutman, 2015).

Examine Apple’s current position on the company’s ethical and social responsibilities, and determine whether or not the company has met these responsibilities. Provide two (2) examples that support your position.

Ethics are a collection of principles of right conduct that shape the decisions people or organizations make.

This is essay will focus on analyzing how corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences the investor relations of a corporation and whether it is good for the society, using Gasland and FrackNation as examples. In the contemporary society, CSR sounds like a commendatory term for the society. Over decades, it seems like that both the public and the media are trying to encourage corporations to behave more responsibly, and corporations are gradually becoming more socially aware in the contemporary society because they know they cannot afford the consequence of ignoring it. (Bernstein, 2009:606) However, CSR is not always beneficial. One of the major practices of public relations is investor relations, because the concerns of a corporation’s investors can directly relate to its welfare. When the corporations paid more attention on CSR, their investors will inevitably somehow feel ignored. As a public which has real material input to the corporations, investors are seeking for future returns, they want to be treated specially by the corporations that they invest. Also, value too much about CSR can make corporations become the victim of being morally hijacked, which may harm both a corporation’s financial success and the whole society’s harmony.

general, there is a need to allow space within the SR agenda for such noncore

There are now several concepts of CSR and its definition, along with the meaning across corporations. In my opinion, and according with our textbook in page 11. CSR is about a particular set of business and strategies that deal with social issues. In addition, we can clearly perceive that CSRs application along corporations has increase in the past decade due to the several local, and international regulations in order to enforce business to act responsible.

‘Corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) means that the firm has wider responsibilities in relation to objectives and people apart from the owners or shareholders (Beal and Goyen 2005). These responsibilities are achieved when the firm adapts all of its practices to ensure that it operates in ways that meet, or exceed, the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business. Objectives often associated with CSR include a responsibility to manage natural assets sustainably and not to pollute by chemical discharge, smell, noise, dust or other irritants; fair treatment of employees and ethical attitude towards clients. The other people include employees, customers, suppliers,