Management and Organisation: CSR Analysis and Report

This report analyzes the article "Stop Talking About How CSR Helps Your Bottom Line" by Meier and Cassar, exploring the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employee behavior and organizational outcomes. The report identifies the main arguments, assumptions, and limitations of the article, as well as its key conclusions. It examines the relevance of the article's findings to core management concepts. Furthermore, the report provides a real-world example of Starbucks, detailing its CSR approach and its influence on employee satisfaction and customer perception. The analysis highlights the importance of genuine CSR practices focused on social welfare rather than solely profit maximization. The report emphasizes that employees are aware of the intentions behind CSR activities, and that inauthentic practices can negatively affect employee performance and organizational image. Finally, it references supporting literature to reinforce the findings and conclusions presented in the report.

Running Head: Management and organisation
Management and Organisation
Ques-Ans
System04104
12/19/2018

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Answer-1
The current article focuses on executing the CSR activities and how it affect the
mentality and behaviour patterns of employees about the CSR initiatives of companies. This
article shows the mindset of employees towards the CSR activities of their company.
Generally, company use CSR activities as a tool to enhance their HR strategy, but the
company ignores the importance of employees who react positively and negatively both
towards the CSR initiatives. This article is based on an experiment, conducted on employees
of an Italian firm Amazon Mechanical Turk (M-Turk), where more than 3000 workers
participated in this study of CSR. Employees were divided into four groups with different
incentive types for creating slogans for the products that firm can use on their websites. After
research, it has been found that both monetary and charitable incentives worked differently
on the performance of employees. When the company provide monetary incentives, it
increased the performance of employees and they add three more slogans and while company
tied their extra work with charity donation, it backfired and only 49% of workers provide
additional slogans. It was comparatively low in compare to 54% of workers who provided
extra work when the donation was made independent of their effort. This research clearly
shows that employees were less motivated when the company donated money for the charity
that is gained by the company from employees. It was also found in the research that more
than 60% of workers created three slogans, who were directly asked to create slogans,
compare to 52% of people who offered charitable incentives (Meier & Cassar, 2018).
This article is a clear reflection of what workers think and how they adversely react
when they know that company usage the CSR initiatives as a tool to increase their own
profits. Workers care about the actual motive behind the CSR activities of the firm. When a
firm offers pro-social incentives to increase the firm's profit, it can adversely affect the
company and can backfire as well. Thus, it is important to practice genuine CSR practices
that are conducted for social welfare rather than earning profits.
Answer-2
The current article suggests that the profit motive of the organisation through CSR
activities can destroy the very benefits it hopes to achieve from CSR activities. Although,
there are three limitations of this experiment conducted on the Amazon Mechanical Turk (M-

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Turk). The experiment was conducted on the workers who were working M-Turk, and they
were hired by the company itself. Selection of workers was based on the random basis. Thus,
it is difficult to investigate the actual effect of intentions of workers on a firm's actual
employees. It also not applied to every firm. The second limitation is that it is based on only
charitable incentives, that are only one form of CSR activities, and making it as the
performance-based is a type of CSR tools. The third limitation of this experiment is the
random selection of workers for different groups that means workers were not allowed to sort
on the basis of their choice of incentive schemes. This sorting mitigates the negative effect of
pro-social incentives of such companies. The article based on the assumptions that workers
have no idea about the CSR initiatives of the company and the motive behind it. In the
research, only one form of CSR that is the charitable incentive is considered on behalf of
other CSR tools that may also influence the result if we consider other forms of CSR tool as
well.
Answer-3
The conclusion of this article reflects that the firm's pro-social CSR activities do not
help them to achieve the desired result from their CSR activities. The article also explains
that firms should not use the CSR activities as a profit maximization tool or tool that benefit
their HR strategy. Workers are fully aware of the intentions behind the CSR activities of their
company. Thus, if company usage their CSR activities to increase their own profits or
enhance their productivity, workers care about the genuine causes and reacts negatively about
the company. The company should initiate genuine CSR practices instead of pro-social
incentives whose main goal is to enhance the profit of the organisation (Gupta, 2017). CSR
initiatives should be executed in such a way that helps the community and for social welfare,
which operates rather than their profit maximization motives (Chandwick, 2016). If
employees think that their company used CSR initiatives as an instrument to increase profit,
they will put less effort into their performance and react negatively towards the organisation.
In simple words, if CSR activities will be beneficial for the society and employees of the
organisation then only it will be effective otherwise, it affects the image of the company.
Answer-4
In this article, it is clearly stated by the author that CSR is crucial for any organisation
for its reputation and image building but only if it is practised in right way and for the welfare

