Why Are Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Increasingly Prevalent - Coursework Example

Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate Social Responsibility practices (CSR) have grown increasingly relevant because they have converted from their traditional forms and substance into a formidable tool for competitive advantage (Kalisnki 2001, p.111). The ability of a firm to turn its potential into profit has often taken the angle of how well it manipulates its corporate social responsibility initiatives. In the second half of the twentieth century leading up to the twentieth century, the corporate social responsibility practices have changed drastically so that companies have sought ways to use them as vehicles that carry their missions, visions and values (Kalinski 2001, p. 78). Quite often these practices have been merged so closely with mainstream advertisement through a strategy that delivers a two-pronged result of image and service while putting billing the entire package as CSR. Whereas in the past these practices were shiftless and anchored on cosmetic corporate rituals that meant little for both the business, and the community, today CSR has been converted into a terrain within which the inequalities of profits and service and bargained. The bottom-line in many cases has been the costs and expenses involved and how forms can recoup these through the skilful manipulation of goals and needs. The question however has been on the choice of the type of practice that a company can chose as its corporate social responsibility programs. Some situations have demanded that the corporate social responsibility programs be aimed at the heart of the direst needs of the environment. Alternative situations have on the other side demanded that companies only focus on activities that highlight on their core values as a firm. The middle point has been that while the firm addresses the immediate needs of a community, it should take the opportunity to sell its image and values in the process (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor, 2008 p. 132). There have been cases however where the CSR initiatives have been dismissed by their intended beneficiaries. This has happened whenever the practices adopted by the firm have turned out to be out rightly outrageous to the intended beneficiaries. The trigger of these situations has sometimes been created by wrong choice of symbolism in the product which ends up offending the sensibilities of the receiving community. Studies have shown that the management of the corporate firms that succeed in the area of CSR is those that take time and resources to study the fundamental structures of the recipient community’s cultural, political, economic, and social lifestyles. A mismatch in the choice of the initiatives resulted in broken relationships between the firm and the neighborhoods creating a situation that is potentially dangerous on the firm’s performance. Past experiences have also shown that if the firm has branches in various locations, countries or places, it cannot stick to a single model of CSR. It has to carry out a dynamic style of CSR that is most appropriate to the different needs as might be dictated by the different locations. A corporate entity that has a significant presence in the most industrialized parts of Western Europe, and branches in the most impoverished parts of Africa must therefore fashion its corporate social responsibility programs to suit the diametrically opposed environments. Market segmentation has also been another way through which the corporate world might use to craft its CSR programs. Segmentation allows the firm to create categories of social corporate responsibility programs that align with specific values, needs and preferences of the different segments (Visser et al, 2007, p. 67). This kind of segmentation allows the firm to connect more closely with the different segments of its market and in the long term the firm manages to keep its pool of clientele while attracting more others to join its market ranks. The second dimension through which a firm might want to conduct their CSR is through converting the entire program into a competitive tool. In this manner the management might want to make intrusions into the risky parts of the society that may be seemingly neglected. For instance when doing business in some of the clash prone parts of the world a firm might win the confidence of many clients and stay ahead of the competition if it spends its corporate social responsibility program by sponsoring peaceful initiatives. This kind of CSR may play out in two ways to the firms’ advantage: First of the entire firm likely to dissolve the sharp schism that divides the warring factions and therefore win the trust of both. The second factor is the long term factor where its sustained efforts might actually create peace and an enabling environment for peace. While other firms will automatically benefit from the peaceful order, the firm that engineers the return for peace carries the credit, that translates into goodwill and ultimately into profits. In the stiff corporate competition, firms might do well to mesh into the trends of the moment so that they earn the goodwill that comes with responding to the rhythms of the society (McBarnet, Aurora, & Tom, 2007, p. 26). For instance firms might choose to sponsor activities that spearhead the course of environmental preservation by sponsoring crusades against green gas emissions. In this initiative what are important are the angle and the seriousness that the firm conducts the CSR so that it does not wash off as a cosmetic and ritual gesture. Corporate bodies have continuously reviewed their CSR systems to stay ahead of their competitors in areas where other competitive factors have remained constant. Their have been also the emergence of supporting ideologies in the corporate world so that the interlinking phenomena becomes the grounds for the expression of the corporate strategy. Some of these phenomena have sounded the death knell of companies that would have done well to have workable CSR programs to preempt crisis. The age of activism especially has become the melting point that quite often tests the conscience of firms in their pursuits for profits at what seems to have adverse effects to the welfare of companies (Rossi, 2001, p. 30). This is an area where critics of CSR have weighed in heavily in their efforts to discredit the norm which they believe is a veneer that conceals the ills of the corporate world. Whenever their have been cries of environmental degradation, and dehumanization, the punch line has often been the missing link between enterprise and welfare. Scholars have argued that in the face of humanization of the business world it lies upon companies to imagine the most potent message and actions that might reconcile them to the affiliations of the masses. Public outcry, protests, and all forms of activism that have met oil companies in the events of oil spills are a grim illustrations of how critical sentiment has grown to be a shaper of commercial discourse. Therefore, companies that desire to stay afloat the chaos of environmental degradation have always made it there policy to support all forms 0f initiatives even it means preserving them as good will against the possible eruption of standoffs between themselves and vigilant environmentalists. Awards in the corporate sector have equally grown reliant to the discourse of Corporate Social Responsibility. It has not been possible for companies to keep a glowing profile without a corresponding performance on the score of corporate social responsibility. The phenomenon has become the pass word of goodwill in the commercial endeavor. The criterion that is used to award these companies has always reflected the conventional and current goals that are set by the international community. The Millennium Development Goals, The Kyoto Protocol, and several per reviews have become the benchmarks upon which the performances of companies on the corporate scene are classified along the CSR. The corporate social responsibility should therefore not be considered as a ritual unpopular expenditure in the company’s books of account. It should instead be regarded as an opportunity for the exploring the possible links between the consuming world the manufacturers. This opportunity provides an extra forum for dialogue between these parties so that the relations that emerge are multifaceted and therefore lasting (May, George & Juliet 2007 p. 87). Depending on the tenacity of the chosen projects under the CSR, companies can create long term associations with their clientele so that it becomes difficult for upstarts, rivals, and new comers to eat into the establishment. To achieve this in a more systematic manner, the companies’ CSR program should at all times strike a delicate balance between the values of the community, consumer, and the companies’ own long-term goals. References May, S. et al. (2007). The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility. Oxford, England; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.  McBarnet, D. J. et al. (2007). The New Corporate Accountability: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.  Kaliski, B. (Ed.). (2001). Social Responsibility and Organizational Ethics. Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2nd ed., Vol. 1). New York: Macmillan Reference. Kaliski, B. (Ed.). (2001). Ethics in Management. Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2nd ed., Vol. 1). New York: Macmillan Reference. Rossi, Alice S. (2001). Caring and Doing for Others: Social Responsibility in the Domains of Family, Work, and Community. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pride, W. M. et al. (2008). Business (9th Ed.) Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Visser, W. et al. (2007). The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility. London, England; New York, NY: Wiley.    Read More