Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition's Mission - Research Proposal Example

?How EICC Corporate Social Responsibility measurable and sustainable Introduction About EICC EICC or ‘Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’ is aglobal association of leading electronic companies round the world that works for the enhancement of efficiency and productivity and also in regards to the responsibility parameters of the electronic companies pertaining to society, environment and ethical conducts. The EICC body requires the different companies working under its banner to fulfill the stated guidelines as to the above stated parameters. Manufacturing and software companies along with contracting companies dealing with the production of electronic equipments in several regions round the world are welcomed to gain membership of the body (EICC, “About Us”). Code of Conduct in EICC The Code of Conduct of people employed in companies under the umbrella of EICC came into form focusing mainly on three specific areas. Firstly it worked in helping create a safer and transparent work atmosphere in the companies. Secondly it enhanced the responsibility parameter of the people in regards to environment and society. Thirdly the Code of Conducts helps in motivating the people to develop on their business skills and thus enhance productivity. Companies desiring to adopt the Code of Conduct for EICC are required to firstly identify interest in the people and thereby raise commitment in them to follow such codes in their actions. Thus training of the staffs by the management body while keeping an eye on the changing guidelines in the EICC Codes of Conduct also constitutes an integral part of their actions (EICC, “EICC Code”). EICC Implementation and sustenance of CSR Principles in Western Digital (Thailand) Company Limited Western Digital is a California based company that works in the generation of products and services for those companies that work on the collection, management and employment of large amount of digital databases. The company earns expertise in the production of hard disks for easy storage and use of data. Thailand is considered as the company’s largest manufacturing center employing around 30,000 people committed to render quality in products and services (Western Digital, “Welcome to Western Digital”). Western Digital a continuing member of EICC vehemently supports the Code of Conduct guidelines laid down by the body in regards to the monitoring the actions of its supply chain groups in fulfilling economic, social and environmental goals (Western Digital, “Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2011”, 19). Preliminary Literature Review Relevancy and Scope of the EICC Codes of Conduct for Corporate Social Responsibility FIAS (2007) observes that the EICC Codes of Conduct in regards to the sector of Corporate Social Responsibility operates along parameters like employment conditions of the people pertaining to compensation schemes and other employment policies relating to discrimination and employment of children. Again the Codes of Conduct also focus on sustaining and enhancing the health and safety paradigms of the workplace. Along with focusing on enhancing the betterment of work conditions for the people the codes of conduct also laid stress on the meeting of environmental guidelines by the company. Finally the Codes of Conduct laid down by EICC tends to evaluate whether the management of the company has taken significant steps in training the people in effective understanding and fulfillment of the relevant guidelines. Herein the EICC Codes of Conduct tends to enhance the accountability of the management to fulfill the relevant guidelines by identifying the task holder groups. Moreover the Codes of Conduct also require auditing to be done of the operational process of the enterprise in regards to the operational standards and guidelines as reflected and documented by EICC. Training rendered to the people for the adequate fulfillment of the EICC Codes of Conduct needs to draw potential feedbacks from the respondents so as to firstly assess the interest of the people and thereby to take corrective actions on that behalf. The EICC Codes of Conduct also lay increased stress on the paradigm of business ethics such that it helps in enhancing the sense of business integrity among the organizational people. Thus EICC Codes of Conduct are found to encompass several organizational elements relating to employment and compensation schemes of internal people, work and health and safety standards, environmental standards of the company, management initiatives and finally areas of ethics and business integrity. The above parameters thus help in enhancing the dimensions of its relevancy and scope in regards to any manufacturing or technology oriented firm (FIAS, “Corporate Social Responsibility in China’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector”, 76-79). Issues, Challenges Gaps in Knowledge and Understanding of the EICC Codes of Conduct for Corporate Social Responsibility Resolve (2010) highlights in regards to the aforesaid situation that the EICC Codes of Conduct fail to be properly transmitted down the line