A Pragmatic Alternative for Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

Based on my interpretation of CSR, I see it as a voluntary obligation that companies have promised to their stakeholders to fulfill by improving, or at least not harm, the environmental and social wellbeing. When companies engage in CSR, they voluntarily promise to, for example, carry the responsibility to protect the environment and take actions against bribe or other corruptive activities related to their business. It certainly has some positive influences to specific areas based on my knowledge gained from other classes; nevertheless, when judge CSR in the context of total impacts on our society and environment, it is obvious that CSR has failed its mission to lessen the negative impacts of business based on the evidences that provided by the author. Also, since there is a strong positive relationship between CSR behaviors and consumers’ reactions to a firm’s products and services, it seems to me, now, that CSR for the most companies is just a fancy cover that helps them to create or promote a good image and reputation. The recent case that shows the failure of CSR of Volkswagen even make me believe that CSR programs may be just a marketing or public relation exercise for many

Every organized company worldwide should have among its structure, one planning and coordination division in which social and business goals are integrated. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs are necessary for commercial business as an element of risk management and represent an outstanding mechanism for the stakeholders to identify weaknesses when their own actions or others conduct in its operating environment generate social risk. (Kytle and Ruggie 2005).

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.

Rangan, K., Chase, L., & Karim, S. (2015, January 1). The Truth About CSR. Harvard Business Review, 40-49.

In business world companies are interested in how to maintain or increase shareholder values and profit. So, in order to give something back to the general public, those companies have to assume their responsibilities by being aware of the effects of their activities in the community and take measures to control them because this can affect the community and the environment by polluting the air, destroying the ecosystem, over using natural resources and so on. CSR is often called corporate citizen which means that companies should be good neighbors of the community not to work against it but collaborate with the citizen or the society in order to increase their welfare, to make a community a better place to live.

Let’s start with a detailed examination of the title itself: Corporate Social Responsibility “CSR”. The name pertains to the responsibility corporations carry towards the society due to their unique position of prominence in the daily lives of common man. Corporations are formed with a feature that characterizes their very foundations which is people’s stake in the performance of the company and, in turn, the effect that the corporations have on these stakeholders. The most significant and major part of these people are the shareholders who have invested their hard-earned money in the corporations of their choice. Besides the obvious monetary and financial returns that the investors expect from these corporations, people want the company that they have invested their money in, to be socially responsible. With increased climate change, global warming and other fatally disastrous effects of pollution and different harmful practices adopted during the manufacturing, packaging or supply of products, the public gives more value to the corporations with a proactive, deeply interested and positive outlook on the matter of their social responsibility. A company seriously concerned for the well-being of the people, the surroundings in the periphery of its impact and the side-effects its pursuit of profit maximization can have on these surroundings and

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is a relatively new in the management field and there is no single definition of it since everyone’s interpretation of the term is different. “Corporate Social Responsibility means something, but not always the same thing to everybody.” (Votaw, 1972, p.25) and from my understanding of the concept, CSR to me is “The voluntary business activities within the boundary of law that contributes to the wider community for a more sustainable environment”. Since everyone has a unique interpretation of CSR, the range of relevant CSR practices across businesses has been quite diverse as there is no such thing as features of CSR (Marcel van Marrewijk, 2003). Rising environmental and social concerns in

1. It is hard for companies to communicate their efforts in CSR to shareholders and investors. Although companies have progressed from only 20% of public companies publishing CSR reports to 72% from 2011 to 2013, there are still no universal standards established for reporting CSR information. Therefore, even the best CSR efforts can lose their value simply because the efforts are not communicated to users of financial statements. This is also in part due to CSR efforts being ill-defined. While some CSR ideas are universal many of the aspects of CSR are industry specific and hard to translate into meaningful disclosures for interested parties.

Proper implication of CSR can bring benefits to the organisation by increases in capital, sales, profit, markets, brand name, and customer loyalty.

There is a change in the expectation of employees, customers and shareholders which makes CSR more favorable in doing business today. It is a more sustainable way of doing business and those organization which are more involved in corporate social responsibility will most likely reap the rewards in the longrun.In today’s fast speed and digital world, each business despite its size need to have CSR program in place. Those without CSR programs must implement it as fast as possible otherwise they will lose valuable stakeholders in the long run.

It is sometime suggested that CSR activities are increasing strategic in that it affects that core business of the firm and its growth, profitability and survival? Drawing on an example of a corporation/company (National/ International), discuss this in the context of business strategies, in particular on the issues of competitive advantage and firm performance.

Friedman (2007) further argues that socially responsible firms will be at a competitive disadvantage due to the added expense incurred by CSR activities. Counter to this Smith (2002) with the evidences drawn from the case of Alfred Sloan’s decision proves that CSR doesn’t bring the competitive disadvantage with it. He argues that, firms that have good SCR record in public will be given better brand image and the investors will show more trust in such companies. Hence even though the companies initially lose their part of profit o CSR, they will after a period of time, attract more and more investors and broaden their consumer base which improves both the investment and gives advantage of efficiency due to large scale of operation.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is something that affects organizations of all sizes. Unlike many issues CSR is one that does not present solitary solutions. The challenges an organization face ultimately impact what approach they implement to address their CSR concerns. There are those organizations who make customers the center of their decisions and then there are those who focus on fixing the company issues and allowing that to transcend to the impact on customers.

First of all, for some corporations the CSR is not their priority, the most common reason is because the practice of CSR will increase the cost of the company and decrease the profitability of the company. According to Sprinkle and Maines (2010) the costs associated with practice CSR separated into opportunity costs, sunk costs and recurrent costs. Opportunity costs defined as any activity that could not have been undertaken due to capital and labor being bound to the CSR activity, which might result in lost revenues. Secondly, although CSR can help the company build up their positive corporate image and good corporate citizenship, for some companies the process is too slow to see the benefit side of it, and it is a time consuming

This chapter intends to explore the theoretical framework concerning CSR and will provide a general overview to the topic itself. Additionally, key sub-topics will be addressed in order to provide a strong foundation for analysis towards the research questions.