Bow Valley College MGMT 1102 CSR Exam: Sustainability Analysis

This document presents solutions to selected questions from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) exam. It delves into the key drivers of the Age of Responsibility, highlighting the increasing importance of sustainability for companies and the consequences of ignoring it. The solutions discuss Wayne Visser's perspective on Walmart as a company worthy of emulation due to its support for organic cotton farming, addressing the problems faced by sustainable companies and the lessons learned from Walmart's sustainability case. Furthermore, it explains the concept of glocality, its application in products or services, and its significance in adapting to local needs within a global context. The document emphasizes the role of sustainability in business strategy, the impact of environmental and social governance, and the importance of glocalization in meeting diverse consumer needs.

Running head: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
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Corporate Social Responsibility
Student’s Name
University

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Corporate Social Responsibility
Question one: Key drivers in the age of responsibility, what causes companies to take the
sustainable approach and consequences of those that ignore sustainability.
According to Visser (2010) responsibility is the ability to respond to issues that affect us
through the choices that we make by counterbalancing rights. Organizations move through ages and
stages before they achieve the age of responsibility. Visser (2014) suggests that the age of
responsibility is based on principles of creativity, responsiveness, glocality, scalability, and
circularity. This has been described by Visser as CSR 2.0 which inspiration, commitment, and
capability of people in the organization who understand the role that they play in leading change and
developing the new capabilities of CSR 2.0. This means that for organizations to achieve the age of
responsibility, they must be willing to change through adopting any change models that improve the
organization. This means that organizations can rely on the following agents of change; CSR
professionals, facilitators, catalysts and activists who play a different role in organization change.
These drivers motivate change in business organizations by acting as motivators in an organizational
context.
There are different drivers that are pushing companies to take sustainability more seriously.
Visser (2014) suggests that one reason why this is happening is the role of sustainability in business
strategy and competitiveness. In the modern world, sustainability is expected to transform the
modern organization due to socially responsible investment and environment social corporate
governance approaches that have come up to change the nature of the business environment. This is
because investors and stakeholders have been keen on sustainability issues. Companies have no
option but to adopt these approaches since they are required by law to present such information, thus
they can no longer hide. This means that only those organizations that are doing well in
environmental degradation management get better reception.

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In the modern world, companies operate in a global fishbowl that forces them to be
sustainable in their approaches. This is because companies can no longer hide this information since
they will be exposed by human rights groups like NGOs that use advanced information and social
media to expose them. Countries that are exposed to risk losing their market share since investors
and stakeholders are keen on working with environmentally sustainable businesses (Ranganathan,
2014). Therefore, the age of responsibility requires organizations to develop ways of ensuring they
meet the social and environmental requirements defined by the industry that they operate in.
Question three: Why Visser views Walmart as an example of a company worthy of emulation,
problems facing sustainable companies and what the Walmart sustainability case teaches us
Visser views Walmart as a company worth emulating due to its latest initiative for supporting
organic cotton farming. As the business environment changes and organization succumb to
sustainable management approaches. Walmart has taken the organic approach that seeks to support
farmers who are engaged in cotton farming. This is based on the scalability principle of the age of
responsibility (Plambeck & Denend, 2008). This principle is defined as the ability of a system to
handle growing amounts of work or needs to accommodate growth. Thus Walmart is seeking to
assist organic farmers to achieve scalability by increasing its total output to offer the potential for
economic growth within the sector. This means that Wal-Mart has recognized that it takes roughly
three years for any sustainable approach to be fully accepted in the business environment. This
implies the switch to certified organic cotton farming will not be realized without supporting farmers
due to farming challenges like increased costs of farming which make it difficult for them to realize
profits. This means that by purchasing more than 12 million pounds of transitional coffee, then the
company is assisting 1000 farmers to achieve sustainable farmers.
The problem with introducing sustainable products in the market is determining the best price
that can compete with other non-sustainable products (Gunther, 2006). For people to switch to
sustainable products, they must realize the direct benefits like reduced costs which are difficult to

