Corporate Social Responsibility: Ethicality vs. Business Interests

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), exploring whether businesses genuinely prioritize ethical practices or primarily use them to enhance their brand image and increase profits. The introduction defines CSR and outlines the essay's scope, setting the stage for a critical examination of its implementation. The discussion section delves into the various facets of CSR, including environmental sustainability, employee welfare, and community engagement, supported by examples from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Starbucks. It assesses the motivations behind CSR initiatives, weighing the benefits of enhanced brand reputation, customer loyalty, and financial performance against potential criticisms of greenwashing and superficiality. The essay considers opposing viewpoints and acknowledges the complexities of balancing ethical considerations with business objectives. The conclusion summarizes the key arguments, highlighting the importance of genuine CSR practices for long-term sustainability and stakeholder trust. Recommendations are provided for companies to improve their CSR strategies, emphasizing the need for transparency, stakeholder engagement, and adherence to ethical standards. The essay utilizes Harvard referencing to cite relevant academic sources and journals.

Corporate Social
responsibility

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION...............................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
Corporate social responsibility is a term which shows the obligation of commercial
enterprises towards community growth and development through their several actions such as;
conducting awareness programmes, producing eco-friendly products and many more. However,
governing bodies have enacted number of legal laws, provisions, rules and regulations related to
societal as well as environmental practices (Gautam and Singh, 2010). Thus, it is essential for
existing business to design their organizational policies according to the social demand but
consider factors of surrounding too by taking correct initiatives. Therefore, main objective of this
assignment is to highlight the necessary practices of business related to social responsibility.
Basically, main objective of this report is to suggest the commercial enterprise about their actual
obligations and activities which are known as social practices.
DISCUSSION
Corporate social responsibility is a concept of management in which companies indulge
social, economic and environmental factors to run their business and interact with their
stakeholders. It is a self-regulating business model by which companies can achieve their social
responsibility against their shareholders, to their employees, to the consumers who use their
products and to those who involved with the company by giving the raw materials to them. CSR
is a kind of practice which is followed by every organization while operating their business
because their every action can impact on several people and also on the society. Organization
needs to keep the CSR practice in their mind while producing any kind of products which cannot
harm anybody in the society and also can maintain equality in the environment (Carroll and
Shabana, 2010).
As per my opinion, CSR is a practice which is used to figure out how much any
organization makes their efforts to improve society in some way. These efforts could be in any
form whether they are donating a huge amount of money to the needy people, implementing
environmentally-friendly policies in their workplace, etc. By using the CSR practice an
organization can aim to create a positive impact on the society. A company can use this practice
to figure out the various issues like human rights, education, health, and safety. The companies
also use the CSR policy to covers corporate governance, working conditions, environmental
sustainability and more like economic and social development. If an organization follows the
CSR practice while doing business so it will generate those kinds of products that give benefit to
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the society and they will achieve their target of social responsibility. By fulfilling this practice,
firm can establish a good image of that organization in front of the customer that the company
not only looking for their profit but also doing welfare for the society which builds trust between
their customers and the company can increase their brand value or reputation in the market
(Cowper-Smith and de Grosbois, 2011).
I thought that, if a company follows CSR practices they can increase their sales and also
they gain customer loyalty. Today’s it has been seen that the customers are more attracted and
willing to purchase those companies' products which is socially responsible while making their
products. The benefit of corporate social responsibility for companies is that they become a
socially oriented organization in the society which results to increase their profit, goodwill in the
market and their product value and reputation can increase. The major purpose of the CSR
practices is to give back to society, take part in the welfare of humanity and provide positive
social value, etc. Therefore, whenever any company produces any products they keep in mind
about this practice that their action can impact various peoples in various forms. They always
need to make products that are eco-friendly so it can not harm anybody in society and they can
achieve the goal of social responsibility. If company follow this CSR practice so that they can
use those kinds of raw materials while making their products which does not produce so much
harmful waste, they can use the renewable energy to produce the products and even they dispose
their toxic waste in such manner that it can harm the society and they also form a team who take
care of this things so that they can achieve their target of the socially oriented organization. If the
company follows these practice they will think about their employees also which is working in
their company because it is very important to take care of their employees in every aspect.
Moreover, if an organization provide a friendly environment in the workplace, freedom to give
their opinions, ask suggestion from their employees which result in an increase the loyalty,
respect of organization in their employees and when they think more about their company they
will talk about their company to everyone that how their company is responsible towards their
