Ashworth College EN130 Essay: Corporate Social Responsibility

This essay delves into the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), arguing that corporations have ethical and humanitarian responsibilities beyond simply obeying the law and maximizing shareholder profits. It explores the broader definition of CSR, encompassing stakeholders like employees, consumers, the community, and the environment. The essay emphasizes that corporations, as integral parts of society, should contribute to its well-being through CSR activities, even beyond government-mandated percentages. It examines the impact of a company's actions on its stakeholders, arguing that positive social contributions can lead to increased customer loyalty and a stronger corporate image. The essay also touches on the importance of addressing employee welfare and highlights the significance of CSR in today's competitive business environment, referencing various academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: DO CORPORATION HAVE A SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND OBEYING THE LAW
Do corporations have a social responsibility beyond obeying the law
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DO CORPORATION HAVE A SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND OBEYING THE LAW
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Do corporations have a social responsibility beyond the law
When we use the word corporate social responsibility it indicates that corporates have ethical,
virtuous, and humanitarian accountabilities in accumulation to their accountabilities to make a
reasonable return for stakeholders and obey the law. An old-style opinion of the corporation
advises that its main, if not only, accountability is to its proprietors, or shareholders (Hoi, Wu &
Zhang, 2013). Though, CSR necessitates corporates to accept a wider opinion of its
accountabilities that comprises not only shareholders, but numerous other electorates as well,
comprising workforces, dealers, consumers, the native community, resident, public, and national
governments, ecological groups, and other exceptional attention groups (Wigley, 2008).
Cooperatively, the numerous groups pretentious by the activities of a corporation are known as
stakeholders.
It is to be believed that corporates work for some purpose and earn the profit by completing or
fulfilling that purpose. All the corporates work in some society or as a part of society, so its
operation completely influence the atmosphere of the society in which it is working, it may be
positive or negative. As all the corporate use all the resources of the society for its earning i,e
men power, technology, and material so it becomes the duty of the corporation to return some
favor to this society in the form of CSR activities. Every government of the world has fixed some
percentage of the corporates income to spend on these CSR activities (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen,
2010). But in some case it has been seen that persons nowadays have less faith in their partisan
and organizations than they obligate in years; various suppose corporate leaders to seal the
opening and in some cases, it has been seen that government is not efficient enough to solve
every problem of the society. Hence, in this case, only the corporations can recognize its social
responsibility and open their door to solve this kind of social problem. The corporate should

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move beyond the percentage which government has fixed for every corporate to spend in CSR
activities (Vanhamme & Grobben, 2009). But at the same time, the percentage should not be that
much that it will affect the profit margin of the corporate. In some cases, the argument comes
that the corporate give tax to the government plus fix the percentage of income in CSR activities.
So they believe that it is now the duty of the government to use the amount effective for the
development of the society and it no longer remains the responsibility of the corporates. The
argument which is being presented is not incorrect to some extent but if corporate really want to
grow in this business environment, then this is the best opportunity for these corporates because
the corporate which will show some uniqueness in their business operation which surely get the
chance for development because in today competition all the companies or organization are in
the business of similar or related kind of products or services (Matten & Moon, 2008). As a
corporate doesn`t run its own, it is the people who are working in this corporate and also these
working people are part of the society. For growth, any corporate needs strong customer base
and at the same time customers is also the part of the society. If both will be combined it clearly
indicated that whatever attitude will be shown to the society, will get indirectly shown in the
profit income of the corporate. It is known that society and individual shares the same behaviour
with each other and event set an impression on each other. This same impression will get
reflection towards the image of the corporate in the society because if the corporate will do
something better for the society beyond it fix CSR percentage, the people associated with the
corporate will have a feel of proud and loyalty towards their company in which they are working
and will influence the other people of the society to work for this society (Wanderley et. al.,
2008). At the same, the people of the society which supposed to become potential customer will
get converted automatically into loyal customer because they will believe that this corporate is

DO CORPORATION HAVE A SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND OBEYING THE LAW
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doing something better for the society and we must get associate our self with this corporate to
become the part of this generous activity. It has been found that employees in many companies
do struggle with some kind of problem-related to their family members but they never tried to
display that issue in front of management of the company so it becomes human duty of the
corporate to find out that problem and solve it for the happens of their employees as it is shown
in undercover boss series.

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References
Du, S., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Sen, S. (2010). Maximizing business returns to corporate social
responsibility (CSR): The role of CSR communication. International journal of
management reviews, 12(1), 8-19.
Hoi, C. K., Wu, Q., & Zhang, H. (2013). Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) associated with
tax avoidance? Evidence from irresponsible CSR activities. The Accounting
Review, 88(6), 2025-2059.
Matten, D., & Moon, J. (2008). “Implicit” and “explicit” CSR: A conceptual framework for a
comparative understanding of corporate social responsibility. Academy of management
Review, 33(2), 404-424.
Vanhamme, J., & Grobben, B. (2009). “Too good to be true!”. The effectiveness of CSR history
in countering negative publicity. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(2), 273.
Wanderley, L. S. O., Lucian, R., Farache, F., & de Sousa Filho, J. M. (2008). CSR information
disclosure on the web: a context-based approach analysing the influence of country of
origin and industry sector. Journal of business ethics, 82(2), 369-378.
Wigley, S. (2008). Gauging consumers’ responses to CSR activities: Does increased awareness
make cents? Public Relations Review, 34(3), 306-308.