Corporate Social Responsibility: Significance, Business Benefits, and Relation with Corporate Behaviour

This report discusses the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its significance in building a sustainable society. It explores the different aspects of CSR, including environmental responsibility, human rights responsibility, philanthropic responsibility, economic responsibility, and ethical responsibility. The report also highlights the business benefits of CSR, such as brand recognition, positive reputation, customer loyalty, growth in sales numbers, financial performance, and employee engagement. Additionally, it discusses the relation between corporate behaviour and CSR, emphasizing the importance of ethical and responsible conduct in the corporate world. The report includes insights from the Harvard Kennedy School and the documentary The Corporation.

CORPORATE
SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................2
CSR:............................................................................................................................................2
Significance of CSR:...................................................................................................................3
Business benefits of CSR:...........................................................................................................3
Harvard Kennedy school source:................................................................................................4
Relation between corporate behaviour and corporate responsibility:........................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
A company's commitment in working towards the benefit of the society and giving its
share of profit in doing something good is known as Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR).
Allocation of corporate resources for a good conduct by building and enhancing the relations
with the people. It's efforts are aimed at improving the society and the activities conducted for
this type of community development can include money donation, charities, human resource
management or making environment friendly policies, etc. With CSR, organisations show their
interest in people and societal development and send a strong message of their positive behaviour
recognition(Agudelo, Jóhannsdóttir and Davídsdóttir, 2019). This report will throw light and
provide the following information in detail relating to CSR, its significance and social,
economic, environmental impacts, the Harvard Kennedy school, his suggestions for social
welfare and about the relation between corporate behaviour and Corporate social responsibility
with the help of the Documentary The Corporation.
TASK
CSR:
Corporate Social Responsibility refers to the strategies and plans of a company in the
beneficial growth of a society. Their action towards this aim signifies their responsible role in
building community and their ethical and legitimate presence in the market. It ensures that doing
the right thing in the right direction is the goal of the business and its employees. Its purpose and
aim is to give a positive social value. This transparent behaviour of them contributes to
sustainable development and leads towards welfare of society (Barnett, Henriques and Husted,
2020). It ensures that the duty of a business extend beyond the shareholders of the company
towards the stakeholders. CSR model was presented in a pyramid format for the first time in the
year 1991 by Caroll. In recent times there has been a numerous increase in the green
investments by the companies. Examples of CSR include educational and social programmes,
waste reduction strategies in environment, etc.
Significance of CSR:
 Environment responsibility- This initiative aims at building a green and eco- friendly
environment by the ways of reducing pollution, green house gas emissions, waste
management, planting more trees, sustainable use of the resources given by the nature,

encouraging recycling of plastic etc. Depending on the company size and their turnovers,
they can make their share for the society (Elmaghrabi, 2021).
 Human rights responsibility- Protection of human rights, leading initiatives towards
providing fair labour practices, reduction of child labour practices and responsible
behaviour towards humans.
 Philanthropic responsibility- Aligning with the company's missions and giving back to
the communities by various methods which includes encouraging educational
programmes and funding them, giving support to health initiatives, making donations,
supporting community development programmes. It can be on a small scale level or on
large scale based on the earnings of the company.
 Economic responsibility- Monetarily supporting a cause and encouraging behaviour in
employees which leads to charities and donations for a good cause and by other ways like
if the company signs a contract for sustainable management.
 Ethical responsibility- Ensuring that the business engages in fair business practices,
ensuring that the employees are respected and fair treatment is given to them, to the
shareholders and to the customers.
Business benefits of CSR:
It is highly essential for a company to demonstrate social responsibility (Salhi, 2019) .
This behaviour not only encourages but also builds a future for them by benefiting them in
various ways:
 Brand recognition- The brand gets recognised as a successful and responsible business
in the market. More people hear about the social work you do for the community. CSR
makes the companies image established and acknowledged.
 Positive reputation- The fame and reputation of a company can turn from negative to
positive by doing work for the welfare of people. The image of a company improves by
social work.
 Customer loyalty increases- It can bring in loyal customers for the business by giving
some of the good to the society and by this customer engagement in the brand can
increase.