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of society. The motive of earning profit through CSR activities is not proves that it is helpful
for the organisation. The main objective behind CSR activities of any company is to the
welfare of society and gives something to that community and environment in which it
operates its business (Wang, Tong, Takeuchi, & George, 2016). However, nowadays
companies practices CSR initiatives as a tool to enhance their sales, profits, and productivity.
They do CSR initiatives because people will attract towards the company and about its
product that is not beneficial for the society and for the employees as well (Bhattacharya,
Korschun, Sen, & Routledge, 2017). Because employees of the company understand the
intentions very well behind the CSR practices, if company is not practising true and genuine
CSR activities for the society and for its environment, then people lost their trust in the
company (Cha, Yi, & Bagozzi, 2016). Employees are the vital capital of any organisation and
if they lost their faith in the company and think that company is doing fraud in the CSR
activities and the main motive behind the CSR activities is to maximise their profits, then
they negatively affected their performance and productivity (Korschun, Bhattacharya, &
Swain, 2014). Although a large number of companies initiates CSR activities and spend huge
amounts from their profits, they will not get the expected results rather than they suffered
from loss because they are not doing the CSR practices in a right way with true intentions.
Thus, a real and ethical intention is necessary behind any CSR activities and it is crucial for
any company.
Answer-5
People in the Australia are frequently visited in Starbucks and this case is also applied
on me where I visit regularly with my friends and family members for coffee. Starbucks is
known for their global responsibility and CSR activities. Starbuck is committed towards the
society and to the people in which it operates its business (Zhou, Luo, & Tang, 2018).
Starbucks is known for their quality coffee services which are ethically traded and
responsibly grown in the coffee farming house. They are also committed to our environment
and focuses on inspiring others towards nature. Starbucks also considers various measures for
efficient use of electricity and by using quality energy-efficient equipment (Kang, &
Namkung, 2017). In the above-given article, it is clearly mentioned that a good CSR practice
that helps the society, in return get helps the company in employee retention and lowering the
wages demand of employees. The same trick is also adopted by Starbucks in Australia, where
employee satisfaction and retention in Starbucks is high. Customers are also attracted towards

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the Starbucks café because of the good CSR practices of the company. However, Starbucks
uses a costly measure to reduce the impact of its operation on the environment but for the
longest time of period, it will be beneficial for the company as well. They not only supporting
the quality coffee for their customers, in addition to this they also provide jobs for those
farmers who work in the coffee farming for Starbucks. The major focus of the company is to
follow the social and corporate ethics while operating their business.
Starbucks cover the various activities towards the environmental care and protections
such as energy conservations, water conservations and recycling, creating green buildings for
their Café stores, focuses on the use of energy efficient resources, and fulfil their
responsibility for farmers. However, they also focus on fair pricing for their coffee products,
precisions, and responsible buying of raw materials such as coffee leaf and other products.
They also involve the third party to consider the interests of the farmers and work with the
government as well that their farmers are not suffering from deprived of utility (Glavas,
2016). Apart from this, they are mostly focusing on building a strong relationship with their
customers, employees, people, investors, shareholders, suppliers, and farmers through
effective CSR activities. The satisfaction of employees helps the company to positive word of
mouth advertisement by their own employees who take the responsibility of creating feelings
of satisfaction in the mind of the customers and suppliers that leads to their unbreakable
loyalty and trust in Starbucks.
Answer-6
1. Kang, S. K., & Alcantara, L. L. (2011). The impact of corporate social responsibility
activities on organisational attractiveness across different cultures. International
Employment Relations Review, 17(2), 37.
This article best explain the impact of CSR activities on the organisational performance
and its culture. The objective of this article is to show the various gaps between the practice
of CSR activities and its impact on organisational attractiveness in different cultures. This
article best explain the importance of CSR activities in the context of organisational culture
and its attractiveness for people.
2. Maon, F., Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2010). Organizational stages and cultural
phases: A critical review and a consolidative model of corporate social responsibility
development. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(1), 20-38.

