Virtue Ethics
Attempts to Craft the Definition
The first dimension of this contemporary emergence implies that communities and societies should be protected to avoid environmental disasters, harmful goods and unsatisfactory level of services, or discriminatory practices, for instance. The second perspective is often embraced by the term of enhancing the well-being of communities and societies (in other words, enterprises are expected, but not obliged, of course, to engage in charity initiatives and activities). Both these dimensions rest on the premises that legal rules and statutes do not lay down all the necessary and most desired requirements to the activities of businesses (Carroll, 2015).
Summary of the Article
Basically, the article largely seeks to cover two issues. First, Carroll has, in the author’s opinion, made quite a good attempt at describing the history of “CSR” by comprising the emergence and evolvement of this concept, gradually crossing several decades, beginning from the 1960s. Reflecting on these historical periods, it should be noted that the modern definition of “CSR” has not appeared till the 1990s – early stages of 2000s when huge corporations failed and collapsed owing to ethical abuses and lack of accurate accountability and responsibility of their leaders (among them are Enron, Tyco, WorldCom). Thus, in the very this period, the issue of “CSR” has begun to acquire a new meaning (Carroll, 2015).
Second, the given researcher turns out to have successfully emphasized that “CSR” has been confused and replaced for a long time by other similar frameworks known as “Business Ethics” (“BE”), “Stakeholder Management” (“SM”), “Sustainability” (“S”), and “Corporate Citizenship” (“CC”). Whatever principles and standards the aforementioned notions could comprise and share being able of misleading even high managers, one should not interchange them and use as synonymous (Carroll, 2015).
The Article’s Contribution to the Academic Terrain
As it has been already stated by the author above, Carroll has managed to identify and address the issue that “CSR” may be actually thought to consist of several components and each of them embraces one of the sides of the complex phenomenon called “CSR”. This is the challenge constituting a structural problem of why scholars and practitioners often utilize these 4 components as notions identical to “CSR”, both in commercial settings and scientific environments (Carroll, 2015).
Hence, “BE” is mostly viewed to be a set of values and principles following from the morals and philosophical perspectives. By utilizing the notion of “BE”, experts seek to clarify the extent to which business conduct and activities may be held fair, right and such as complying with regulations. Some researchers even concluded that “BE” must be different from “CSR” in terms of groups and levels of managers they embrace (Carroll, 2015).
In contrast to “BE”, which is largely focused on ascertaining a philosophical and moral sense of business actions, “SM” has been heralded with an obvious purpose of defining, to the most tangible extent, a coherent number of internal and external stakeholders influenced by the company’s activity. The notion “stakeholders” typically includes owners, founders, investors, workers, social groups and movements interested in the field a particular enterprise is positioned in, governments, communities, and other individuals having chances to be affected. A comprehensive finding reached by Carroll (2015) is that from now managers need to resolve the issues and concerns brought by all stakeholders to be seen socially responsible.
The last two components pertaining to “CSR” are defined as “Sustainability” and “Corporate Citizenship”. Evidently, the notion of “S” takes its roots in the campaign to address current and future challenges created by environmental disasters. Turning to the historical observations, the term “sustainable development” was created in 1987 and nowadays the big businesses covered by the “Fortune 250” release reports shedding light on their success and failures in environmental, economic, and social fields. Consequently, such sustainability reports are substantially fluctuating between several points of which their drafters are not explicitly sure (Carroll, 2015).
In its turn, “Corporate Citizenship”, unlike to “S” and other components of “CSR” discussed above, has not been given a scientific meaning and interpretation. This matter turns out to have been predominantly invented and extended by practicing business managers. The present issue accounts for increased liabilities of enterprises existing and functioning in communities as if they were their “citizens” and like other law-abiding residents they ought to “give back” to people by engaging in various charity programs (Carroll, 2015).
In conclusion, due to the analytical findings provided within this research, at this current stage of evolvement, “CSR” ought to be interpreted as the social business framework relying on “BE”, “SM”, “S”, and “CC”, although each of these components is a vital organism continuing its development, so, it is still unclear what an ultimate direction will “SCR” reach and how it will be measured to assess enterprises’ performance.
References
Carroll, A.B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility: the centerpiece of competing and complementary frameworks. Organizational Dynamics, 44, 87-96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2015.02.002
Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2010). Corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Management Reviews, 1-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00277.x
