Corporate Social Responsibility

Definition of Corporate Social Responsibilities

This can be defined as the impact of a company’s action on a society.

It means that a corporation should be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities, and their environment.

To those who might not know, Corporate Social Responsibility differs from charity. 

The distinct difference between them both is that charity has to do with one using individual resources (funds, time etc) to go out and do things for the community, while in corporate social responsibility, the organization/business carries the weight of job.

CSR Arguments for

- Address social issues business caused and allows business to be part of the solution 

Lets say a company acknowledges the fact that they did something, they make a lot of money so therefore they should give back to the community in anyway e.g. help clean up polluted water 

- Protects business self interest

Protect themselves and their image so even if they’re doing bad things, they give to community which lessens the reaction of the people about condemning them.

- Limits future government intervention 

Government interfering would make it very costly because all these rules would follow.

-Address issues by using business resources and expertise

-Addresses issues by being proactive

Then we have a few others not listed in the book, they include: 

-Being ethical

-Obeying laws

-Being profitable

-Having a good reputation

CSR can be performed in two ways either "charity" or "stewardship"

 Charity can be defined as a business giving voluntary aid to societies needy, persons and group.

While Stewardship can been seen when a business, acting as a public trustee, should consider the interest of all who are affected by business decisions and policies.

The difference between these two is that, charity is basically for the needy etc while stewardship has to do with you as an individual acting as a steward to ones staff under no obligation. You just teach them something extra though they might not need it.

sources: Anne T. Lawrence and James Weber, Business & Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy, 13^th edition (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008).

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