Collaborating to Achieve CSR and Sustainability by Murray - Research Paper Example

Collaborating to achieve CSR and Sustainability This paper studies the article “Collaborating to achieve CSR and sustainability” by Murray, Haynes and Hudson to analyze the importance of collaboration in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Defining Collaboration With the progress of time, organisations of any type face complex challenges in regard to climate change and sustaining their development processes. It is the responsibility of a business to work in an ethical manner towards the environment and society so that a more long standing economic order can be achieved. However, a business is not solely responsible to face and solve the challenges regarding “sustainable development and climate change” (Murray et al, 161). It is important that every sector of the society must co-operate with business to find solutions to such profound and complex challenges. Collaboration is the co-operation and co-ordination that is necessary between all business, government and non-government organisations to cope with all such challenges. It is a situation where people work towards attaining a wider goal beyond the boundaries of an organisation. Keeping in view the responsibility towards the economic development of the society, collaboration and partnership between different organisations seem to be more logical manner to maintain the flow of development. Collaboration can have the advantages of “improved access to resources, sharing of risk, increased efficiency, co-ordination and seamlessness” between different organisations and institutions (Murray et al 166). Collaboration is also imperative because it is not possible for a single organisation to deal with moral problems of the society like “poverty, crime and drug abuse”. Collaboration can take place between business organisations and governments or between governments and NGOs to address various social issues. Companies may often collaborate with governments and NGOs with the purpose of learning from their partners for their benefits and also for the benefits of the partnership. In the framing of the structure of the collaborations, the organizations should be careful in choosing a collaboration which would meet the objective of the CSR of the organization. In building the collaboration, special emphasis should be provided to maintain relationship between the units with which the business houses are collaborating. Various strategies also have been framed for the better utilization of the collaboration process (Murray et al 161-174). Every organization is responsible to the society and its activities will have substantial effect on the communities and environment at large. Today, every consumer expects that a corporation has social responsibilities which are as important as making profits. Therefore, the decision makers need to take CRS into account before designing collaborations (Kreng and Huang, 539) Practice of collaboration There are various complexities in the collaborative relationships between different organisations. While the parties to the collaboration often have “common interests or stake in the outcome of endeavors”, it is not necessary that the parties also share common values, goals and objectives (Murray, et al, 165). Therefore, the mutual trust and relationship between parties are more important that common goals. To attain continuity in development of objectives, a business organisation has to align with the changing expectations of the society. This can be done by justifying the role of the organisation in terms of CSR that goes beyond their goal of profit making. However, since CSR varies from one region to the other, there always remains a tension between “universal expectations and local challenges and opportunities” (Uwafiokun 1). There are four types of collaborations that an organisation can practice to implement CSR. The first type of collaboration is between “a single firm and NGO”. This is the most common type and so efficient managers can be found easily to manage this type of collaboration. However, this type can also have limitations as these collaborations can be easily influenced by senior management who may give priority to their personal benefit over the “ethical responsibilities”. The second type of collaboration is between “multiple firms and a single NGO”. In this type of collaboration, the NGO is mostly dependent on the goodwill of the partnership firms. This relationship can fail to sustain if the NGO cannot bring credibility or itself earns criticisms from stakeholders. Therefore, this type of collaboration can be practiced between firms having goodwill or the NGO must have credibility. The third type of collaboration is between a single firm and multiple NGOs. This type of collaboration is effective in handling “complex social and environmental issues”. The fourth type of collaboration is between multiple firms and multiple NGOs. This type of collaboration is complex in nature. The process of communal contributions appears to be most appropriate in the case of diverse locations and in the environmental sensitive areas where the government lacks the efficiency in the proper distribution of resource. The use of public policy in these forms of collaborations can be effectively used between the various firms and the NGO’s. One major benefit of this type is that they allow for “remediation of complex issues that can detract from firm or industry performance” (Peloza and Falkenberg, 97-108). Analysis of gap When collaborations take place between business firms, governments and NGOs, many problems arise while negotiating mutual agreements. There may be gaps or vast differences between the parties in regard to their expectations from the partnership and “cultural perspectives may require careful management to achieve shared meanings within a collaborative relationship” (Murray et al, 167). Without the existence of proper and efficient governance system within the partnership, the goals cannot be achieved and can put the resources and reputations of the members at stake (Murray et al 167). To make collaborations successful, it is necessary to align the business strategies with all operational sectors. This will make way for easy investments to achieve their goals. There should also be a transparent way of sharing information between the stakeholders. There should also be “leverage transparency” to enhance the involvement of major constituents and customers (Pohle and Hittner 15). The designing of the collaboration often lack incorporation of various policies which could have led to the success of the organizations. In spite of the fact that the practices of the collaborations vary a lot from the theories however the overall operation of the collaboration has been a success in the attainment of corporate social responsibilities. In South Africa, it has been noted that the collaboration of the government and the NGOs was successful in delivery of drugs for the treatment of people who were affected with HIV or AIDS but only rare success has been achieved in productive investments (Zadek 25). References Idemudia, Uwafiokun, Corporate social responsibility and developing countries, Progress in development studies (2011) 11.1, p.1, retrieved on March 2, 2012 from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4f09be20-25b6-4c83-93c8-5683d37d8ef8%40sessionmgr15&vid=8&hid=10 Kreng, Victor B. and May-Yao Huang, Corporate social responsibility: consumer behaviour, corporate strategy, and public policy. Social behaviour and personality (2011) 39.4, p. 539, March 2, 2012 from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9da659c7-333d-4e0d-89d0-e0ccb72eb611%40sessionmgr13&vid=10&hid=110 Murray, Allan, Haynes, Kathryn and Lucian J. Hudson, “Collaborating to achieve corporate social responsibility and sustainability, Sustainability Accounting”, Management and Policy Journal (2010)1.2, 161-175 Peloza, John and Falkenberg, Loren, “The Role of Collaboration in Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility Objectives”, CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW (2009) 51.3, 95-110 Pohle, George and Hitner, Jeff, Attaining sustainable growth through Corporate social responsibility, Ibm, 2008. Zadek, Simon, The logic of collaborative governance, Corporate Responsibility, Accountability, and the Social Contract (2006) Working paper No. 17, 3-25 Read More