Social Responsibility and Business Strategy - Reich - Essay Example

? SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND BUSINESS STRATEGY and Social responsibility is a critical issue where Business and organizations are concerned. Whether everyone agrees or not, there is no other way for economic success if accountability of the entire process of trade is ignored (Jeremy 2009, p. 56). Through many studies, it has been seen how important organizations must put into consideration the importance of social responsibility with the purpose of a good balance between good use of resources and beneficial profits for organizations. Every organization’s intention is to grow and make profits but there are policies in which they should operate under, so that social exploitation is not experienced. That is why it is important that every organization in business must include the social responsibility as part of their strategy. Norman who is a professor of ethics in Business looks critically at a number of prevalent and quasi-academic outlines for identifying and mitigating beyond-compliance responsibility such as CSR, organizational citizenship, sustainability, shareholder theory and triple bottom-line. His working theory is that beyond compliance responsibilities can be vindicated by using the same ideas and methods we use in vindicating particular guidelines. He also focuses on “ethical Politicization” and more generally on the nature of answerable behavior in the business-government dealings (Norman 2012 p.75). The idea of corporate social responsibility is exceptionally valuable and hard-worn social benefit. It is a vehicle for endorsing transparency, more tone liability, better communique, honesty, mutually advantageous exchange and functional development. In providing a clear way of critiquing business inside and out of its borders, it is now an essential condition for businesses to have morals and to exercise modern entrepreneurship (Jeremy 2009 p34). It is especially important for the growing global economics, while at the same time it is a delicate issue. However, different researchers are coming up with different views on this topic with one group arguing that business must operate under proper values and the other arguing that social responsibility is a complicated issue and cannot work successfully. According to Moses Pava, Former US secretary Robert Reich is one example of those who oppose the social responsibility advocators (Pava 2008 p.38). He believes that it is a project that can never succeed and campaigning for it is a waste of time and money. Reich points this failure in the raising political power but does not clearly state exactly what his argument is all about. He however, wants this idea dropped and as it is not one that could work and the only reason for him is the rise in corporate political power an argument thought as not so convincing according to Pava. Critiques like Reich are therefore, needed to listen keenly to those who have continuously been pushing for more and improved corporate social accountability as they may need to respond to his argument. Understanding the state of business and the processes in it, Reich and other should be convinced that corporate social responsibility is a vital foundation for business morals and for current capitalism. Lack of social corporate responsibility will create an avenue for unnecessary exploitation and great benefits for a few traders and that would not make sense. Reich’s concern in this issue is that rules advocating for the social corporate responsibility are not safe for business as they could cause a lot of harm. He believes that if businesses should prosper, then, they should focus mainly on customer satisfaction and maximization of corporate profits for stakeholders (Pava 2008p. 50). He says that ethical and social responsibility is individual and can be practiced in those terms instead of setting up policies that direct organizations to operate under ethical social responsibilities, which would frustrate the freedom for organizations to achieve their goals. Pierre, on the other hand, advocates for corporate social responsibility, and his argument is about how government contributes a lot to the negative effects of trade. He states that the elimination of the uncompetitive organizations by the market procedures continually affects society geographically and politically through unsuitable policies that affect the environment. Failure caused by such arrangements should be blamed on the government policy makers and not the market. Corporate social responsibility is, however, an idea that should be expected to promote business positively for everybody and use resources in a responsible way. however according to James Rowe in McNulty’s book, CSR cannot be termed as business ethics, but a business strategy which is meant to anticipate popular power that should result in operative regulations. The use of resources must be controlled, otherwise these same organizations that are pushing to make extremely high profits, will not maintain their status for long (McNulty 2005 p.14). Focusing much on profit making has never in any successful business because there are always several other things to consider before profits. Most of these considerations revolve around good morals, where a business person or organization must think about what or who is really important in their business, and that some of them must come before their profits. Some of the examples are customers, employees and the environment/society as a whole. Rowe also critiques business ethics as he is quoted in McNulty’s book saying “if voluntary efforts worked, there would have been no second wave.” Pierre explains that corporate social responsibility should clearly be seen as an idea based on “business as usual and environmental protection (Pierre 2012 p.143)” According to Vanberg, CSR has three demands which are the soft, hard and radical. The soft in his opinion is about how socially responsible organizations should operate within the current rules; the second which is hard is one that suggests that the policies of business should be altered to encourage socially responsible corporate performance, and the third one which does not agree with the possibility of CSR working well with market enticements and advocates for different alternatives. All the three do not trust in the free market to produce equitably because of the fact that increased profitability cause a lot of environmental harm in terms of pollution and devastation of habitation and species, and effects on nonrenewable resources. According to Pearce, a firm’s strategy can possibly be created by corporate social responsibility (Pearce 2008 p.47). He comes up with ideas such as how the initiative can be designed and approached when he illustrates that it can start with classic fieldwork where the paper offers theoretical debates. A means of incorporating CSR into a plan is then systematically created. Jeremy’s idea of how CSR can be integrated into a strategy has a reasonable way of approach and the failure to do this is due to the removal of the three common methods, which are codes of ethics, PR movements, and triple bottom line reports. Jeremy makes it clear that the approach is only meant to integrate CSR into the business strategy and that it does not be responded to reactively by organizations and neither do the firms have do understand CSR’s strategic insinuations (Jeremy 2009, p. 102). However, the most important thing according to this text is the scrutiny of CSR in the setting of business strategy, which is progressively necessary and possible to creating an inexpensive advantage in the existing environment. Jeremy’s proposal on a possible theory on this issue was due too much confusion and intense debate by various scholars and practitioners, and he has come up with a much convincing theory on how to create a successful connection of CSR into the general strategy of the business. Conclusion The whole idea is for the purpose of creating an understanding that Businesses and their processes have to operate under rules so that as they build profits, the environment and its entire habitat does not suffer any harm created by industrialization. The organizations should operate under proper ethics and principal for equal benefits by them and the surroundings. Reich”s conclusion on the subject is based on Porritt’s quote which talks about a huge population of people who see human nature as so gloomy that no amount of well-intentioned effort to reform or even transforms current capitalism warrants any reliability whatsoever. Porrits’ quote further explains that the nature of the economic system in place is one that reflects our real human nature according to the worldview, the humans are Self-centered, avaricious, short-termist and irresponsible and harsh. References Desrochers Pierre, 2012, The environmental responsibility of Business is to increase its profits (by creating value within the bounds of private property rights). Sydney Jones Library. Jeremy Galbreath, 2009, “Building corporate social responsibility into strategy", Business, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. McManus John, 2011, Revisiting ethics in strategic management. New York, NY: Emerald. McNulty Jennifer, 2005, Corporate self-regulation falls short, says author. New York, NY: Routledge. Pava L, Moses 2008, Why Corporations should not abandon Social Responsibility, New York, NY: Emerald. Pearce, O. (2008) ‘holistic assessment of sustainability and application at Halcrow’, journal Corporate Citizenship, 30, 37-65. W. Norman, (2012), “Business Ethics as Self-Regulation: Why principles that ground regulations should be used to ground beyond-compliance norms as well,” New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Read More