Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics: A Tesco Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the context of the Tesco company. It begins by outlining the challenges that companies like Tesco face in today's business environment, emphasizing the increasing importance of consumer health, societal impact, and environmental sustainability. The report delves into specific issues such as the horsemeat scandal and its impact on brand image. It then explores the role of a code of conduct in addressing CSR issues, emphasizing its importance in protecting consumer health and creating a safe business environment. The report also examines the support and guidance provided by professional bodies like the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS), highlighting their role in promoting responsible business practices. The report further discusses the positive and negative outcomes of implementing CSR, using examples of companies like Gillette, Aimia, and Unilever. Finally, the report concludes with a reflection on the positive impact of CSR on companies and the role of professional bodies in supporting CSR implementation, including a CPD plan addressing areas like fair business practices, respecting human rights, improving the work environment, providing safe products, and building better relations with local communities.

FOR A PROFESSIONAL
CAREER

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A...........................................................................................................................................3
Challenge of Corporate Social responsibility..............................................................................3
Code of conduct for solving and addressing CSR issues............................................................4
Professional Bodies support and guidance available to companies.............................................4
Positive and negative outcome of implementation of code of conduct and professional body...5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................2
PART B...........................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
Corporate social responsibility is one of the most crucial challenges faces by the companies
in today’s world and the impact of which it affects the companies in both positive and negative
way depends upon their nature and adaptability. This report will be based on the Tesco company
which faces the same challenges and the way the company can adopt in order to solve these
issues. The report will also discuss the code of conduct and professional bodies that support the
company with the ethical issue such as CSR. The report will state how the implementation of
code of conduct helps the company to solve the issues.
PART A
Challenge of Corporate Social responsibility
Because of the technological innovation and digital world, the consumers are interacting
with companies in a direct way. They put more interest on the business activities and their
impact over the consumer health, society and environment. The accountability and responsibility
of the Tesco and other companies are increasing day by day towards their consumers and society.
If the company such as Tesco really wants to grow and expand its business than they have to
produce the goods and services which are eco-friendly and do not harm consumer health. For
example; the horsemeat scandal of the Tesco affects the business brand image badly (Jeffrey,
Rosenberg and McCabe, 2019).
Positive Aspect of issue:
The companies such as Gillette and Aimia uses the CSR campaigns and their campaigns
help their business to grow all over the world. They basically produce and offers the products
that are high in quality as per the customers needs. Aimia company has supported more than 40
Charites and is a winner of future proofing charity award. Gillette is also one example of positive
impact of CSR where the company use the men shaving issues to provide them best and allergic
free shaving machine (Kim and et.al., 2020).
Negative Aspect of issue:
The companies such as Unilever faces low in sales because their CSR campaign failure.
It is happened because failed to provide positive culture at workplace. The company also faces
the lawsuit over exposure to the toxic elements. The employees of the company are badly harsh
by the top authority (Jeffrey, Rosenberg and McCabe, 2019).

Code of conduct for solving and addressing CSR issues
The code of business conduct and ethics helps the Tesco company to solve the CSR issues
which is faced by them at the time of horsemeat scandal. Because of this scandal the company
are unable to win the trust of their customers again. So, it is advisable to the Tesco company that
they must use the CSR code of conduct. It is because the values of the CSR code involve
protecting the consumer health and providing them products as per their needs and preferences.
The code also helps the company in protecting and creating a safe business environment for the
employees. By adopting the CSR practices the company are able to win the trust of their
employees and customers and the impact of which their sales will get improve. As the Tesco
company operates in more countries so, it is important for them to develop the new and
innovative ideas to improve the way they do their business. They have to look out the whole
system and put their focus on the management that are involving and creating any fraud and
scandals which affects the consumers health (Akben-Selcuk, 2019).
Professional Bodies support and guidance available to companies
The Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS) is a UK professional
body that support and provide guidance to the companies for adopting CSR practices with the
help of which they can improve their brand image in the eyes of the consumers and society. The
members of the professional bodies help the Tesco company’s marketing manager by providing
them CSR skills, knowledge and experiences. The body main purpose is to support and extend a
responsible business mindset across all the department of the company. They launch various
code of conduct, CSR practices, rules and regulation for positive workplace in order to support
the companies. For example, Boots company of the UK win the CSR award because they
contribute around 12.5 million dollars to support the cancer patients. So, the professional bodies
guide the Tesco to deal with the challenges of scandals and employees’ harassment within the
organization. It helps the company to build a cooperative business environment where all
employees help each other in their work rather than bully and harm them on the basis of their
age, skin colour and gender (García‐Sánchez, 2020).

