The Objectives of Corporate Social Responsibility - Case Study Example

Corporate social responsibility Contents Introduction 3 Literature cited 3 Exploring the information disclosed in Hess Corporation CSR report 5 Community and Social Performance 5 Safety and Health 5 Environment and energy utilisation 6 Exploring the information disclosed in Sonoco CSR report 6 Customer commitment 6 Governance and integrity 6 Environmental responsibility 7 Employee health and safety 7 Community support 7 Exploring the information disclosed in Cisco system inc. CSR report 7 Comparing these CSR reports 8 Similarities 8 Differences 9 Reference to international standards, guidelines for example GRI, ISO 26000 act 11 Conclusion 12 12 References 13 Introduction In the global business environment the concept and the term which is growing at a fast rate is the corporate social responsibility. The concept is now been used by many companies to make sure that they not only have a continuous growth in their business operations but also provide a continuous growth for the society and the employees in its surroundings. With the increasing globalisation the companies have spread their branches to different parts of the world and they have also understood the benefits that the company can get by conducting CSR activities in different places. In this particular report the importance of CSR activities and the way it creates an impact on the society and environment and also on the business operations can be seen by using the example of CSR activities done by three top companies in the world Hess Corporation, Sonoco and Cisco system inc. Different sources are been studied and analysed to understand the importance of CSR for the companies and also for the benefit of the society in a broad manner. Literature cited According to Guthey, Langer, & Morsing in 2006, the corporate social responsibility has filled the business policies and practices and it has become one of the latest management practices across in the entire world conducted by most of the companies (Urip, 2010, pp. 45-47). In 1975, Ackermann explained the individual level of CSR wherein he said that the managerial activities are not been completely made by the corporate policies and practices, thus the managers have to comply with such things accepting the decision against their choice. As per Elkington, in 1997, the companies are also expected to take care of the traditional stakeholders like the environment and the future generations which are unrepresented in the companies policies, and he also explained the triple bottom line based on which their remains certain difference among the CSR and the sustainable development policy of the company (Fernando, 2009, pp. 64-68). In 2001, Windsor in an article did study the relation between the business and corporate social responsibility on long run. As per him there are three phases of emerging reasons for corporate coming close to the society which are rise in the concept of growing responsibility, globally close relationship between corporate and citizens and then the practice for managing the (Cohen, 2010, pp. 23-28). According to research done by Nigel Sarbutts in 2003, over the CSR activities conducted by the small and medium size companies (SME’s) it can be seen that the CSR activities conducted by these SME’s depend on the cost benefit that the company gets out of these activities (Burritt, 2011, pp. 123-126). As per him the small companies always strives hard to minimise the risk and thus the best way for them to overcome the risk is by conducting the CSR activities as they have less number of resources when compared to the big size companies (Baxi and Prasad, 2005, pp. 45-49). Thus the small and medium size companies look to utilise the resources in a proper way and for doing well in the business process they minimise their level of risk and also manage the CSR activities. According to the research paper by Vaaland and Heide in 2008, the companies need to manage the CSFR activities by maintaining good and long term relationships with the stake holders and reduce the gap between the expectations of the stakeholders and the company’s performance and thus create a good relationship with the society (Mallin, 2009, pp. 23-28). In 2004, Moon conducted a research over the role of government in pulling the corporate for doing CSR activities. According to the study done by him every particular business have many things like employee relations, goals, objectives etc. which it needs to achieve (Mullerat, 2011, pp. 45-49). The governmental rules and regulations does make the corporate to conduct certain CSR activities and thus the governments of various countries do play a vital role in making the corporate work for the society and include it in its business practice and policies making a habit for them. Exploring the information disclosed in Hess Corporation CSR report Hess Corporation has grown over the years from a mere oil and gas company to become a high growth and pure exploration and production company having its brand name spread for its quality in the entire world. The company has strong values based on which it does all its operations and also does lots of CSR for making sure that the stakeholders are highly benefited from the organization (Schwartz, 2011, p. 42). The various ways in which Hess corporations conducts the CSR is been shown below. Community and Social Performance The company makes strong efforts