CSR with Specific Reference to the McDonalds Restaurant - Case Study Example

NVIRОNMЕNTАL MАNАGЕMЕNT RЕРОRT COURSE NAME STUDENT NAME STUDY LEVEL DATE Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Literature Review 4 Themes 5 Environmental Theme 5 Restaurant operations 5 Corporate operations 6 Sustainable supply 6 Advocacy and partnerships 7 Culture and communication 7 Discussion 8 Implemented Policies 8 Signs of questionable motives 8 Relationship Between the programs and marketing theories 9 Environmentalists’ Criticisms the programs 9 Personal opinion about the programs 10 Conclusion 10 References 12 Executive Summary This report focuses on CSR with specific reference to the McDonald’s restaurant. McDonald’s restaurant has been in operations for many years, it has also positively contributed to the development of positive environmental issues despite the challenges it faces as a fast-food restaurant. Environmental concerns which includes policies and ways of managing environmental degradation. McDonald’s restaurant has managed this through its positive theme on environment and its key guideline for enhancing environmental sensitivity. Introduction This study involves a survey of the perception of students about environmental awareness and its related ethical issues in the business community, especially in the hospitality sector. It studies a typical environmental management program of a popular fast food restaurant, McDonald’s. The study investigates the nature of sustainability focus of McDonald’s restaurant. McDonalds is not only involved in profit making, but also participates actively in the Corporate Social Responsibility through environmental management programs. Its values include impacting positively on the society by taking care of the environment, performing restaurant operations, engaging in corporate operations, emphasizing on sustainability agenda, upholding the culture of communications among communities engaging in advocacy as well as partnerships. Literature Review According to Schwartz (2011, p.54) in reality, McDonald’s restaurant is not experiencing any form of monopoly because there are other hospitality groups like Bahama Breeze restaurant. Bahama Breeze is an equally competent restaurant in the Hospitality Industry in USA. It focuses on provision of quality services and products especially sea foods. Apart from its core activities, Bahama Breeze also articulates the importance of taking care of the community through corporate social responsibility (Blodgett 2004, p.67). Community activities take a considerable priority in the operations of the restaurant. It has been in the fore front in the environmental protection initiatives in Orlando, where it is located, and sometimes goes regionally to the neighbourhood of Orlando. It has a sustainability programme that considers the importance corporate social responsibility through sustainable environmental initiatives. Just like in the case of the McDonald’s restaurant, Bahama Breeze recognizes the need for taking care of the community arguing that the community is the source of the restaurant’s clientele. It values the fact that the environment supports their operations either directly or indirectly. Both McDonald’s restaurant and the Bahama Breeze restaurant have common policies, whose only variations are perhaps in the way they implements them (Mullerat & Brennan 2011, p.53). The two restaurants have been influential and their values for corporate social responsibility are recognized by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as playing key roles in the contemporary society. Themes Environmental Theme The restaurant commits itself to the protection and maintenance of the environment. The management has made it a culture that drives corporate operation across regional boundaries. Notwithstanding the fact that the environment is not its core function, it has not left the task of sustainability entirely to be managed by non-governmental organizations. In fact, most of the themes that the McDonald’s restaurant drives are all surrounding either community sustainability, environmental protection or both. It is needless to say that in advocating for partnership, the McDonald’s inspires other corporate institutions towards the same themes of sustainability of Environmental standards (Bacher, C 2007). The Bahama Breeze has a clause of its policies talking about the environment and does optimal evaluation on its standard of implementation of the same. Restaurant operations It is possible that companies which make commitments to enforce the agenda of corporate social responsibility can do so often at the expense of the core business activities. This has been the challenge for the McDonald’s Restaurant. The management has had a challenge in balancing between the two classes of activities. The frequency of conducting corporate environmental initiatives is higher in the McDonald’s Restaurant than other close hospitality restaurants. In the Bahama Breeze on the other hand, there are well stipulated periods when corporate social responsibility takes priority. The management of the Bahama restaurant decides on the specific times in the year when the restaurant can engage in community activities. The two restaurants however realize that there is a risk of priority diversion if the management does not emphasize on the core operations of the restaurant business. Corporate operations The involvement of the companies in corporate social responsibility has managed to connect them to the corporate business world. Theoretically, Hawkins (2006, p.73) says that when the community notices the impact of the restaurants in the environmental protection activities, the members of the community realize the direct benefits they can obtain from the restaurant apart from receiving services as ordinary clients. The McDonald and the Bahama Breeze has managed to convince the community that they are of various benefit to the community at different capacities. This has created long term benefits to the two restaurants because they have won the corporate loyalty of the clients. The fact that the restaurants sacrifice resources to promote community environmental sustainability adds them more corporate image in the corporate business world. Sustainable supply McDonald’s Restaurant place the environment in a better position realizing that the community is the source of business sustainability. Both McDonald’s restaurant and the Bahamas Breeze have a common sustainability policy, in which they recognize that there is a mutual connection between the community and the corporate business world. This is a challenge at the times when the budgets for community environmental programs escalate to exorbitant levels beyond the company’s expectations. This causes dangerous impacts on the financial performance on the two restaurants, especially the McDonalds (Baxi & Ajit 2009, p.94). The reason is obviously because the management of McDonald’s emphasizes on corporate social responsibility and conducts more activities than the Bahama Breeze Restaurant. Advocacy and partnerships McDonald’s Restaurant advocates for corporate partnership not only for business operations but also for the necessary corporate community initiatives. The benefit of this policy has been the leverage they receive due to the ability to combine resources