Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility into a Company
Corporate social responsibility simply refers to the strategies corporation or firms conduct their business in a way that is ethical and mindful of its impact on the society it operates. It also describes the relationship between business and the society. The exact definition of CSR is viewed to be elusive due to the attitudes and belief that is connected to the nature of the associated fluctuate regarding the issue of that time. It also constitutes an organizations respect for the society demonstrated by taking ownership of the effects of how activities affect or impact its key constituencies that may include customers, environment, employees, and shareholders (Wood 91).
During the mid-1990s, the Board and the Senior Management of VanCity Credit Union felt how integrating the corporate social responsibility (CSR) into the operations of a business was being a logical and a natural direction for a democratic, member-focused credit union (Ber 35). At that time, CSR was recognized as one among the three strategic business goals, and businesses developed products and services that encompassed environmental and social components.
Since then, the VanCity has endeavored through the tough road of CSR. They learned that in order to be a true CSR leader, there is need to go much further and not just developing services and products with a CSR edge, the VanCity needed to work towards embedding CSR into all the facets of their operations. It became part of their long-term strategic direction (Zu 77).
As a way forward with respect to becoming a leader in CSR is the understanding of the long-term trends within the social and environmental issues. It also involves analyzing how the issues impact on the demands of the stakeholder, consumer attitudes, and potential partnerships, in the coming years.
Merits of CSR program
Strong and broad level of commitment-the program on CSR makes businesses and companies to display a level of commitment to the society that surpasses the legal requirements.
The address of sustainable development within the framework of corporate social responsibility is relevant from the perspective of the societies facing limited natural resources, major social, economic and political challenges.
Demerits of the CSR program
As much as the CSR is of benefits it has obstacles that might hinder the whole program in the organization. The unproven business and the cost of the CSR program are a huge problem to the company because major CSR are not cheap.
Varying degrees of sustainability activities among companies. The company implementing the CSR program may experience some negative effects as a result of the new reporting requirement in relation to their social commitment. This would take the form of significant financial and bureaucratic costs.
Goals of CSR
The main purpose of CSR is based on the premise that the economic efficiency of any organization is affected by the government, cultural and technical variables. In other words, an organization has to be sensitive to the social, political and cultural aspects of its business. Therefore, CSR is not just a goodwill gesture by an organization wanting to be perceived positively by the public in order to hike their profits (Towers 70). It is a prerequisite for good corporate leadership and government as well as sustained operations and profitability. CSR is a corporate competitive strategy that ensure high organizational, and product visibility and thus branding the business as an organization that cares about its customer and the community it does business with.
CSR has the role to ensure that the stakeholders are retained in the organization so as to accomplish its duties to the shareholders in the organization. Stakeholders are those individuals who have an interest in and/or are affected by the goals, operations or activities of an organization (Cragg 154).
The People involved within the CSR program implementation
Employee
Responsibilities to employees extend beyond the terms and conditions of the formal contract of employment and give recognition to work as human beings. Employees today have wider expectations of the quality of working life, including justice in treatment, democratic functioning of the organization and opportunities for consultation and participation, training in new skills and technologies.
Financial Providers
However in an organization shareholders expect a fair financial return as payment for risk bearing and the use of their capital. Additional, social responsibility of management includes the safeguarding of investments and the opportunity for shareholders to exercise their responsibility as owners of the company. Thus, they should be allowed to participate in policy and decision-making processes and also be given platforms to question top management on the affairs of the organization.
Customers
CRS has a responsibility to customers, where customers’ responsibility is seen as no more than a natural outcome of good business. Some of the social responsibilities offered to customers are; providing value for money, ensuring safety and durability of products or services and prompt and courteous attention to queries and complain (Wood 92). It is also important for an organization not to misuse the scarce factors of production upon which the country's wealth lean. They have a responsibility to the society, to respect environmental considerations.
Government
Organization should respect and obey the law even where they regard it as in their best interest. What is arguable is the extent to which the organization should corporate voluntarily with actions requested by the government. For example restrain from trading with certain overseas government, acceptance of controls over imports and exports, actions designed to combat inflation such as limits on the level of wage settlements and assisting in control of potential social problems.
Ethical aspects
Culmination of ethical consumer markets
Leaders have thought that there will be a CSR consumer in the future-though it is considerably a small but potentially powerful market segment. This category of “vigilante” consumers will be of high income besides having an increased influence in the marketplace (Brejning 276). A number of people expect that increased social and environmental calamities will raise the consumer awareness and the information on these issues and thus growing an ethical consumer market. Though, it is only believed by a few that there will be a dramatic future increase in CSR consumption.
Furthermore, it is highly recognized that the polls on the CSR behavior among the consumers is only measuring on the intentions, demonstrate the gap existing between the actual behavior of consumers and what they intend to do in the market (Cragg 160). There is also a feeling that this gap will become bridged in the future by the increased accessibility of consumer information in relation to CSR issues.
Regulations ethics and identity
CSR started because it is an integral part of a business strategy and corporate identity that can also be defensive policy, with the latter being used more by the organizations targeted by activists. Its rational can be based on the moral arguments, economical or even rational.
Corporate identity is the key attribute that define an organization’s important character and the contemporary turn to values reflects an evolution. It also reflects on what an organization is, rather than what a company might advocate. This can be achieved through branding which makes an organization a focal point of success competitive advantage (Shreck 39). People believe that logo mark in branding harmonizes the labels and standards that make it easier for customers to determine the ethical purchase.
