Corporate social responsibility - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept adopted by organisations which escorts them to participate in activities beneficial for the society. CSR enables the small and medium size organisations to engage in activities that constructively impact not only the customers and suppliers, but it works in those communities where even the interests of competitors, stakeholders and shareholders are protected.Practicing CSR enables the managerial procedures into practice and indicates a pluralistic society that maximises freedom of expression, action, and responsibility which in turn results in a widely diversified set of loyalties to many different causes and organisations and minimises the danger that any one leader of any one organisation will be left uncontrolled. All of these advantages and disadvantages, along with its structure and composition, are in part some of the cause for the differences in viewpoint on what social responsibility is, what it should be, what it should encompass, and what it should accomplish.CSR at one end indicates those who strongly believe that organisations are in business solely to produce goods and services that societies want, be they life-saving devices, legal advice, or atomic weapons and that they are entitled to make a profit in return. Such people do not consider social responsibility as an issue. At the other end, there are those who believe that organisations should be allowed to do business only if they do no harm, help solve social problems, and put some of the profits they earn back to work for society (Sims, 2003, p. 45).
We can say that the concept of social responsibility is actually that of social responsiveness which is a continually evolving concept and means different things to different people. There is no particular definition of CSR, in fact numerous studies conducted since 1970s and 1980s attempted to relate CSR to various kinds of socially responsive activities which when presented before the business manager, measures and tabulates the relative frequency of response.

Stakeholders believe that business has a moral obligation to correct the social problems that beset society while at the same time, many of these stakeholders feel that much of the business community has not and is not adequately dealing with many of these social problems of concern. Strategically managed CSR contributes towards organisational performance and growth (Husted & Allen, 2006).
On the other hand corporate executives feel they must include social policy guidelines into the strategic plans from which formulating and reshaping CSR policies would be easier (Thompson & Smith, 1991). The responsibility of MNEs (multinational enterprises) towards public is reflected in changing public attitudes about their social obligations, therefore in a manner CSR enables the MNEs to participate in opposing worldwide corruption (Luo, 2006). This way the burden of implementing and achieving the social as well as the political goals lie on the shoulders of middle and lower management resulting in effectively translating the concept of responsibility into practice and increasing profits at the same time. This is the basic approach that some of the larger profitable businesses are taking today while understanding CSR, for which Peter Drucker expresses his concern by mentioning the significance of doing good in order to do well, (Anderson, 1989, p. 7) that is to convert social needs and problems into profitable business opportunities, a phenomenon rarely considered by today's advocates of 'social responsibility'.
Corporate or social responsibility emphasises at various understanding and at various levels different stakeholders' activities which they consider as responsibility towards the local economy in which every stakeholder participates in context with the society and the environment, as well as towards the local business stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, officials, and employees (Conference ...Download file to see next pagesRead More