 Growth in sales numbers- When the name of the organisation becomes famous it leads
to a image which leads to increase in the business performance which eventually
increases number of sales.
 Financial performance becomes better- The balance sheet of the company provides a
good picture because of increase in the earnings and there is betterment in their financial
performance.
 Employees standard of performance increases- Employees take more part in the
activities of the organisation and they develop interest in the work which leads to increase
in their standard of performance. Staff members start volunteering and start taking the
responsibility of doing social work.
 Competitive advantage- Embracing of CSR leads the company in standing out among
its competitors in the market. The company builds an image and portrays itself as being
committed to good and moral work(Sciarelli, 2020).
Harvard Kennedy school source:
The writers of this school have largely focused on the role of businesses and corporates in
various social sectors like
 Private business and companies role in climate action, their corporate pledges to address
the climate crisis.
 Encouraging norms of the organisations to be friendly to human rights and providing
laws for the same. Human dignity is promoted and guidelines are given for their
development.
 Public problems should be addressed and work for their betterment is encouraged.
This school encourages the businesses to become trustworthy among the society and its
members. They have the vision to lead them towards social welfare of people by various actions
on their part and share of profits for the good work (Sharma, 2019).
Relation between corporate behaviour and corporate responsibility:
CSR acts as an indicator of credibility of a company or organisation. There is increase in
the relationship of employee attitude, behaviour and Corporate responsibility. Organisational
commitment binds them together. Employee engagement encourages a firm's CSR performance,
their corporate behaviour leads to more established responsibilities. Corporate behaviour ensures

a company's continuing commitment to behave ethically and responsibly and leads to
contribution towards economic development of both the employees and the organisation. While
this mutual understanding leads to improved quality of life of the workforce and their families.
Behaviour and conduct in the corporate world thoroughly encourages the socially responsible
behaviour. Without a well structured corporate behaviour, social responsibility of the corporate
cannot be fulfilled (Yu, Cao and Tan, 2018).
The documentary named The Corporation made by Law professor Joel Bakan puts lights
on Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate behaviour. It throws prominence on the
modern day corporations. By this documentary he focuses on the fact that corporations are
driven by profits and their only aim is to maximize profits. It dictates that these businesses
increasingly control the society's behaviour towards different aspects. It focuses on a legal entity
which started as being targeted towards public oriented work but turned into commercial
business. The leads and focuses on corporations in the United States(Zhang, Oo and Lim, 2019).
This one examines corporate responsibility and criticizes corporate business practices. The
film's assessment of business corporations brings it towards the hot topic of relation between the
two elements- Corporate behaviour and corporate responsibility. Critical analysis of this teaches
the viewers about the corporate lifestyle. The interviews with various corporate critics present
the back door picture of the reality that takes place in large business worlds.
CONCLUSION
It can be summarized by the report that CSR is a broad concept implemented by almost
every company and organisation and it is increasingly becoming a party of the business
environment in UK. It is essentially becoming a commercial necessity. It makes the companies
publicly accountable and their social and environmental record develops because of it. There is a
great prominence which is attached to this concept which is seen in the report by the kind of
significance that CSR draws with it. This report also analysed about the documentary The
Corporations which presented a broader and clearer view on the modern day businesses. Harvard
Kennedy's school explains various ways by which companies can practice Corporate Social

Responsibility. The relation between the corporate behaviour and corporate responsibility is also
the focus of this work.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agudelo, M.A.L., Jóhannsdóttir, L. and Davídsdóttir, B., 2019. A literature review of the history
and evolution of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Corporate
Social Responsibility, 4(1), pp.1-23.
Barnett, M.L., Henriques, I. and Husted, B.W., 2020. Beyond good intentions: Designing CSR
initiatives for greater social impact. Journal of Management, 46(6), pp.937-964.
Elmaghrabi, M.E., 2021. CSR committee attributes and CSR performance: UK
evidence. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society.
Salhi, B and et. al., 2019. The mediating role of corporate social responsibility on the
relationship between governance and tax avoidance: UK common law versus French
civil law. Social Responsibility Journal.
Sciarelli, M and et. al., 2020. CSR perception and financial performance: Evidences from Italian
and UK asset management companies. Corporate Social Responsibility and
Environmental Management, 27(2), pp.841-851.
Sharma, E., 2019. A review of corporate social responsibility in developed and developing
nations. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(4),
pp.712-720.
Yu, M., Cao, D. and Tan, J.Y., 2018. CSR-consumption paradox: examination of UK apparel
companies. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal.
Zhang, Q., Oo, B.L. and Lim, B.T.H., 2019. Drivers, motivations, and barriers to the
implementation of corporate social responsibility practices by construction enterprises:
A review. Journal of cleaner production, 210, pp.563-584.