to see that they provide security and human rights tool kits to every country manager to make sure they have a clear understanding of how to maintain it in their locations (Banerjee, 2009, pp. 56-64). This also include the way in which the company helps the society with regards to providing educations, better facility etc. Safety and Health The safety and health policy for the employees is given high priority as they are been considered as the main asset of the company. Proper safety rules are been followed by providing proper safety equipments to each employee and making sure that they do abide the safety rules. Various other health facilities like med claim, health insurance are also provided (Paetzold, 2010, pp. 76-83). Environment and energy utilisation This company does utilise all the resources in a very optimum way and also make sure that they use the renewable sources of energy more. It takes care of the fact of eliminating fewer amounts of pollutants in the nature to reduce the pollution level and also takes part in various environment improvement camps in various locations (Grünewälder, 2008, pp. 52-57). Exploring the information disclosed in Sonoco CSR report Sonoco was founded in 1899, and it is the global leader in providing various types of packaging facility for the customer products, industrial products, protective packaging and also for supply chain packaging (Mark, 2012, pp. 18-19). The various ways in which the company does CSR is been given below. Customer commitment The company focuses heavily on providing high quality products to the customers which create a lot of value for them. Governance and integrity The company maintains a strong ethical compliance to see that the human rights is been well followed in the company (Gössling, 2011, pp. 123-126). Environmental responsibility The company conducts all the boniness operations using the latest technology and the innovative methods to make sure that they don’t cause any harm to the environment and stay with the regulatory limits set by the government of that particular country. Sonoco makes regular efforts to see that they help in improving the environmental performance on regular levels and also by using energy efficient systems in their operations (Barth and Wolff, 2009, pp. 62-65). Employee health and safety Sonoco has a good policy to see that they continuously provide a good training and development programs to improve the skills of the employees and also maintains a good healthy work environment in the company for the employees providing them all the safety equipments’ and making strict rules for abiding them (Perez and Leonard, 2013, pp. 34-37). Community support Sonoco does make effort to take part in the society development programs and conducts various activities for betterment of the community. Exploring the information disclosed in Cisco system inc. CSR report Cisco System Inc. is one of the worldwide leaders in IT. It has grown and spr4ead its branches across to all the parts of the world with an increasing market share and also expanding its business operations. The main aim of the CSR strategy been used in Cisco is to use their technology, expertise and business partnerships for the benefit of the society and environment and also provide a lot of impact in the business (Baron, 2001, pp.7-45). The company has set five main pillars of conducting the CSR which are the Supply chain, Governance and ethics followed in the company’s culture, the employees, environment and the society. In supply chain system the company maintains a good and healthy relation with the them maintaining high standard of labour rights, safety, ethics, heath and also makes sure that the environment is not been affected much because of the supply chain network. The company makes sincere efforts to train and develop its employees to improve their skills and also provides most of the facilities for the well being of the employee’s family (Henriques and Richardson, 2004, pp. 167-175). It also takes parts in various society improvement camps like disaster relief camps, by creating more job opportunities thus providing an economic stability to the society, the company is able to do all these by maintain a strong ethical culture in the organization. Comparing these CSR reports Similarities Companies are different but there are lots similarities in terms of their CSR activities. CSR activities are very important for all three companies (Grime, 2006, pp. 90-98). CSR activities are image creator for all companies. All three companies are greatly attached with different CSR activities. Some of those similarities are discussed below. This section of the study will going to show different similarities of these three companies. All three companies has given the human rights it top priority (Asongu, 2007, pp. 89-95). According to their report company has taken many steps for securing all the human right activities regarding all the stakeholders. It shows that all three companies have chosen human rights for one of their CSR strategy. Keeping human rights of the work force intact is very important for the success of any organization. These three companies have maintained this very well (Hasan, 2012, pp. 67-75). Marinating the balance of the environment is also an integral part for all three companies in their CSR activities. All three companies have given lots of importance towards environment. All three companies abide by all the rules and