Positive and negative outcome of implementation of code of conduct and professional body
Positive Result:
By implementing the CSR practices, the company are able to improve its brand image
because the customers always like those companies that first priority is always society and
environment rather than profit. It also preserves the potential workers from leaving the company
by providing job security to them. For example, Boots company provide safe and secure
workplace to their employees and the impact of which their employees productivity and
performance increases day by day (Gao and He, 2017).
Negative Result:
The implementation cost of the CSR code of conduct is high and sometime because of
the lack of cooperation from the staffs, the company will face negative impact on their brand
image rather than positive. For example; because of the conflicts and lack of cooperation the
management of the Tesco company generate the horsemeat scandal in order to earn profit. And
the impact of which the brand image of the company and consumer heath get affected (Gao and
He, 2017).
CONCLUSION
The report concludes the positive impact of the CSR on the companies such as Gillette,
Aimia etc. and the negative impact on the business such as Unilever whose CSR campaign has
failed. The report also concludes the code of conducts with the help of which the Tesco company
for improving and solving the CSR issues. The professional bodies also play important role to
support the Tesco so that they can able to implement a best CSR practice.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Jeffrey, S., Rosenberg, S. and McCabe, B., 2019. Corporate social responsibility behaviors and
corporate reputation. Social Responsibility Journal.
Kim, H. and et.al., 2020. Why hotel employees care about Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR): Using need satisfaction theory. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 87. p.102505.
Gao, Y. and He, W., 2017. Corporate social responsibility and employee organizational
citizenship behavior. Management Decision.
Akben-Selcuk, E., 2019. Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: The
moderating role of ownership concentration in Turkey. Sustainability. 11(13). p.3643.
García‐Sánchez, I. M., 2020. The moderating role of board monitoring power in the relationship
between environmental conditions and corporate social responsibility. Business Ethics: A
European Review. 29(1). pp.114-129.
Wolska, G., Bąk, I. and Kizielewicz, J., 2019. The Implementation of CSR Concept in Tourist
Companies in Pomerania Euroregion Based on the Multiple Correspondence
Analysis. Przedsiębiorczość i Zarządzanie, 20(2, cz. 2 Produkt turystyczny Innowacje-
Marketing-Zarządzanie), pp.215-232.
Szabó, D. G., 2018. Pursuing CSR Policy in Corporate Groups: Insights in the Operation of
Groups from Consolidated Non-Financial Reporting. European Company Law. 15(2).
Khatoon, S. K., Reddy, M. and Deb, S., 2019. How CSr Can Stop Company Frauds. IPE Journal
of Management. 9(2). pp.40-49.
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APPENDIX
PART B
CPD Plan
Area of Learning Reflection of learning Future Implication Action
Developing fair,
transparent and
sound business
I have learned from this
module that if we really
want to grow our
business to the next level
than I always need to
develop fair and
transparent business.
I will apply this
learning at the time
when I start my own
business and I follow
all practices of CSR
which helps the
society and poor
people.
For this, I will
donate atleast 20%
of my total profit
to the poor
children education
and I will also
provide them job
with training and
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development.
Respecting human
rights
I have also learned that
we need to respect each
and every individual
without judging them on
the basis of their caste,
colour and age (Wolska,
Bąk and Kizielewicz,
2019).
The future implication
of this learning is that
I will always respect
everyone and even
small children and
never demotivate the
disable student and
children.
For this, I will help
the disable children
by playing with
them and also by
providing funds for
their education. I
will always respect
my parents and
other ones.
Improving adequate
working
environment
The environment of the
workplace plays crucial
role for the employees
because no one wants to
work in a negative
environment as it
demotivates them.
So, in order to solve
this issue, I will apply
this learning at both
my college and
workplace (Szabó,
2018).
The action I will
take is that at
college I will
provide positive
environment by
including fun
activities to
complete projects
and assessment.
And at the
workplace I will
definitely provide
various events and
parties with the
help of which the
conflicts between
the employees will
remove.
Providing safe and
secure products to
the customers.
Consumers always likes
the products which are
high in quality and safe
I will apply this
learning at the time
when I start my own
The action I will
take in order to
solve this CSR
3

for them to consume. I
have learned from this
module is that the Tesco
scandal harm many
consumers and causes
diseases to them. Such an
action not only decreases
company brand image
but also the trust of the
customers on company.
business of providing
food and salads at the
consumer doorstep.
issue is that I will
provide safe and
fresh food product
and salad and also
manage their
quality at the
traveling until
reaching at
customer doorstep.
Building better
relation with local
communities
This is the most
important and beneficial
concept and CSR code of
conduct I have learned
from this module as local
communities always
concerned about the
environment and natural
resources sustainability.
This learning I will
apply at my lifetime
because environment
is the part of our life
and if we can’t save it
than nobody will.
The action I will
take to save our
environment is I
will grow as many
as trees and plants
all over my college
and home. Not
only that I will also
launch green
campaign to save
my earth for this
(Khatoon, Reddy
and Deb, 2019).
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