Whole Foods Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a broad term used to describe a company's efforts to improve society in some way. These efforts can range from donating money to non-profits to implementing environmentally-friendly policies in the workplace. CSR is important for companies, non-profits, and employees alike.

Milton Friedman’s shareholder theory of management says that the purpose of a business is to make money for the owner or the stockholders of the business. Friedman says that there is only one social responsibility for the business: to use its resources in order to increase

What Friedman implies is that shareholders should only be concerned with maximizing profits and not be obligated to be “socially responsible.” In that case, the manager would only have one priority, to maximize profits. However, what if that manager determined that social endeavors is the best option to maximize profits? This would make the corporation socially responsible while still maintaining maximum profits. The argument presented by Friedman in this case is that while the manager is performing as expected by maximizing profits, this type of “social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions.”

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the concept of businesses considering economic, social and environmental benefits for all their stakeholders. Friedman’s position on CSR appears very negative, his argument is the only social responsibility businesses have is to exploit their capabilities to increase profits, therefore implying businesses solely aim to increase profits while disregarding social and environmental factors (Friedman, 1970). I disagree with this view because I believe businesses are required to undertake social responsibilities, such as recycling and using fair trade ingredients, to provide customer satisfaction and create a good public image. If customers were not satisfied with the products or services, they purchase or thought they were buying from an unethical company this could decrease demand and profits. Therefore, CSR is important to businesses because businesses need customers to survive and a method of retaining or gaining customers is to be socially responsible.

The first source is a quote by Milton Friedman that criticizes the view of corporate officials needing to abide to a “social responsibility”. He claims that, in a free market economy, corporate officials only have one goal, to increase profits for their business. So long as it's done without deception, fraud and engages an open and free competition. It is obvious that Martian Friedman is a supporter of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state or province. It is a right-wing ideology built on the foundation of individualism. It encourages freedom of action for individuals over government control. The source presents Milton is a supporter of individualism and classical liberalism. He favors an economy focused on making profits for the individual with little to no government intervention. Ideologies that

I located Whole Foods at the Philanthropic Responsibility level of the pyramid. John Mackey stated that “If one stakeholder is winning, someone else must be losing. It comes from sports, where there is one winner and lots of losers, and this idea of a fixed pie, where if someone is getting a bigger piece, someone else has to be getting a smaller piece, and what’s needed for social justice is to make sure people get equal pieces. But a conscious business recognizes that you can have an expanding pie, and potentially everyone can get a larger piece.” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013)

Whole Foods would be located at the top of the pyramid using Carroll’s Global Corporate Social Responsibility Pyramid (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013 P21). Whole Foods goes above and beyond the requirements of society and stakeholders by investing in coaching and teaching their workforce to maintain a positive influential spirit that is contagious. Tenured employees have a more sharing and caring attitude resulting in having many subject matter experts due to their years of experience with the company. Therefore, any new employee is trained by an SME (subject matter expert) producing knowledgeable and well-rounded employees that are superior to those of other grocery stores.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a corporate initiative to assess and take responsibility for the company 's effects on the environment and impact on social welfare. CSR may also be referred to as "corporate citizenship" and can involve incurring short-term costs that do not provide an immediate financial benefit to the company, but instead promote positive social and environmental change.

Therefore when Friedman mentions the role of a corporate executive, it doesn’t make sense for an individual working towards improving the business to care about social responsibilities if it isn’t a desire of his employer (Friedman, 1970). A corporate executive should only worry about social responsibility in his personal life not when the corporations stakeholders and employers money is at stake (Friedman, 1970). When a corporate executive acts voluntarily, he is “acting as a principle, not an agent; he is spending his money or time or energy…” (Friedman, 1970,

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the ethical behaviour of a company towards society it operates in. It is a commitment to the concern to the society’s sustainability & development.

The company I chose to explore is Whole Foods and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) they adhere to. Corporate social responsibility, also known as CSR, means “a corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company’s effects on environmental and social well-being”, according to, Investopedia, (R., 2015). Whole foods are dedicated to contributing back to its people, community, and the environment while profiting as a company. CSR is just as important as their ethical practices including “green marketing” by utilizing the marketing of products believed to be preferably used by people which incorporate a number of activities such as, environmentally friendly packaging, sustainability, and modified advertising. The company’s reputation of what they offer, the treatment of their employees, behavior as a company, including the major factors of they represent across the marketplace is what they strive to exude.

Ben Cohen,one of the builders of Ben & Jerry’s , proposes that it is unsubstantial for Ben & Jerry’s to merely do a business just like other companies, and it should make philanthropic contribution to society as well. This mind comes to be practical and when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Ben & Jerry’s become prominent example (Dennis et al, 1998).

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) is a term describing a company’s obligation to be accountable to all of its stakeholder in all its operation and activities. Socially responsible companies consider the full scope of their impact on communities and the environment when making decisions, balancing the needs of stakeholder with their need to make profit.

For a long time now, there has been much debate over the social responsibility of a business. Friedman is one of the most influential

It has been debated for businesses, whether to invest in CSR activities. Researchers who are in favour of CSR argue for the benefits of involving in corporate social activities compared to just setting policies that will maximize only the value of the firm or its profits. Tobias, (2011) argued that companies that are involved in CSR are more profitable than their peers who are not socially responsible to their stakeholders. The critics argue that CSR is an activity that takes away the attention of managers from the objective of the organization. Managers are stewards of organization and their task is to invest the assets received from creditors and stockholders to increase profits and dividends. However, when they turn their attention to activities that are in the sole responsibility of the government, it will distract operational activities. Friedman (1970) argued in his article “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profit", artificial legal body is what companies are referred to by law. As an artificial person if they have any responsibilities to the society then it should be artificial social responsibility” this implies that corporations’ responsibility is not to the society but it is the work of the