to people working in the supplier organizations. It is found that the codes of conduct only tend to remain conversant between the management of the principal manufacturing organization and the principal supplying company thereby failing to percolate or pervade the supplying channel effectively. This leads to loss of transparency and knowledge in regards to the codes. Moreover it is also found that the principal supplier company in many cases fails to encourage its constituent members to follow the guidelines as framed in the EICC Codes of Conduct. This creates a conflict of information sharing between the constituent supply enterprises in an effective fashion. Again in the process of satisfying regulatory compliance as required by the codes of conduct the supplier groups reflected lack of resources to fulfill such. Further challenges were also reflected in regards to the unavailability of proper documentation among the supplier groups with also the existence of language barriers thus jeopardizing the total initiative in understanding and implementing the codes and thereby monitoring activities based on it (Resolve, “Tracing a Path Forward: A Study of the Challenges of the Supply Chain for Target Metals Used in Electronics”, 15-19). Area of Research and Research Question The area of research would mainly focus in whether the EICC Codes of Conduct helps in maintaining sustainability as to the corporate responsibility in addressing social, economic and environmental issues. For the purpose of the research the company chosen would be the Thailand operations of the Western Digital Company. Further the research would proceed based on two hypotheses that can be framed as follows. H1: The incorporation of EICC Codes of Conduct would help the Western Digital Company and its supplier groups in meeting the norms of corporate social responsibility in an effective manner H2: The management body of Western Digital Company’s branch operating in Thailand fails to effectively percolate the EICC Codes of Conduct to the supply chain groups of the company and thereby fails to fulfill the objectives of corporate social responsibility parameters To fulfill the above objectives and to draw inferences to the hypotheses around 30 interviews would be taken on a group of 300 respondents. The total of 30 interviews would be divided around 9 open ended questions that would help in elucidating the understanding of the respondents in a descriptive fashion. Inferences to such questions would be based mainly on secondary research gaining inputs from literary sources like books and articles. On the other hand the other 21 questions that would be framed would be mainly close ended in nature. These questions would be asked on the group of 300 respondents that would be sub-divided into three groups like employees, management and suppliers. A total of 100 respondents would be chosen in each group who would render their views on 7 different close ended questions framed for each group. The close ended questions would be objectives based where the views of the respondents would be rated on a multi-scale technique. Such technique would help the researcher in reflecting the inferences drawn from the three sub-groups in terms of percentage and thereby can be reproduced in the form of graphs and pie-charts. The close ended questions would be based mainly on primary research where the questionnaire developed based on 21 questions amongst the three groups like employees, supplier groups and the management. Sample size of the different groups chosen to be 100 would be chosen based on stratified random sampling such that the work and objective of the people in each of the groups stands the same. The above process would thus tend to show the impact of EICC Codes of Conduct in sustainably meeting the objectives of the corporate social responsibility guidelines in regards to management body of the company and the supplier chain groups. The questions framed both for the open and close ended type would tend to gauge the level of impacts and also would endeavor to understand how the management body tends to monitor the supplier chain groups of the company based on standards of meeting the CSR guidelines. The question sets would also tend to bring forward the impact of the management guidelines in incorporating the EICC Codes of Conduct for meeting CSR standards on the employees of the concern. Thus in total the research would be all pervasive in addressing the issues raised in the hypothesis framed. References EICC. “About Us”. August 4, 2011. Web. March 28, 2012 EICC. “EICC Code”. August 4, 2011. Web. March 28, 2012. < http://www.eicc.info/eicc_code.shtml>. Western Digital. “Welcome to Western Digital”. 2012. Web. March 28, 2012. < http://wdc.com/en/company/corporateinfo/> Western Digital. “Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2011”. Web. August 2011. March 28, 2012. < http://wdc.com/wdproducts/library/company/globalcitizenship/CorporateSocialResponsibilityReport2011HR.pdf> Resolve. “Tracing a Path Forward: A Study of the Challenges of the Supply Chain for Target Metals Used in Electronics”. Web. April 2010. March 28, 2012 < http://eicc.info/documents/RESOLVEReport4.10.10.pdf>. Read More