from more than one hospitality company (Glicksman 2007, p.59). The burden of utilizing resources does not entirely rest on one particular company. Secondly, the partner companies evenly share the responsibilities of planning the community activities. In the Bahama Breeze Restaurant, partnership is not an objective of priority in terms of corporate social responsibility. The only instance where partnership plays a vital role is in procurement and service outsourcing (Conklin 2010, p.39). In essence, the main partners of the Bahama Breeze are the suppliers and external service providers (Ionescu-Somers & Steger 2008, p. 59). The management of Bahama Breeze restaurant prefers to conduct corporate social responsibility without the involvement of partners because it earns the restaurant a special recognition in the community. Culture and communication This is a controversial policy, whose implementation has not been consistent for both of the two restaurants. This, according to Bacher (2007, p.54) is because the community expects the hospitality industry to recognize various cultures, languages and modes of communication. The two restaurants have a variety of ways of treating this policy, but of course there is an international standard code of conduct for all cultures. That is the basic point of reference for the two restaurants. Evens so, the two restaurants have temporary mechanisms for managing diverse cultures since they have access to regional and international clientele. Discussion Implemented Policies Among the policies that the restaurants implement, there are some that are common between them. For example, sustainability is a common policy between the two. There are certain elements of policies that are being implemented without a specific identification of the entire policy. McDonald’s Restaurant does have a well-documented structure of their policies as published on their website. The general list of policies has been implemented in a holistic manner and with equal seriousness and commitment (Gottlieb & Joshi 2010, p.38). The themes have displayed a commitment of the company to its policies, such as sustainability, corporate operation, core restaurant operation, partnership motivation and the environmental policy. In the Bahama Breeze, has a list of policies with a different structure but are implemented in the same way as the McDonald’s policies. The only policy that they implement in the same way is the culture and communication. Signs of questionable motives While in the process of implementing policies, the community doesn’t entirely understand what the business world is up to. There are groups which display suspicions that the corporate world is political initiatives (Ritzer 2010, p.39). In Orlando for example, there are people who thought that environmental community initiatives are political campaign motives. In the McDonald’s restaurant experience, some corporate institutions saw their environmental sustainability movements as a threat. This is because of the loyalty that the restaurant won from the community. While a section of the hospitality groups joined in partnership to execute the environmental agenda, some, such as the Apple Bee Restaurant decided to keep distance. They were not sure of the motives that the McDonald Restaurant had, regardless of the evident results of the environmental works they had accomplished. Baja Fresh did comment on the Bahama Breeze’s community initiatives as encouraging but never joined in partnership, of course because Bahama Breeze Restaurant had not set up partnership policies and value except for service provision and outsourcing (Bacher, 2007). The suspicions come because the corporate world is operating in a dynamic age, full of competition and market liberalization. Global Environment Facility (GEF) has felt threats due to the existence of the McDonald’s participation in environmental works. GEF feels that the restaurant may interfere with the prevailing environmental conditions since that is not a specialization of the hospitality industry. Relationship Between the programs and marketing theories There is a close synchronization between the participation in corporate community initiatives and the marketing strategies (Holder & Lee 2007, p54). Many companies utilize the CSR opportunities such as environmental sustainability and hospitality to conduct awareness of their products and services. Of course this is not unethical, because corporate social responsibility is of mutual benefits between the corporate world and the community. Once the corporate world has made business out of their clients, they in turn give back to their clients through CSR initiatives (Wilk 2006, p.84). Again the cycle moves on as the corporate businesses advertise their businesses through CSRs. The impact of CSR on marketing theory is practical because member of the community build loyalty towards the business community. Chen (2003, p.78) say that clients then, feel the direct impact of the benefits of businesses in the hospitality industry. It is a beneficial strategy where the business world can practically get value of the resources they spend on the community, including time. At such times, McDonald restaurant prepares brand materials such as T-shirts for the employees and for the community members for the sake of identity and advertisement. Before Bahama Breeze management decides on the budgets for corporate social responsibility, the management team has to establish targets for the value they expect in return. Environmentalists’ Criticisms the programs A section of environmentalists have presented negative sentiments towards the actions of the hospitality industry in community environmental sustainability. As Farmer (2012, p.50) expalins Global Environment Facility (GEF) for example has constantly criticized the McDonald Restaurant for its participation in environmental cleaning, arguing that the restaurant does not have environmental specialists (Alkon & Agyeman 2011, p.58). GEF accuses the restaurant of causing more hazards on the already hazardous environment. Secondly, they argue that the restaurant should concentrate on its core activities rather than involve it in environmental works. The Bahama Breeze restaurant has not received direct criticism for the same, but has lacked support from the environmentalists, a clear indicator that the environmentalists do not support its actions. Personal opinion about the programs This study supports the involvement of the corporate world in corporate social responsibility. Of course the business community exist for the sole purpose of profit making. It then means they have the capability of contributing positively to the development of the community, since they have resources. At the same time, this study supports the idea of the corporate business community using the opportunity to do marketing. Conclusion In the contemporary business world, it is prudent for the corporate community to prove their worth to the entire community by giving back value through corporate social responsibility. It doesn’t make sense if an enterprise makes profit but the community doesn’t benefit directly from it. CSR is a brilliant idea that the rest of the business community need to adopt, especially in the area of environmental protection. 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