Corporate Social Responsibility of Lewis Partnership - Essay Example

Corporate social responsibility aims at embracing work action and allows a positive impact on the environment and its stakeholders. This is a delicate balance, which has to be maintained for all-around growth. To cater to this need, Carroll developed the pyramid of cooperating social responsibility (Crowther, 2010).

The pyramid arranges the critical issues into philanthropy, ethic, legality, and economic sectors. Philanthropy implies that the company should own up to the community. Contribute parts of its resources to the community, thereby improving the quality of life. Ethics covers doing what is right and fair. This means the business should not harm the community. In the past before the adherence to environmental policies, factories would pollute the rivers and the environment in a bid to get rid of waste. Ethics forbids harm to the community, which may also occur in hoarding the goods for better prices. Legality covers obeying the law. The business should be legal and observe laws within the state, paying taxes, license renewal among other policies. The economic aspect includes the sole purpose of running a business. The aim is to make a profit. Without profit, the company cannot be able to meet its expenses and growth (Crowther, 2010).

John Lewis Partnership embraces the premise of sustainability. The approach involves maintaining effective governance, actively engaging stakeholders, continuous performance monitoring, and managing risks and opportunities. In order to maintain effective management, the Partnership employs well-educated and talented people with leadership traits. Such people are trained to make sound business decisions and to ensure the corporate achieves its goals. The board of managers and directors works hand in hand with other employees to provide a balance between investments and favorable working conditions. Waitrose and Lewis encourage sustainability by allocating resources to achieve focus. In comparison with the pyramid, this is in line with the economic aspect. Without efficient decision-making, the company would run at a loss (John Lewis Partnership).

Stakeholders include employees, suppliers, government agents, and customers. Employees are people working in the partnership. In their case, the company focuses on interests such as job security, job satisfaction, and business participation.  Domestic bodies including councils, forums, and committees to ensure the employee's comfort in their workstation. Employees attend annual general meetings where they exercise participation under democracy (John Lewis Partnership).

To the customer, the John Lewis partnership ensures quality goods are in constant supply, customer satisfaction, supporting the community needs, and accepting development and building projects. The company achieves this by carrying out research surveys to monitor consumer satisfaction. Feedback from the buyer aids in assessing whether the quality is okay, customer forums on Walltros.com to ensure the interaction between the company and the clients.The company strives to maintain long-term relationships with its suppliers providing fair pricing of their goods and services. Some examples for this included working groups and partnered projects, day-to-day communications, and the Waitrose ‘meet the buyer meet the farmer events’. 

The government and regulators' involvement includes information sharing on ownership model, compliance and shaping future regulation, environmental awareness, labor standards, and worker exploitation. Lewis Partnership conducts government consultations through committee sessions and meetings to ensure favorable policy adoption. Working with environmental regulators permits the company to implement sound environmental policies, which conserve the rivers and relief. The company works with trade unions such as the British Retail Consortium and Scottish Retail Consortium to provide retirement and health benefits to its employees.