New Balance Case Study

New Balance is an American footwear manufacturer based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1906 by a 33 year old waiter named William J. Riley began building arch supports to ease pain for people who spent all day on their feet like him. His shoes became successful after he designed his first running shoe for a Boston running club, known as the Boston Brown Bag Harriers. In 1972, James Davis purchased New Balance after trying on the shoes himself and realizing the potential for the company. James is the current owner of the company together with his wife Anne (Veleva, 2009, p. 2).

The purpose of this essay is to research the notion of CSR and uncover its true framework and outline what social responsibility truly means to corporate organisations, and whether it should be seriously considered to be a legitimate addition to the corporate framework of an organisation.

In this review, the primary subject is the ‘business case’ for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business

The promoted charitable attitude and encouragement are a highly admirable feature within the company and exhibits the genuine nature of caring for people. The support to disaster relief affected areas, youth involvement, and contributions to the less fortunate living in shelters or decreasing the feeding the hungry, or food drives bring a healthier tomorrow within our country. Community investment will yield high profit margins and/ or positive opportunity costs results are being demonstrated consistently by UnitedHealthcare by their actions, financial, and awards they have earned.

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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.

In this article, “The Truth About CSR,” authors Rangan, Chase and Karim stress the importance in aligning a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values (Rangan, Chase, & Karim, 2015, 41). Outcomes of CSR programs should be a “spillover” and not a primary focus of a business, expressing concern towards social responsibility and corporations failing to contribute to society accordingly (Rangan, Chase, Karim, 2015, 42). There is a great deal of importance in companies refocusing their CSR activities on a primary goal and in providing an organized process for bringing consistency and discipline to CSR strategies (42). Rangan, Chase and Karim want corporations to understand why it is important for them to evaluate their CSR activities and refocus them towards the goal of reinforcing the firm’s societal and environmental actions, while also ensuring their actions add to the overall purpose and values of the corporation. According to the authors, even though

In other words, these socially responsible companies will evaluate not only the short and long term economic outcomes of their present decisions but also the long-term environmental and societal outcomes of their current actions. This thus leads to the triple bottom line approach of reporting environmental, social, and economic performance. In addition, Wilson from the Ivey Business Journal argues about corporate social responsibility or the CSR. The CSR has been around longer than the term and implication of “sustainable development” but has similar guidelines. From about 1953 the on, the main debate was whether corporate managers had an ethical responsibility to consider the needs of society and by 1980, it was generally and consensually accepted that corporate managers should and did have this moral responsibility. So by incorporating sustainability plans or even creating a separate branch dedicated to doing so, the company’s reputation often is increased, which over the long term, will contribute to accentuate customer loyalty, market share, and brand value and awareness. (Wilson, 2003) This case study done on Johnson & Johnson published by the IMA Educational Case Journal analyzes the impact that implementations of these sustainability

The social responsibility of the American apparel industry covers responsible practices related to human rights, labor standards, and environmental sustainability. Some of the advantages of being socially responsible is higher revenue, customer loyalty, safe and happy laborers, and an overall healthy environment. Research conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers found out after researching 1,000 retail companies 79 percent said that corporate social responsibility (CSR) was vital to the profitability and value of their company. Throughout the paper there will be a discussion of the advantages of being a socially responsible company. As well as the importance of

This recent reality, combined with globalization, is forcing companies to forge new kinds of relationships with buyers and countries. The financial valuation of companies are taking ever greater account of intangible elements, such as brands, patents and the company’s general image, with companies being bound to take account of these things in an effort to satisfy their shareholders. Environmental protection has become a highly motivating factor, and companies are being pressed to identify stakeholders with whom to team up. With brand value and reputation increasingly being seen as one of a company’s most valuable assets, CSR is now seen as building loyalty and trust amongst shareholders, employees and customers ( Tssa, (n.d.)).

However, even with all these strengths exhibited, New Balance’s weaknesses comprise of lack of clear leadership, lack of communication, lack of clear policies, and last but not least, lack of clear process for setting CSR goals. The issue of lack of clear leadership is due to the fact that New Balance does not have a CSR department nor an executive level VP in charge of CSR. The void of clear leadership inhibits the progress of developing an integrated CSR

CSR lacks universal methods. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) mentions that it is important to draw a distinction between CSR as part of strategic business management concept and charity, sponsorships or philanthropy. The latter applications make valuable social impacts that enhance the reputations of the companies, however, CSR is a continual effort instead of an instance. A few features that CSR should focus on are: eco-efficiency, employee and community relations, environmental management, gender balance, responsible souring, anti-corruption, stakeholder engagement and human rights. Utilizing some of these key features a company can bring competitive advantages into the market place. Increased sales and profits from operational cost savings as well as improved reputation and brand image and customer loyalty can result from a well-defined CSR strategy.

In its footwear division, New Balance had many operational initiatives that demonstrated strong responsible leadership values, many of which helped the bottom line, employee morale, the environment, and productivity.

With the spread of social marketing and CSR in the world, organizations tend to not only consider the consumers’ demands and the companies’ profit, but also take the consumers’ and societies’ long-term benefit into account. Hildebrand,D,et,al (2011) demonstrated that the CSR activities can make up the central, special and core characteristics of the company identity, the identification of the corporate can also be aroused due to CSR activities. Moreover, Porter and Kramer (2006) highlighted that CSR can aid companies create the ability to achieve corporate resource so as to build a sustainable and defensible competitive position. So the companies should consciously undertake corporate social responsibility.

Overtime,stakeholder demands for corporate social and environmental responsibility have been greatly increasing."According to Girod and Michael (2003,cited in Jones etal,2007 ) CSR is ‘a key tool to create, develop and sustain differentiated brand names".