employees and society as well (Horrigan, 2010).
Therefore, if a firm is opting practices of corporate social responsibility then they need to
increase their awareness about their company, products in the market in front of the consumers.
In the 21st century, every people prefer to purchase products of those companies which are
socially responsible in the society. There are lots of medium by which people get aware by the
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companies that which company is good for society or which is not good for the society like there
are several social media channels like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, etc. and if there
are negative reviews regarding the products of any companies so it will directly affect the
decision of the peoples against that particular product or company. Today’s several companies
remember their corporate social responsibility against society and they perform that kind of task
which increases their goodwill, share value, the brand value in the market (Misani, 2010).
Companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Starbucks, etc. they voluntary doing such task
which shows their social responsibilities like they are donating a huge amount of money to poor
people, helping the victims of earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. and the best example for the social
responsibility in the present scenario is that how the world fighting against Coronavirus
(COVID-19) (Park, Chidlow and Choi, 2014). There are several companies those are following
their social responsibility by donating huge funds to their government to fight against this
pandemic so that the people who affected from this virus can be benefited and also to those
peoples who get unemployed due to this pandemic and the government can maintain equality in
the society. Every company needs to follow their social responsibility but also they need to
follow their responsibility against the economy and if any company will be responsible against
economic so that they will pay their taxes on time, investing back into their society, paying the
best wages to their employees (Idemudia, 2011). Those company which is keeping corporate
social responsibly practices on their topmost priority they are only growing in the 21st century in
terms of better brand value, positive business reputation in the market, increase in the customer
loyalty, ability to change the purchase decision of the customers, increased in sales and better
financial performance (Baumann-Pauly and et. Al., 2013). In my opinion, CSR practices for any
organization is very important to improve organization image in the crowd and relationship
among their customers. It also helps to improve the transparency of the organizations' activities
which is beneficial for the social and economic to the environment which not only impacts the
values of the companies and also to their employees as well as the goodwill of that organization
in the market.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
From the above report, it has been summarized that there are few businesses whose are
moving towards wrong track without knowing about the social practices and claiming that they
are accomplishing social responsivity. For example; few firm believes that their corporate social
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obligation is just to produce necessary goods or services to fulfil the basic needs of domestic as
well as foreign consumers. Hence, above discussion has shown major practices of business
which are genuinely considered as fulfilment of corporate social responsibility and update the
knowledge about the CSR practices that needs to accomplish by company to attain their
sustainable growth.
Recommendation-
Throughout the analysis, it has been understood that corporate firms needs to learn about
their corporate social responsibility by considering external and internal factors in order to
minimize the probabilities of future mistakes. Therefore, it is essential to consider necessary
things to move towards right track to attain objectives of CSR is discussed as follows-
 Learn about the necessary CSR practices of company by conducting campaigns.
 Ask with customers about own activities, services and things which might influence
society in negative manner.
 Implement the standards, provisions, rules and regulations of Environmental Protection
Agencies of nations.
 Promote the production of eco-friendly products for safeguarding the nature for society
betterment.
 Consult with consumers about the need of changes in an organizational product in order
to build a positive long term relationship with them.
 Requisite to conduct a training programmes for enhancing the knowledge of existing
staff members in context with CSR practices.
 Attend a seminar and conferences related to CSR at national as well as international
level for increasing the knowledge in order to further implement it in workplace.
 Encourage company or staff members towards sustainability approach by attaining CSR
practices in an effective manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
 Gautam, R. and Singh, A., 2010. Corporate social responsibility practices in India: A
study of top 500 companies. Global Business and Management Research: An
International Journal, 2(1), pp.41-56.
 Carroll, A.B. and Shabana, K.M., 2010. The business case for corporate social
responsibility: A review of concepts, research and practice. International journal of
management reviews, 12(1), pp.85-105.
 Cowper-Smith, A. and de Grosbois, D., 2011. The adoption of corporate social
responsibility practices in the airline industry. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(1),
pp.59-77.
 Horrigan, B., 2010. Corporate social responsibility in the 21st century: Debates, models
and practices across government, law and business. Edward Elgar Publishing.
 Misani, N., 2010. The convergence of corporate social responsibility
practices. Management Research Review.
 Park, B.I., Chidlow, A. and Choi, J., 2014. Corporate social responsibility: Stakeholders
influence on MNEs’ activities. International Business Review, 23(5), pp.966-980.
 Idemudia, U., 2011. Corporate social responsibility and developing countries: moving the
critical CSR research agenda in Africa forward. Progress in Development Studies, 11(1),
pp.1-18.
 Baumann-Pauly, D and et. Al., 2013. Organizing corporate social responsibility in small
and large firms: Size matters. Journal of Business Ethics, 115(4), pp.693-705.
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