CSR in a firm’s pyramid starts with economic responsibilities and later continues with the legal, ethical and lastly discretionary responsibilities. It can also be a way of matching corporate operations with societal values at the time when these parameters are changing rapidly. This actually explains why ethical behaviors are a prerequisite for the strategic CSR. An organization ethical behavior is the main mirror of the image in its culture.
CSR and accountability, accountability is the process where a leader of a company seeks to ensure integrity. Leaders who are responsible are concerned with reconciling and aligning the demands, interests, needs and value of employees (Towers 57-59). Achieving accountability in terms of an organization’s CSR is only effective when there is inclusion of suitable procedures within the organization’s supply chain and internal activities. Though, the concept of accountability may be complex, it is very essential under the practice of CSR that all organizations, customers, and leaders to embrace and uphold it. The factors that influence accountability effectiveness of an organization is multiple and tightly interconnected.
How the program demonstrates social responsibility
The development in the social responsibility among the different stakeholders within any form of a framework of business undertakings has raised the need to uphold social responsibility towards all the relevant parties in these settings. For instance:
Employees growing CSR force.
A number of concerns have predicted a point of increasing employees concern over the social values of their employer and the necessity to uphold such standards upon their customers too. The expectations across the stakeholders are the best and, therefore, these companies most desire is to increasing use their clout within the setting of the labor market to affect the increased performance of CSR among corporations (Hunnicut 163-166). Those individuals who expect to be given good salaries will ask a number of questions on the companies they want join. Those companies with a bad CSR track record will have difficulty in recruiting as compared to their counterparts with a more advanced CSR (Secchi 373). Young and fresh entrants to the workforce would only prefer to join those companies which are aligned to their values.
It is normally expected that the employees always demand that their work and the companies they work for be aligned with their personal values. Those no-responsive employers find their staff, especially the most skilled and talented, leave for better employment opportunities. In a workforce which is highly mobile, no employee put up with those companies that don’t reflect their values.
Recommendations to management
There is growth of investors who are looking at corporate responsibility as a contributor to the corporation’s intangible assets and the future earnings potential-that could include its ability to engender customer’s trust, good reputation building, retain people or even manage its risks. The management of the different corporations must acknowledge that in the near future CSR will be both considered as a differentiator in the case where the company is dealing with the investors and analysts and be one key question that need to be addressed about certain corporations in certain industries (Zu 302).
An approach of a company to risk management is seen by the investment analysts as an indicator of an the extent to which social and environment concerns are addressed and incorporated into the business management processes of the company; thereby increasing “sustainability” with the long-term perspective being the lens through which risk is viewed.
Results of Recommendations
The impact of adoption of the recommended CSR strategy into a company is felt across all the facets of the company. This generally starts from the expectation of the program to create an impact on the social change of the organization from the perspective of its customers, employees, investors and the general public at large (Litz 362).
The increasing investor clout on CSR
The investor’s perspective over the development of CSR within companies is an area full of skepticism over the impact of socially responsible investment (SRI) on the future of CSR. Screening out that stock which negatively impact on the labor conditions, human rights, environment or even have positive impact on communities are increasingly being seen as weaker investment tool for encouraging the process of CSR (Ber 167). The institutional investors and the shareholders’ action significantly impact on the future CSR marketplace. Furthermore, it is viewed that capital markets are central to the establishment of the incentives that drive the company towards CSR in the future.
Conclusion
The concept of CSR is all about the government, business and the civil society collaboration with an aim of attaining some level of sufficiency among the three identities. The social perspective of CSR holds that the program should benefit the community since the latter has a widely complex structure encompassing individuals with different levels of control of resources intangibly and physically. The scrutiny of the various aspects of CSR goes past its traditional meanings, thereby making CSR necessitate a multidisciplinary approach within its practice and perspective.
The Corporate Social Responsibility is an essential integral to the long-term prosperity of corporations as it provides an opportunity for demonstrating the human face of business. This is a vital link to the society in general and, specifically, to the communities in which the businesses are located.
Works Cited
Ber, Heike. Corporate Management, Corporate Social Responsibility and Customers an Empirical Investigation. Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag, 2012. Print.
Brejning, Jeanette. Corporate Social Responsibility and the Welfare State the Historical and Contemporary Role of CSR in the Mixed Economy of Welfare. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Pub., 2012. Print.
Cragg, Wesley. Corporate Social Responsibility. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009. Print.
Hunnicutt, Susan. Corporate Social Responsibility. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven, 2009. Print.
Litz, Rayne. A resource-based view of the socially responsible firm: Stakeholder interdependence, ethical awareness, and issue of responsiveness as strategic assets. Journal of Business Diversity 15, 2010: 355-363. Print.
Schreck, Philipp. The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility Understanding and Measuring Economic Impacts of Corporate Social Responsibility. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag, 2009. Print.
Secchi, Drenckins. Utilitarian, managerial and relational theories of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Human Resource Management 9.4, 2009: 347 -373. Print.
Towers, Perrin. (2009) Corporate Social Responsibility: It's No Longer an Option. Human Resource Journal 12, 2011: 56-71. Print.
Wood, Jackson and Lodgson, Mooer. Business citizenship: From individuals to organizations. Journal of Business and Psychology 3, 2013: 59-94. Print.
Zu, Liangrong. Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Restructuring and Firm's Performance Empirical Evidence from Chinese Enterprises. Berlin: Springer, 2009. Print.