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This article also focuses on the vital role of CSR activities in different organisational
stages and cultural phases. This article covers the multi-dimensional dynamic perspective that
integrates the different organisational factors such as moral, ethical, social, and cultural
aspects in the CSR development process.
Answer-7
1. The Relationship between organisational culture and CSR activities has received
significant attention in the last few years but still there are two gaps remains in the
literature i.e. first gap includes the ignorance of three types of CSR activities:
philanthropy, business practice related CSR, and product-related CSR and the second
gap is ignorance of organisational culture on the perceived value of CSR (Kang &
Alcantara, 2011).
2. Organisational culture sets the tuning of the relationship among employees and
altering its interactions and collaborations with other people and with the environment
as well and it provides a more inclusive viewpoint on the CSR development (Maon,
Lindgreen, & Swaen, 2010).

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References
Bhattacharya, C. B., Korschun, D., Sen, S., & Routledge, H. (2017). Corporate Social
Responsibility. Journal of International Law, 26(2).
Cha, M. K., Yi, Y., & Bagozzi, R. P. (2016). Effects of customer participation in corporate
social responsibility (CSR) programs on the CSR-brand fit and brand loyalty. Cornell
Hospitality Quarterly, 57(3), 235-249.
Chandwick, D. (2016) Three ways CSR can Increase Bottom Line [online]. Retrieve from:
https://www.iedp.com/articles/3-ways-csr-can-increase-bottom-line/
Glavas, A. (2016). Corporate social responsibility and employee engagement: Enabling
employees to employ more of their whole selves at work. Frontiers in psychology, 7,
796.
Gupta, M. (2017). Corporate social responsibility, employee–company identification, and
organizational commitment: Mediation by employee engagement. Current
Psychology, 36(1), 101-109.
Kang, J. W., & Namkung, Y. (2017). The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Brand
Equity and the Moderating Role of Ethical Consumerism: The Case of
Starbucks. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 15(8), 26-30.
Kang, S. K., & Alcantara, L. L. (2011). The impact of corporate social responsibility
activities on organisational attractiveness across different cultures. International
Employment Relations Review, 17(2), 37.
Korschun, D., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Swain, S. D. (2014). Corporate social responsibility,
customer orientation, and the job performance of frontline employees. Journal of
Marketing, 78(3), 20-37.
Maon, F., Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2010). Organizational stages and cultural phases: A
critical review and a consolidative model of corporate social responsibility
development. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(1), 20-38.

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Meier, S., & Cassar, L. (2018). Stop Talking About How CSR Helps Your Bottom
Line. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2-5. Retrieved from:
https://hbr.org/2018/01/stop-talking-about-how-csr-helps-your-bottom-line
Wang, H., Tong, L., Takeuchi, R., & George, G. (2016). Corporate social responsibility: An
overview and new research directions: Thematic issue on corporate social
responsibility.
Zhou, Z., Luo, B. N., & Tang, T. L. P. (2018). Corporate social responsibility excites
‘exponential’ positive employee engagement: The Matthew effect in CSR and
sustainable policy. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 25(4), 339-354.