Reflective and Critical Essay on CSR Topics for CCGL 9018 Course

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It begins by defining CSR and its basic terminology, including corporate citizenship concepts. The essay delves into the historical perspective of CSR, its six core characteristics, and how it is implemented in d...Read More

Corporate social responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility 1
Contents
What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)....................................................................................2
Basic terminology..................................................................................................................................2
Corporate citizenship concepts..............................................................................................................3
Business criticism and social response’s cycle......................................................................................3
CSR from the historical perspective......................................................................................................4
Six core characteristics of CSR.............................................................................................................5
CSR in different regions........................................................................................................................6
Why CSR..............................................................................................................................................7
How to formulate green strategies.........................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9

Corporate Social Responsibility 2
What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR is a business model which assists an association to be socially responsible to
itself, public and shareholders. The practice of CSR is also known as corporate citizenship,
organizations can be cognizant of the type of impact they are having on the society
comprising social, environmental and economic. In order to engross in CSR, an organization
is required to function in a way that can develop society and the environment then
contributing destructively.
CSR is deliberated to be a wide concept which can take several forms reliant on the
organization and industry. The companies through the CSR programs and volunteer exertions
assist society with brand awareness. CSR is important for the community as well as the
company. The CSR activities assists in imitating a robust bond between the employees and
organizations, boost morale and assist morale, and assist employers and employees to sense
more associated with the biosphere around them. In order to be communally accountable,
organizations are required to be accountable for themselves and shareholders. The
corporations adopting CSR programs have progressively grown business to a level where
they can pay back to community.
Basic terminology
CSR is stated as an umbrella term for sustainability, corporate patronage, and
employee volunteerism initiatives. The terminology surrounding CSR can be deployed and
used in several ways to highlight specific aspects of the CSR program. CSR designates the
efforts of a company to make sure that its efforts have an adverse impact on all the
stakeholders. CSR has the capability of going beyond accountability to follow the law. These
are the additional actions that ensure that an organization’s interactions with the customers,
suppliers, workforce, and society are fair, respectful and charitable.
The environmental considerations are deliberated as a part of CSR but these do not
only focus on CSR. The social in CSR is suggestive in its roots. CSR is all about assisting
and respecting an organization’s staff, partners and external communications. CSR is a good
and predominant term for the originations to use while describing exemplary programs,
behaviors, and beliefs. The top organizations worldwide use CSR to unite their

Corporate Social Responsibility 3
environmental, community and employee support programs (Aksak, Ferguson & Duman,
2016).
Corporate citizenship concepts
The corporate citizenship concept states to the kind of company which proposes to put the
interest of the society at the same level as its own interest. The corporate citizenship
concepts describe the organization as a political actor with a legitimate role to play beyond
the economic and financial sphere. The corporate citizenship concept enables companies to
undertake legal, economic and unrestricted responsibilities recognized by its stakeholders.
Nowadays several organizations are using corporate citizens in order to assist society. The
social involvement of the organizations is growing along with completing government
spending on social welfare by philanthropy and CSR programs (Chauvey et al. 2015). The
investors and customers are also paying progressively attention to the social, environmental
and governance practices of the organizations. Implementing a corporate citizenship policy
offers employees commitment and customer loyalty which has a direct influence on the
business performance of the organization. The development of the corporate citizenship
concept includes the five stages like elementary, engaged, innovative, integrated and
transforming. The corporate citizenship concept comprises:
 Corporate social responsibility focuses on the responsibility and liability to society.
 Corporate social responsiveness focuses on activities and actions.
 The corporate social performance focuses on the consequences, outcomes, and
communications. Three elements are included in a corporate social performance like
social performance, corporate social accountability and corporate citizenship
(Chaudhri, 2016).
Business criticism and social response’s cycle
CSR considers the impact of the business’s actions on society. The social
accountability necessitates individuals to deliberate acts in terms of the entire social system
and embraces responsibility in the acts of the organization. Business criticism and social
response cycle deliberate the impacts of the actions of an organization on the community as a
whole. The company is held liable for its effects anywhere in the system (Petrenko, Aime,
Ridge & Hill, 2016).
The criticism of business is one of the factors in the social environment. The criticism
is faced by the organizations in the form of augmented concern for the social environment

