Corporate Social Responsibility - Case Study Example

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Introduction Ethical decision making and leadership have been recognized as the basis of ethical organizations, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, sustainability, triple bottom line and other related concepts. Ethical principles, therefore give room for the foundations of various recently acquired concepts for work, business, and organizations. In return, they broaden personal and corporate priorities way ahead of the well recognized traditional aims of gains and shareholders achievements1. Principled factors are also a considerable manipulation on institutions and unrestricted region organizations, for which the conventional priorities of overhaul quality and cost supervision must progressively more take a description of these similar ethical considerations affecting the marketable and commercial world. Corporate social responsibility is associated with understanding one’s business impacts on the outside and wide world. In the context of social responsibility, factors like environment, sustainability, global effects, corruption, armed conflicts, political issues, staff- customer relationships, local community, and social impacts on people’s health are widely discussed and entirely worked upon. This is greatly appreciated if the impacts are considered to have positive effects on all people involved. Positive relations between the triple bottom line factors also bring great contribution to the success. Triple bottom line has been described to consist of only three factors which include planet, people, and profits2. The idea achieved some recognizable accomplishment in the corporate social responsibility, climate change and fair trade. After more than a decade, in which cost-cutting had been the number-one business priority, the hidden social and environmental costs of transporting invention and services to economical countries such as China, India and Brazil, hence becoming gradually more evident to western customers. These included such happenings as the haphazard cataloguing of the Amazon basin, the extreme use of hydrocarbons and the utilization of despicable labor. It is essential to recognize that one’s business does not subsist in segregation or simply as a way of making money3. Employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, and other people depend entirely on the business because whatever goes on in a business affects them either directly or indirectly. In a business, corporate social responsibility has an involvement in everything that is done by all those in the business and everyone who deals with it. The social responsibility entails the different perspectives that ensure that suppliers chosen are beneficial to the community. For example, doing business with a supplier who is involved in polluting the environment, contributes to irresponsibility4. Social responsibility also involves the different ways in which employers treat the employees. It is the corporate responsibility to ensure that employers do more than just complying with all legal requirements hence making a responsible business. This is because corporate social responsibility is not just about focusing on doing the right things only but also behaving responsibly and most importantly dealing with suppliers in a good way. To ensure that there is good interrelationship between the people in the society and ones business, it is important to publish all the business happenings and proceedings. This ensures that the customers, suppliers and the local community are aware of what the business management is doing. In some cases, this can be seen as a weak point due to the information made known to everyone in the society but it can also be a strong contribution to winning contracts. The reason could be that people being social beings always want to get associated with businesses that are respected. Corporate social responsibility is known to greatly benefit the organizations that are targeting ethical subjects, public sector, and not for profitable organizations. Corporate social responsibility has a policy that states that to automatically meet social responsibility all businesses should ensure that they install a process that integrates social, environmental, ethical, and human rights concerns established in the business operations. The policy is assumed to assist in the enhancements of positive impacts hence minimizing and preventing negative results5. For example, in a society this can be achieved by ensuring that there are continuous innovations of goods and services that are favorable to the community and other businesses. The above policy has assisted everyone in different areas by ensuring that a forward action is established and always acted upon. There are a number of ways that have been put in place to ensure that these actions are always in progress. There has been a creation of sector based platforms that deal with stakeholders and enterprises in accomplishing commitments and together monitoring development. This ensures that the visibility of CSR and disseminating good practices are greatly enhanced. The policies are also aimed at improving and tracking levels of trust and mistrust in all businesses by commissioning launches of public debates due to the roles and potential enforced on all enterprises. The co-regulation processes and self processes are greatly improved whereby the commission suggests and develops a protocol that guides the development of future initiatives whether self or co-regulated6. Most people need to understand that enhancing market appreciation simply means leveraging policies put forward in all the fields especially those dealing with consumption, investment, and public procurement so as to promote market rewards for every responsible and advantageous business dealings. The reinforced policies are also put into place with the intention of improving business disclosure regarding the social and environmental information with the intention of bringing into limelight a proposal on the certain issue. The policy has enhanced its adoption in the community by integrating the CSR various existing programs like education, training, and research. It is ensured that the committees involved provide support for all candidates in schools and training places related with CSR by exploring opportunities which include funding all researches7. Different countries have resulted into the promotion of the ideas practiced in corporate social responsibility because it enhances the different ways in which a company innovates, produces, and competes. This is achieved by ensuring that businesses are more competitive whereby support of operational gains is advanced. It is backed up by improvement in risk management, favorable relations that include relationship between investments at the community level and the access of capitalized improvements. For the above reasons, the corporate social responsibility is easily related with the corporate sustainability, corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility, and corporate sustainable sustainability. Due to the involvement of these diverse sectors the CSR has frequently been associated with providing inventive and practical solutions to communal and ecological difficulties. To achieve success, there has been certain collaborations with the stakeholders both internally and externally hence improving CSR performance. Despite the many advantages associated with the CSR, there are also a number of challenges with the main one being the lack of common measure of performance leading to hyperbole and green washing. The weakness has been greatly overcome by the involvement of Global reporting guidelines which seeks to refine set of proposed reporting guidelines. Many people have achieved success through this type of guidelines because it assists in participation of representatives from businesses, accountancy, investments, human rights, researches, and labor institutions. Over the years it is evident that most companies have adopted the corporate social responsibility but is still in its initial stages in many of the companies8. Across the world, business leaders are under pressure to work out inconsistent demands from the people, regime, sponsorship farms, and others about the position they hold in financial progression, ecological development, and communal progression. It is no longer up to standards just making high-quality goods that gratify customers while copying with laws and all the set of laws. Organizations have been called upon to think about and certainly administer the wider social and environmental penalties of their deeds. This can be assumed beyond the requirements of the legal and regulatory settings in which they operate9. Conclusion The essay above shows that corporate social responsibility is highly imperative for the success of businesses and activities related with social organizations. Statistics show that the organizations that have greatly adapted to the ideas in CSR have achieved success because of the interrelationship between the discussed groups above. However, as management in businesses chooses positions in business they must ensure that they are ethical and that the decisions positively affect the business bottom line. References Baker, Mallen. "Corporate Social Responsibility." Business Respect, 2011: 12-15. Bergmans, Fred. Learning about corporate social responsibility. New York: IOS Press, 2003. Chandler, David. Strategic corporate social responsibility. New York: SAGE Publications, 2006. Matten, Dirk. "Corporate Social Responsibility ." Journal of Business Ethics, 2001: 323-337. Noe, Michael. "Corporate Social Responsibility." Forbes, 2007: 23-24. Pollard, David. Reframing Corporate Social Responsibility: Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis. New York: Emerald Group Publishing, 2010. Raad, conomische. Corporate social responsibility. Chicago: Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2001. Stewart, Jim. Community competencies. New York: Thomas Publishers, 2000. Witte, Marinus Cornelis de. Management models for corporate social responsibility. Paris: Springer Publishers, 2006. Zu, Liangrong. Corporate social responsibility, corporate restructuring and firms performance . Chicago: Springer Publishers, 2009. Read More