Corporate Social Responsibility is a view of the organisation and its position in society that accepts a liability among corporations to work for targets as well to aggrandizement profit and a responsibility among affiliated stakeholders to hold the firm answerable for its actions. (Werther and Chandler, 2011)
CSR is becoming increasingly important to shareholders and stakeholders because it represents change, which will move towards a crack to identify the future of our society. Positively on grounds of generating revenues, rethink on the conventional ways of a business is run. Conflictingly, due to the substantial amount of ethical breaches in recent years, corporate governance has taken higher stance. As changes and diversity in business relations, hierarchy and systems pose insurmountable difficulties in keeping track of a company’s financial stature. (Moorhead and Griffin, 2010)
CSR is having a wide range of positive impacts across the globe. We can see from this article by Gulf Times (2010), “Vodafone showcases CSR strategy at conference” that CEO of Vodafone Qatar held a meeting to showcase and lay the building blocks to apply principles of social responsibility in Qatari Companies. Saying, that every individual plays a part in shaping what kind of world we want to live in. Explaining how he believes that being a responsible company would make substantial difference to the local people. Not only making money, but having the ability to help those less fortunate, using resources wisely with dignity and integrity. Vodafone went on to further cement this commitment by commissioning the first hybrid powered Base Station in Qatar combining the use of solar and wind energy. Further yet, they launched the first mobile recycling program in all its retail stores. Initiatives are still coming strong till date, with the likes of a charitable fund and many more.
On the opposite end of the table we have cases such as embezzlements, like this article by Belson (2005), “Out of the boardroom and Into the Courtroom; Bernard Ebbers: Victim Himself or Mastermind?” states how Mr. Ebbers the CEO of WorldCom, over years told countless number of lies to cover up company’s incremental losses, used millions of his shares for personal loans. Claimed to be in the dark about the fraud, stating that he relied on others to handle accountings, accused his Chief Financial Officer of masterminding the fraud.
Which we see how these individuals impact have added to a greater weight on CSR as their actions have made stakeholders more vigilant and interested to know where their investments go and it is towards a good and profitable cause.
Companies like Body Shop and Proctor and Gamble are known for being a strong advocate for CSR and hence people support them and are willing to pay a higher premium for their products, hence giving them an extra competitive advantage in relation to the competitors.
Looking more in depth at P&G's CSR, P&G attained huge achievements in business ethics, ranking second in the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list (Baker, 2004). P&G spent great effort in performing good business ethics, and promoting environmental-friendly approach. As Baker (2004) suggested, CSR increases the competitiveness of business under proper management while contributing wealth creativity to society. Several programs such as “Tides Loads of Hope” and “Duracell Power Relief” are launched by P&G to assist those affected in natural disasters. These initiatives has helped P&G in building up its image as a reliable and trusted company, in which people do not mind in paying more for. As you do see parts of their profits do go back into aiding the society.
With much of Europe supporting companies with a 'Green' image, giving back to the society and having a clean image garnering much support from the their countrymen it leverages them to a higher position in comparison to their competitors around the globe, while looking at the regional level.
In concluding we can see how organisations use CSR to their benefits. It will have long lasting positive results, which can propel the company to do better and even gain a liking among the community. On the other hand CSR has also brought to light some negative cases which has affected the organisations involved, and due to these reasons certain companies are affected in many way and need to built back a trust factor among their stakeholders. Hence adopting a CSR policy does aid in helping move a company forward.
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