Corporate Social Responsibility at Bread Talk Essay

The ethical issues presented in this case are the different views that each individual has on how the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This dispute is between Mr. Milton Friedman, John Mackey, and T.J. Rodgers; all of which has a different outlook on CSR. The definition of CSR refers to the responsibilities that business has to the society in which it operates and to those actions that a business can be held accountable. Most philosophers have come up with three different types of responsibilities that corporations can be held accountable for. The first and most important of the three is a corporation’s duty to not cause harm. If a corporation can

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very controversial topic. A question that has been debated for the past few decades is; is it corporately viable to introduce social responsibility as a proposed addition to the work ethic of business organisations. As well as, if adopting the framework of corporate social responsibility would yield positive improvements for those organisations.

Whole Foods Market Inc. is a popular retail destination for natural and organic foods and byproducts, since its establishment in 1980 by four local businesspeople in Austin, Texas. It is notable for supporting sustainable agriculture, promoting the reduction of waste and consumption of nonrenewable resources and encouraging environmentally safe cleaning and store-maintenance programs. The company showcases its ethics and social responsibility through its green mission, foundations, and Whole Trade Guarantee.

Last few decades, Corporate Social Responsibility became more visible and every company is using it as a marketing tool. With strong commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, Dannon need to communicate its Corporate Social Responsibility activates toward environment, people and nutrition and health benefit to its customers and stakeholders. According to Schiefelbein (2012), proper communication strategy is needed to effectively influence customers to balance threats and opportunities. -- To design a Corporate Social Responsibility communication strategy for Dannon to its customers, we need details of Dannon products, implicit knowledge of its operation and the customer base.

Companies in packaging and meat industry like Hormel Foods are in needs of great amounts of water. Therefore, they are exposed to intensive “regulatory, reputational, and financial risk” related to water usage and water pollution resulting directly or indirectly from their daily operations. These are both important issues that Hormel Foods are doing their best to address.

Social responsibility is a construct of appropriate ethical behaviors, where two or more individuals, and corporations strive to provide better outcomes for the benefit of society as a whole. With such a set of meticulous structured frameworks in mind, it is fundamental to achieve a harmonious balance between the ecosystem and the developing economy. However, social responsibility is not always first and foremost on the mind of big name corporate companies – such as General Mills Inc.

The business world can define strategic philanthropy as the unique and most effective method for combining company’s marketing goals that are proposing to increase the welfare of society. It is a tool where company combines marketing goal with social responsibility. The strategic philanthropy influences the brand loyalty because it tries to maximize its profit by considering the well-being of the human being. For instance, Target company spends some percentage of their revenue for social well-being and still charge the fair price of their product. Moreover, Target donates a certain percentage of total revenue for education.

Before viewing the videos, I thought of how Whole Foods Market (WFM) is a model company for corporate social responsibility. I am therefore not surprised that the company was the first to endorse Honest Tea. Seth Goldman, CEO of Honest Tea, echoes some of the very same sentiments that John Mackey, founder of WFM does with regards to the purpose and mission of his company. Per Goldman CRS is the focal point of how Honest Tea is managed and the motivation behind the business is not to see, “how many bottles can we sell to make money but how many bottles can we sell to expand this model of business to make its impact more powerful, creating more than just a business” (Honest Tea Marketing video).

Activision Blizzard is an industry leader for producing and designing video games. They have annual revenues of 4 billion, annual income of 2.2 billion and total assets of 5.5 billion. Activision, as they are commonly known, have great customer support and even better technical support, despite having to deal with one of the most impatient and finicky customer bases, the gamer.

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

The third source of innovation for IPC and Subway lay in the production and shipping of bread. Rapid growth in the number of stores was putting a strain on the old system, with bakeries running at 110-percent capacity in the summer months. IPC knew it had to add bread plants; the only question was where. Working with C.H. Robinson, the company analyzed the location of its current plants and DCs, devising multiple “what-if” scenarios to come up with the most efficient network and lowest landed cost.

Employees, as members of an organization, contribute a lot to the enterprise’s manufacture, management and profitability. Corporations’ CSR activities definitely have an enormous influence on the qualities of employees’ behaviors. (Nan, X. & Heo, K. 2007, p.65) Employees may react negatively when they perceive a corporate injustice because that implies a mismatching with their values and threatens their psychological demands. CSR activities on employees are consisted of many aspects, such as skill training, working condition, payment as well as health and safety. Every corporation has its own human and labor policies.

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.

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.

CSR can improve the company’s reputation and branding and this in turn improves the prospects for the company to be more effective to attract new customers and increase market share.