Corporate Social Responsibility 4
and a changed social convention. Both the censure of business are likely to assume CSR
through social responsiveness, social performance, and corporate citizenship. It results in a
satisfying society. A more content society leads to fewer factors leading to business censure
whereas others are likely to increase anticipations which leads to more criticism (Grayson &
Hodges, 2017).
CSR from the historical perspective
The concept of CSR was established in the 1950’s and is still prevalent. Over the
years, CSR has attained substantial acceptance. The meaning of CSR has been widened to
comprise additional components. CSR had a great role in offering jobs with the economic
growth made possible through well-running operations, running business fairly and
improving circumstances of community and atmosphere in which an organization functions.
CSR bowl down to use corporation capability to assist a specific need along with the brutality
of social need. CSR has become universally acceptable in the 1990s and the organizations
became responsible to the stakeholders (Scherer et al. 2016). The historical perspective of
CSR includes models like the economic model, legal model, and modified economic model.
The economic model of CSR offers the imperceptible hand of the marketplace protected
societal interest. The legal model of CSR protects to societal interests. The formulation of
legal law can be possibly affected by social expectation change. On the other side, the
modified economic model states the philanthropy business, community obligations,
paternalism and emergence if third sectors (Cho et al. 2015).
Carroll’s CSR pyramid is a diffident context which assists in arguing how and why
organizations are required to encounter their social responsibilities. The aspects of Carroll’s
CSR pyramid are realized in the form of:
CSR is made on the base of revenue means profit should come first. Afterward, a
requirement comes for an organization to certify that it complies with all the laws and
guidelines. Before undertaking philanthropic options, an organization is required to meet
ethical duties. There are four levels of responsibilities in the CSR pyramid of Carroll’s. The
economic accountability of business is to be lucrative. It is the only method to endure and
assist society in the long term (Carroll, 2016). The legal responsibility is all about obeying
laws and other guidelines like employment, health and safety and rivalry. The ethical
responsibility is the accountability to act honestly and morally. An organization with ethical
accountability can go beyond the slight necessities of the law such as the conduct of

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employees and suppliers. Finally, the philanthropic is the responsibility payback to society. It
is optional but significant like charitable contributions and staff time on the projects.
Six core characteristics of CSR
The core characteristics of CSR are the vital aspects that tend to be perceptible in the
CSR practices.
Voluntary: CSR signifies to all the sets of corporate ingenuities that are flexible and extends
beyond the laws set. Several organizations are familiar with the CSR concept and are likely to
deliberate errands beyond the legal least (Frynas & Yamahaki, 2016). The advancement of
CSR ingenuities by individual organizations seems to be the way to reduce additional
regulations by compliance with the societal moral norms.
Internalizing or supervising externalities: The externalities in the CSR states to all the
features which have an influence on the several stakeholders’ privileges are not undertaken in
the decision-making process of a business organization. The environmental deprivation is
majorly regarded as an externality as common people feel the influence of the production
procedure. The rule forces the organization to assume the cost of externalities like pollution
penalties. Although CSR is moreover a viable discretionary approach of handling
externalities such as minimization if rationalism impact (Crane, & Glozer, 2016).
Several stakeholder orientation: The major theme of stakeholder management is to recognize
stakeholders’ alignments relied on 3 features power, urgency and legality of the entitlement.

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Later, describing stakeholder orientations assists in recognition and prioritization of
stakeholders by the approval of a systematic method initiating with the internal arrangements,
executing core leadership team of inner stakeholders for communication, marketing, human
resources, investor relations and more.
Configuration of social and economic accountabilities: The harmonizing of several
stakeholder interests leads to added essential feature. The CSR is about yonder a slight
concentration on the shareholders and effectiveness (Marano & Kostova, 2016). Sometimes
there is confliction regarding CSR and is connected with the profitability. But the fact is that
organizations can get profitable by being socially accountable.
Practices and values: The CSR is about the specific framework of business practices and
policies which deal with social matters. But CSR for some people is more than this and a set
of values that reinforces the practices. The CSR practices are prejudiced by the individual
value of managers as they frame the CSR strategies of business organizations and their
personal attitude is part of the distinctive characteristics (Lim & Greenwood, 2017). The
behavior is likely to be affected by the individualistic characteristics.
Beyond philanthropy: The CSR is all about compassion in some of the areas of the globe like
commercial discretionary responsibility and voluntarism towards the common public. CSR is
currently deliberated as a mandatory exercise backed by the rules and recognized global
standards. CSR also ranges beyond philanthropy as its feasibility can be influential or
strategic in sustaining anticipations of the stakeholders (Cui, Jo & Na, 2018).
CSR in different regions
There is no uniformity in the way CSR is adopted and implemented in the different
regions of the world. There is also no way that actually constitutes CSR among organizations
in different parts of the world. For example, CSR as a notion found its roots more in Europe
than in the US. Although US initiation CSR in the business literature early. The element like
green consciousness and green movement held foremost gains in Europe which means that
the organizations in the nation were more amendable towards CSR than the counterparts in
the US (Harjoto, Laksmana & Lee, 2015).
The regions have reached a point with the implementation of CSR where CSR is
business imperative in the same way taking care of workers is. The policies and programs
launched by the organizations include the commitment towards CSR and the pronouncement

