Strategic And Institutional Approaches

RUNNING HEAD: ETHICS AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
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Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
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Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
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Corporate Social Responsibility
I think many people assume that a company only exist to earn profit, beside that a company has
to focus on the responsibility that they have towards the society and here comes the role of
corporate social responsibility. I analyzed and compared the views of various authors about the
concept of CSR and through that I get to know “corporate social responsibility is no longer
defined by how much money a company contributes to charity, but by its overall involvement in
activities that improve the quality of people’s lives”. Matten and Moon, 2008 said that CSR is
different from profit making activities and government activities for social development and
CSR also differ from the legal, ethical, philanthropic and economic responsibilities. From the
views of these authors I understand that corporate social responsibility is far beyond doing
charitable work for society rather CSR helps the company to be responsible for their actions
towards their stakeholders and public.
I recognized from the reading that corporate responsibility plays an important role in the business
ethics whereas stakeholder theory is also considered as the important aspect. From the study I
found that both the concept aims at incorporating societal interest in the business and in the
business activities (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Further, stakeholder theory focuses on the
building relationship with the key persons and creating value for them. Another way these two
differ is the accessibility and reach to the societal activities, CSR covers society at large while
stakeholder’s theory includes a narrower framework or limited to the persons who have key
stakes in the business. I have idea about what corporate social responsibility is but that is
broader concept and firms do these activities with different purposes. I think firms invest in
societal activities to gain publicity, to manage the risk, to boost up their brand in mind of the
customers and to gain competitive advantage in the market and sometimes firms invest because