Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics Report for Business

This report delves into the multifaceted concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its crucial role in modern business operations. It begins by defining CSR and its integration with business ethics, emphasizing the importance of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct. The report then explores the drivers of corporate ethics and sustainability, highlighting the significance of ethical grounding and the shift towards prioritizing social and environmental accountability. A key focus is on CSR from the perspective of stakeholders' interests, examining how businesses interact with diverse stakeholder groups and the implications of globalization. The report further compares and contrasts legal versus ethical compliance, emphasizing the need for organizations to balance these aspects for sustainable development. Finally, it examines the role of ethical branding and corporate reputation, concluding that CSR is a fundamental necessity for companies aiming for sustainable growth and ethical operations. This report is a student's contribution, available on Desklib, a platform providing AI-powered study tools.

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Executive Summary
Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the primal drivers that govern how should an
organisation be reacting and what should be the operational norms of the company. The CSR
also provides with guidelines and norms that help the organisational operations to be ethical and
adhering to the environmental and social requirements. CSR has been given an increased amount
of attention in the recent times and the changing marketing dynamics have been helped
immensely by the same.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Corporate Social Responsibility and business ethics.......................................................................3
Drivers of corporate ethics and sustainability.................................................................................4
CSR from the perspective of stakeholders’ interests.......................................................................5
Adhering to foreign social norms and standards.............................................................................6
Compare and contrast the legal versus ethical compliance of CSR from the perspectives of
various stakeholders.........................................................................................................................7
Ethical branding and corporate reputation.......................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept that is related to business
management, which implores the different ways an organisation operates and says that
companies should be incorporating social and environmental concerns within their operational
strategies and their interactions with the stakeholders (Crane and Matten 2016). This means that
organisations should not limit their functions only to managerial operations, but should also
concern themselves about the planet and try to create a sustainable mode of operation so that an
overall growth and prosperity can be achieved without harming someone or something in the
process.
Corporate Social Responsibility and business ethics
Business ethics are essentially moral guidelines and a conduct code for business
organisations that tries to establish what is right from wrong and requires the organisations to
have an operational process based on these guidelines. While most people rely on their own
morality and judgmental skills when making a decision, business entities have to consider many
more aspects and sides before doing so (Schlierer et al. 2015). In many cases, business owners or
the Board has to take decisions that may look to be unethical and this creates a major tension of
morality within themselves, for having to deviate from their own ideologies. CSR can be used
both as an important component of the business strategy or as a defensive policy, with the latter
being more commonly used. Business organisations have to follow a decorum or an operational
process that impacts their industry reputation in a good way and ensures that the company is
known for their customer interactions and services rather than simply quality of the commodities
and the products that they sell. This is a major way which helps organisations to create their
brand image in the industry and a loyal customer base (Carroll and Buchholtz 2014). While there

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are many sellers of the same product or services in the market, strong business ethics helps
companies to stay ahead of the competition and ensure the customers are coming back. CSR
helps to establish this very sense of ethics in the internal affairs of the organisation so that a basic
morale guides the entire operations of the company. CSR also dictates that companies should be
maintaining a decorum whereby a sense of ethical practices can be established in all the
segments and levels of the organisation, helping it to have a business practice that is ethical in
nature (Kolk 2016). In other words, CSR is the company’s responsibility to make sure that their
operations and other modes of functioning have positive effects on social and environmental
wellbeing. In many cases, organisations may be required to go beyond the norms and guidelines
that are provided by social organisations, groups or environmental protection groups.
Drivers of corporate ethics and sustainability
Ethical grounding is often the most important driver of business operations, along with
economic self-interest of the company. Ethical grounding provides for the base of the importance
of sustainable development and how may that be related to the morality of the organisational
processes. In recent times it has been implored that looking after the community, the social and
environmental protection is a fundamental thing for organisations and it is essential for the long-
term existence of a company in the industry (Capaldi et al. 2015). Across the world, many
organisations put more emphasis on the social accountability aspect of running a business and
rely heavily on the concepts of citizenship and moral accountability. Increasing amount of focus
is being laid on project sustainability along with financial success of a company, making sure
that the results that are produced have long term positive effects on the society and the
environment. CSR has drastically altered the views that guide the business processes and the
marked shift has been recorded in terms of the guiding principles (Bowie 2017). Companies

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should be deciding on their operations that looks at different things that go beyond the simple
structure of lowest short-term cost to highest short-term gain. Corporations should take more
initiatives to reduce the poverty issues, and this can only be done after poverty is recognised as a
major problem in the corporate citizenship field (Schlierer et al. 2015). Poverty reduction and a
commitment to protect the environment have beent he two key drivers of organisational
operations in the recent years, which have made the organisations to encompass much more than
simply running after profits and other traditional marketing norms.
CSR from the perspective of stakeholders’ interests
Stakeholders the foundation of any organisation and often the deciding factor of how will
the organisation behave in certain situations and also guide the company to prioritise the
different operations. CSR is absolutely embedded into the functions and inter-relations among all
the stakeholders oft eh company. As business entities are being exposed to new roles and social
responsibilities, with sustainable growth and development being the key focus areas, the
leadership management of the organisation is also being subjected to newer aspects of running a
business (Carroll and Buchholtz 2014). The leading positions of the company is bound to come
to contact, and conflict at times, with the stakeholders and CSR plays a pivotal role in this place,
which was not recognised before. There are two basic models that try to instruct the
organisational leaders on how should they be interacting with the diverse group of stakeholders:
the inside-out-approach and a second one that asks the stakeholders to actively participate in the
operations of the organisation itself to bring out the best suited profits according to their own
needs. In the era of globalisation, many organisations function in many different countries and
they all have to bear in mind the different groups of stakeholders and their respective