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to be socially responsible. When it comes to the continents like Latin America and Asia were
chasing behind for a long time in identifying the social responsibility of the organizations. It
seems original to say that businesses in these regions practiced a diversity of capitalism
which was exclusive to those nations and comprise specific inbuilt social integrity (Liang &
Renneboog, 2017).
It will not be ok to say that these nations were left behind completely but the concept
perceived in the West is not being practiced properly. On the other side, the nations like
Brazil and India have seriously desired to undertake CSR practices in the corporate in order
to be socially accountable, environmentally conscious and empathetic in their human
dimensions (Su et al. 2016).
Why CSR
The companies following CSR are likely to work in an ethical and justifiable way and
deal with the social and environmental impacts. CSR makes an organization deliberate
human privileges, communal, society and environment with the careful consideration in
which it operates. CSR is a legal requirement along with the effective practice to undertake
social and environmental issues. The customers also now days seem to be cognizant of the
social accountability and like to pursue products from the organizations which operate
ethically only. CSR enables an organization to take an interest in the wider social issues than
just focusing on the profit margins. It even appeals to customers to share the same values and
makes good sense to work sustainably (Kiessling, Isaksson & Yasar, 2016).
CSR is opted by the organizations in every region of the world because it improves
the public image of the organizations. The customers always assess the public image of the
organization while making any purchase. CSR also contributes to brand consciousness and
gratitude with the cost savings and gain over the opponents. When a business is sustainable
then it is likely to upsurge customer engagement with greater employee appointment
(Kiessling, Isaksson & Yasar, 2016).
How to formulate green strategies
A green strategy can be formulated with successful CSR initiatives. It enables
consideration of the social issues with the alignment of the company’s business model. The
green strategies can be formulated by:

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Building strategy around the core competency of the organization: CSR efforts can be less
influential if it does not align around the business. CSR works as both risk vindication
strategy and prospect pursuing the strategy and the leaders can intersect between business and
social returns.
Identifying problems that matter to the customers: It has been identified that the customers
are likely to purchase the products from the organizations which are socially liable. The
customers are rewarded through brand devotion and making contributions to the charity
(Jamali & Karam, 2018).
Advancing CSR ingenuities which make personnel pleased: The corporations also use CSR
programs to safeguard and grow the greatest asset. It has been considered that the applicants
are likely to consider the social and environmental commitments of an organization before
applying for a job (Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo & Phillips, 2016).
The green concepts are translated into the form’s strategies by making an investment
in social and environmental causes. The social and environmental causes comprise climate
change solutions. Making an investment in these causes helps the company in creating brand
awareness along with customer loyalty (Sheehy, 2015). As customer loyalty, a great number
of customers are attained by the organization which ultimately results in the advancements of
the profits.

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References
Aksak, E. O., Ferguson, M. A., & Duman, S. A. (2016). Corporate social responsibility and
CSR fit as predictors of corporate reputation: A global perspective. Public Relations
Review, 42(1), 79-81.
Carroll, A. B. (2016). Carroll’s pyramid of CSR: taking another look. International journal
of corporate social responsibility, 1(1), 3.
Chaudhri, V. (2016). Corporate social responsibility and the communication imperative:
Perspectives from CSR managers. International Journal of Business
Communication, 53(4), 419-442.
Chauvey, J. N., Giordano-Spring, S., Cho, C. H., & Patten, D. M. (2015). The normativity
and legitimacy of CSR disclosure: Evidence from France. Journal of Business
Ethics, 130(4), 789-803.
Cho, C. H., Michelon, G., Patten, D. M., & Roberts, R. W. (2015). CSR disclosure: the more
things change…?. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 28(1), 14-35.
Crane, A., & Glozer, S. (2016). Researching corporate social responsibility communication:
Themes, opportunities and challenges. Journal of Management Studies, 53(7), 1223-
1252.
Cui, J., Jo, H., & Na, H. (2018). Does corporate social responsibility affect information
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Frynas, J. G., & Yamahaki, C. (2016). Corporate social responsibility: Review and roadmap
of theoretical perspectives. Business Ethics: A European Review, 25(3), 258-285.
Grayson, D., & Hodges, A. (2017). Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make
corporate social responsibility work for your business. Routledge.
Harjoto, M., Laksmana, I., & Lee, R. (2015). Board diversity and corporate social
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Jamali, D., & Karam, C. (2018). Corporate social responsibility in developing countries as an
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Kiessling, T., Isaksson, L., & Yasar, B. (2016). Market orientation and CSR: Performance
implications. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(2), 269-284.

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Liang, H., & Renneboog, L. (2017). On the foundations of corporate social
responsibility. The Journal of Finance, 72(2), 853-910.
Lim, J. S., & Greenwood, C. A. (2017). Communicating corporate social responsibility
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Petrenko, O. V., Aime, F., Ridge, J., & Hill, A. (2016). Corporate social responsibility or
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