regulations regarding the environment (Werther and Chandler, 2010, pp. 78-82). Proper governance and ethics is also a similar CSR policy followed and maintained by all three companies. These three well reputed companies believe that proper governance is very important for getting long term success. All three companies believe high level of transparency in their business practises (Keinert, 2008, pp. 34-41). Societal wellbeing is also a common CSR strategy for all three companies. The above portion of the study clearly shows that all three companies are doing a lot for the society. It shows that these three companies commonly believe in giving back something towards the society. These three companies contribute in different ways towards the society (Crowther and Aras, 2008, p. 29). The contributions towards the society change the image of any company. Differences Every company is having its own style of CSR activities (Spence and Mollie, 2010, pp. 56-67). According to business CSR activity also get changes. Companies try to find different innovative ideas for their CSR activities. Those differences make each and every company uniquely different from each other. Ways can be different but ultimate results are same. Main objective is to contribute towards the society. Some of the differences in CSR activities of these three companies are discussed below (Paul and Tolhurs, 2012, pp. 45-51). This kind of differences is very often created according to the strength and limitations of companies. Sonoco and Cisco takes Supply chain as one of their CSR activities but Hess doesn’t include supply chain into their CSR strategy (Morsing and Beckmann, 2006, pp. 123-130). Sonoco has included strategic leadership into their CSR activities on the other hand Hess and Cisco has not included strategic leadership into their CSR activities. Here Hess and Cisco has taken strategic leadership as a separate leadership matter (Samuel, and Walter, 2008, pp. 98-105). Hess has taken award and recognition as a part of their CSR activities but Sonoco and Cisco don’t include it as a part of their CSR activities. Here Sonoco and Cisco has treated awards and recognition as a motivational matter. Sonoco has included customer commitments as part of their CSR activities. Hess and Cisco has not included customer commitment in to their CSR activities. Here other two companies have not given extra emphasis on customer commitments (Werther and Chandler, 2010, pp. 121-123). It shows that Sonoco has included this intentionally to show that they are very much loyal towards their customers. Hess includes assets in transition as a part of their CSR activities. Sonoco and Cisco don’t include asset in transition as part of their CSR activities. Reference to international standards, guidelines for example GRI, ISO 26000 act There are many international standards that are been followed by various companies to make sure they can do the corporate social responsibility in a good way and benefit the stakeholders in a good way. Examples of such international standards and guidelines are the GRI, ISO 26000 act which are been used and implemented by various companies to get recognised and also to achieve a particular level in its performance level (Mullerat, 2010, pp. 96-104). GRI refers to Global Reporting Initiative. This is a non-governmental based organization that focuses on creating sustainability and also environmental, social and governance reports. It does set up certain set of rules and regulations that the organizations need to follow and make the report for their social, environmental and economic performances. The companies can use the GRI guidelines to make sure that they can prepare their reports in a good way which will help them to analyse and also make improvements in their performance for the betterment of the environment, society and also economic conditions (Rendtorff, 2009, p. 82). In the same way, ISO 26000 is guidance for the company which puts a lot of importance on the public reporting over the performance been done by the company for the betterment of the stakeholders like the employees, local communities and regulators and also for the sake of investors. Thus this type of international standards do provide a good platform for the company to analyse their performance and also provides information to the public about the company, it also helps the company to have a continuous improvement in their process (Norton, 2012, pp. 34-42). Conclusion Thus looking at this report it can be seen how various companies do try and help in betterment of its stakeholders like the employees, investors, community, regulators etc. Every company has a different policy and they approach in a different way to help the society and make sure that it gets involved with the community in a better way. This corporate social responsibility not only helps the company in improving the conditions of the environment and the stakeholders but it also provides a lot of benefit to the company as well as it helps them in creating a good brand image in the global market. The companies also have various international standards to make sure that they can make their report and conduct the CSR in a better way. References Asongu, J. 2007. Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility in Practice. Atlanta: Greenview Publishing Co. Banerjee, S. 2009. Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 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