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requirements, also the social and environmental responsibilities that may be facing them in
different countries.
In case of international stakeholders, many different platforms and entities may get
involved in the operational process of the companies. The legal aspects and jurisdiction are the
two most important things that need to be adhered to by the organisations when it comes to
operating overseas. This means that international laws must be acknowledged and foreign
functions need to be conforming to the needs of the foreign stakeholders as well. Domestic and
foreign stakeholders mostly have different kinds of needs and necessities and it is the
responsibility of organisations to make sure that these requirements are fulfilled.
Adhering to foreign social norms and standards
International labour laws are of paramount importance and these must be paid close
attention by the companies if they wish to operate within the legal framework of any country.
The social standards of every country are also different (Lakshman et al. 2014), and
organisations must understand that they have to respect and comply with this to be able to
function in overseas countries. Without giving paying heed to these may result in adversities
which may be difficult to entertain. Social norms and standards often are driving force of the
work culture in the country where the organisation is stepping in, and if these are not given any
importance, there is a fair chance that the company itself shall not be accepted by the customers
of the specific countries. Conflicting ideas and cultural backgrounds must be analyzed and
operations have to be changed accordingly. Same issue also lies with the environment. CSR
encourages the organisations to be operating within the legal bounds and conform to the
international norms. Environmental needs and responsibilities must be met by the organisation if
they wish to be a sustainable organisation which can operate in the industry in the long riun.

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Compare and contrast the legal versus ethical compliance of CSR from the perspectives of
various stakeholders
It is often the case that organisations are faced with scenarios that require them to take
hard decisions which are tricky in nature. In many cases, ethical and legal grounds seem to clash
with each other and it may be very possible for a possible solution to be ethical but not legal or
vice versa. These situations have to be handled with the utmost care and CSR can be of help to
keep a perfect balance between the two. It must be kept in mind that solutions must ensure that
every stakeholder who is involved in the case are benefited. Sustainable development cannot be
achieved if even one of the stakeholders are found to be at a worse off condition after the
decision is implemented.
For example, a heavy engineering plant may be economically beneficial for the
development of a community or region, but it may be harmful for the surrounding environment
and the ecology. In this case, CSR can be used by the company to reach to a solution that would
allow for the company to maintain a balance. CSR would enable the company to operate in an
ethical manner that would not harm either the community or the environment of the region. Or in
another case, where the possible outcome of a certain situation may be legal but not the desired
ethical outcome. CSR helps in these regards to make sure that the solution is both legal and
ethical, so that a sustainable development is achieved.
Ethical branding and corporate reputation
In traditional norms, the brand image of the organisation is created within the industry
base on their economic performances and is dictated by holistic marketing rules. However, legal
and ethical aspects are missing from this framework, and hence does not make this particular
profit driven model an all-encompassing one when it comes to branding of an organisation

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(Capaldi 2013). The organisation must be both legal and ethical, so that it looks into all aspects
of the society and the environment and not merely run after profit margins and better annual
reports. Conventional branding methods mostly focus more on products rather than the
companies, which needs to be altered, and the ethical side of the organisations must be projected
to the customers (Spence 2016). In the modern day, many customers opt for products and
services of organisations which they feel runs in accordance to their own beliefs and ideologies.
In a market with such customers, it is of paramount necessity for the organisations to
successfully promote themselves to bring maximum focus upon themselves.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that CSR of an organisation is primarily
driven by the interest of the stakeholders of the company and an urge to meet the ethical
requirements that face every institution. CSR is a basic necessity for any company in the modern
age where mere production and manufacturing are not the only responsibilities of an organisation
and CSR is also one of the key drivers for sustainable growth. CSR is going to be the major
driving force for organisational operations in the years to come and this is projected to only keep
increasing in the future.

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References
Bowie, N.E., 2017. Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Capaldi, N. ed., 2013. Encyclopedia of corporate social responsibility (Vol. 21). New York:
Springer.
Capaldi, N., Schmidpeter, R., Zu, L. and Fifka, M.S., 2015. Dictionary of corporate social
responsibility CSR, sustainability, ethics and governance.
Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder
management. Nelson Education.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Kolk, A., 2016. The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.23-34.
Lakshman, C., Ramaswami, A., Alas, R., Kabongo, J.F. and Pandian, J.R., 2014. Ethics trumps
culture? A cross-national study of business leader responsibility for downsizing and CSR
perceptions. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), pp.101-119.
Schlierer, H.J., Hoivik, H.W., Garriga, E., Signori, S., Rossem, A., Werner, A. and Fassin, Y.,
2015. CSR and Related Terms in SME Owner–Managers’ Mental Models in Six European
Countries: National Context Matters.
Spence, L.J., 2016. Small business social responsibility: Expanding core CSR theory. Business &
Society, 55(1), pp.23-55.

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