What Motivates Companies to Undertake CSR Measures - Essay Example

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been quite popular recent among companies and top-performing companies. CSR is an act by corporations where they decide to go beyond compliance with the stipulated regulations and policies by the regulatory bodies in place. In this adventure, they engage in actions that are quite far away from the interests of the organization to ensure they satisfy the interest of their stakeholders for continued success in terms of profitability and growth (McWilliams et al 2006, p.20). A company is surrounded by stakeholders such as the shareholders who are the owners and the society who are majorly the consumers and the directors have the responsibility of ensuring they serve their interests so that they are all satisfied (Baghi, Rubaltelli and Tedeschi 2009, p.64).

Motivations to engage in corporate social responsibility as shown by Alliance Boots a pharmaceutical corporation can be categorized into four categories. These are: - preservation of human rights, adhering to labor requirements, environmental protection and running corruption-free organizations. Businesses have the responsibility of supporting and respecting human rights throughout the world. In this regard, they are motivated to engage in CSR activities to ensure they do not commit any human rights abuses (Vidaver-Cohen and Simcic 2008, p.74). With regards to labor movements, organizations should strive to uphold labor requirements and must always respect collective bargaining agreements. They must not at all costs engage in any forms of forced labor, do away with child labors and must not also discriminate when employing (Waddell 2000, p.113).

Alliance Boots has ensured this by establishing efficient and effective employee handling measures right from how they recruit which is fair and transparent, the promotion procedures are quite distinct and the welfare of their employees are well taken care of in terms of a safe working environment and good and satisfactory remuneration (Campbell 2007, p.142). Another factor that motivates companies is the preservation of the environment that they operate in. It is through global warming that the destruction of the environment results and it is because of the carbon emissions from the industries that world temperatures rise. They must therefore participate to preserve the same environment since it is the source of raw material. Green operations and campaigning Green are therefore quite a common phenomenon to safeguard operations of most corporations (Waddock and Smith 2000, p.232).

The companies are engaged in this by throwing their support towards precautionary measures towards the environmental challenges. In addition, they strive to undertake mechanisms to promote their responsibility towards environmental responsibility (Campbell 2007, p.173). Alliance Boots engages in the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technology in the design and manufacture of its products including their distribution. Moral and ethical responsibility is a function of most modern corporations to ensure that the businesses collectively work towards discouraging corrupt practices. Alliance Boots ensures they satisfy these motivations through the trust they have built and bestowed upon all their stakeholders.

2. The extent to which ethical issues /CSR drive strategy in the organization
In order to determine the extent CSR drives organization strategy, it is appropriate to identify firms or a firm that employs CSR or ethical issues and compare that with their financial performance. Considering Alliance Boots whose CSR approach reflects their internal decision making approaches, CSR is responsible for driving its strategy since, without it, it would not be in a position of identifying external stakeholders in its decision-making processes as dictated by management (Husted & Allen 2011, p.127). Therefore, CRS and ethical issues enable the organization to gather information from the external environment. Consequently, through the information gathered from CSR, an organization would be able to shape its strategy since the management would identify the organization weaknesses and avoid the ones they are not able to convert into opportunities through the application of appropriate strategies.

In this way, CSR or ethical issues enable an organization’s strategy without helping it realize the full potential of such a strategy in the global arena (Keinert 2008, p.147). In supporting the Alliance Boots strategy, CSR enables the organization to formulate strategies geared towards facilitating and enhancing effective and efficient management processes (Pohl and Tolhurst 2010, p.322). For instance, the strategies developed from CSR and ethical issues require that Alliance Boots produce very low levels of carbon in its production process and for it to adopt the green technology that is an environmental support initiative.