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achieve. This is the reason why most sustainable initiatives fail in organizations. This means that
Walmart best practice is being used to support the transition of farmers to sustainable coffee farming
even though the company will not be benefiting in any way. The approach being used by Walmart is
both geographic scalability and generational scalability. From Mathaisel (2015), geographic
scalability seeks to maintain performance usefulness of the organic cotton thus leading to increased
production and acceptance in the market. On the other hand, generational scalability seeks to scale
up the organic cotton farming project by buying the new generation cotton to ensure that vendors
who buy from Walmart spread the usefulness of the organic cotton.
The Walmart scalability approach indicates that the age of responsibility is characterized by
iconic leadership that entails sacrifices to achieve the desired needs. Thus Walmart has seen a
sustainable opportunity to invest in and assist the community in achieving the age of responsibility
(Walmart, 2018). This is part of the greening project that the company is engaged in that seeks to
achieve the best results for the environment. According to Visser, the age of responsibility is a new
age of sustainability where organizations seek to achieve the best sustainable business processes that
are not for business profit but rather seek to create a better environment for all.
Question five: Glocality, how it can be applied in a product or service and its importance
Glocality is a business process emphasizing the integration of regional societies and cultures
are integrated through information technologies that bypass and subvert the traditional power
hierarchies that exist in the society. This is thus the reverse of globalization which entails
decentralization rather than centralization. This is thus the capacity to manage and incorporate both
traditional and global dimensions as a way of improving the management of ecosystems. The role of
glocalization is to assist businesses to develop business processes or products based on the varying
needs and habits of consumers. As organizations go global, they are met with the challenge that the
practices that work in one demographic segment may not always work in another segment which
makes it difficult for the organization to achieve its business strategy. Therefore, glocalization

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addresses such needs as a way of ensuring that the business is able to meet the local needs of the
global clients that it serves.
Several companies have adopted the glocal strategy as a way of meeting the changing needs
of the business environment. One way that this strategy can be applied is through designing
marketing campaigns that reflect the local community being targeted. For example, a country can
have different community groups like the marginalized communities which may not take campaigns
the same way as the other groups (Sarroub, 2009). This means that such a strategy needs to be
designed in a local way, to accommodate local tastes. Preferences, cultures and even ways of
socialization. Crawford, Humphries & Geddy (2015) add that this can entail tailoring the marketing
campaign or show in their local language to increase the chances of them understanding the role of
the marketing campaign. This is seen in radio stations that have been adopted in different local
languages to increase listenership. If it is a product, the differences in packaging can be used based
on the specifications of a particular region or country. This increases the ability of the product to be
locally accepted thus increasing proceeds.
Roudometof (2016) states that this approach is relevant when firms face high pressures from
local interests due to differences in global and local needs. This means that the strategy allows
businesses to adapt products based on local needs which increases acceptance and trust in the
selected regions. By localizing the product or service, the organization connects with the local
consumers in an emotional level that leverages the firm from a foreign global business to the one that
reflects the locality. Further, communities may benefit large through this approach since tailoring the
products or services on local needs requires local input which creates job opportunities for the
concerned community.

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References
Crawford., S. A., Humphries, M., & Geddy, M. M. (2015). McDonald's: A Case Study in
Glocalization. Journal of Global Business Issues, 9(1), 11-18.
Gunther, M. (2006). Wal-Mart's Sales of Organic Clothing Having an Impact. Retrieved from
Organic Consumer Association: https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/wal-marts-sales-
organic-clothing-having-impact#close
Mathaisel, D. F. (2015). Is Scalability Necessary for Economic Sustainability?. European Journal of
Sustainable Development, 4(2), 275-282.
Plambeck, E. L., & Denend, L. (2008). The Greening of Wal-Mart . Stanford Social Innovation
Review, 5(3), (11-20)
Ranganathan, J. (2014, May 15). Three reasons investors are beginning to take sustainability
seriously. The Guardian.
Roudometof, V. (2016). Glocalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Sarroub, L. K. (2009). Glocalism in literacy and marriage in transnational lives. Critical Inquiry in
Language Studies, 6(1), 63-80.
Visser, W. (2010). The Age of Responsibility. Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from
http://www.waynevisser.com/papers/the-age-of-responsibility-2
Visser, W. (2014). The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business. Journal of
Business Systems, Governance and Ethics, 10(5), 7-22.
Walmart. (2018). Wal-Mart's Support For Farmers Adopting Sustainable Practices Yields Earth
Month Transitional Cotton T-shirts. Retrieved from Walmart:
https://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/news-archive/2008/04/07/wal-marts-support-for-
farmers-adopting-sustainable-practices-yields-earth-month-transitional-cotton-t-shirts