Unilever's CSR: Analysis of Failures, Successes, and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. It begins by defining CSR and then examines Unilever's approach, particularly focusing on the failures associated with former CEO Paul Polman's policies. The report highlights the emphasis on global issues at the expense of internal employee concerns, such as sexual harassment and safety issues, leading to public relations and financial damage. The analysis contrasts Unilever's approach with successful CSR strategies implemented by companies like Apple and Google. The conclusion emphasizes the need for Unilever to prioritize internal environmental issues and stakeholder satisfaction. Recommendations include conducting a detailed internal investigation, potentially acquiring ethical brands, and focusing on positive communication to regain consumer trust. The report underscores the importance of aligning CSR strategies with both internal and external factors for sustainable business success. This report is a valuable resource for students seeking to understand the complexities of CSR and its practical application within a major global corporation.

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Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to define the term Corporate Social Responsibility. This report also
aims to discuss the approach taken by Unilever for CSR and the factor that has led to failure of
the same. The third aim of the research is to discuss the factors that led to success of CSR in
other organizations. The aim of the report is to recommend if the company should implement
CRS or not. The main method used to obtain the information was secondary research that
includes data collection article Unilever and The Failure of Corporate Social Responsibility
along with other articles. The finding shows that the CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman has designed
the CSR policies focusing more on global issues, while the employees of the organization was
suffering from sexual harassment, lack of safety and security and other issues. The conclusion is
that Unilever has incorporated ineffective strategies and hence the organization needs to
incorporate strategies that will primarily focus on its internal environmental issues. The
recommendation is the organization is to conduct a detailed investigation of its internal
environment, takeover of popular and ethical brands like Kraft Hienz and focus the positive
approach taken by the management both offline and online so that it can reach the potential
consumers.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background..................................................................................................................................3
Aims.............................................................................................................................................3
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................3
Corporate Social Responsibility..................................................................................................3
Analysis of the Unsuccessful CSR approach of Unilever...........................................................4
CSR in Other Companies.............................................................................................................5
Conclusion and Recommendation...................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Background
With the enhancement in technology, the competition between organizations in
contemporary management environment is increasing. In this competition of gaining
competitive advantages for maintaining as well as enhancing the consumer base, it has become
highly crucial for organizations to adopt effective Consumer social responsible (CSR) strategies.
When it comes to merger and acquisition, it can be defined as consolidation of organizations.
However, the concept of mergers is different from acquisitions. Merger is the combination of
two organizations to form one organization while acquisition can be defined as one organization
taken over the other, according to researchers, Mergers an Acquisitions is one of the chief
aspects of the corporate world. However a good number of pitfalls associated with M&A are
there that include wrong post sale team, let down by big organizations and incompletion of the
process due to diligence. By incorporating effective CSR strategies some of the pitfalls of M&A
can be avoided. For this integration of cultures and structure of both the employees as well as the
local consumers is highly crucial.
Aims
The primary aim of the report is to define the term Corporate Social Responsibility. This
report also aims to discuss the approach taken by Unilever for CSR and the factor that has led to
failure of the same. The third aim of the research is to discuss the factors that led to success of
CSR in other organizations. The final aim of the report is to recommend if the company should
implement CRS or not.
Analysis
Corporate Social Responsibility
The term corporate social responsibility refers to the process followed by the
organizations to manage their business process as well as for producing an overall positive
impact on the society. Some of the major aspects of CSR include sustainability, social impacts

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and ethics. According to researchers, CSR can be defined as a self regulatory business model
which helps an organization to be socially accountable to itself as well as to its stakeholders and
to the public. By practising effective CSR, organizations develop the potential to understand
their social economic as well as environmental impact on the society. Engaging in CSR means
that an organization is operating in ways for enhancing society as well as the environment,
instead of contributing to them negatively.
According to Borelli, (2017), by incorporating effective CSR programs, volunteer efforts
as well as philanthropy, organizations gains the potential to boost their own brands. In this era,
the consumers are highly concerned about the sustainability of the companies that are offering
them with product or services. By sustainability, it refers to the procedures adopted by the
company while manufacturing the products or ethics while providing specific services. Along
with this, the impact of the business on the society and environment are also the chief concerns
of the consumers. Effective CSR possess the potential to develop a stronger bond between the
staffs as well as the cooperation. They possess the potential to boost the morale of the employees
while helping both the employees as well as the employers feel more connected with the
community.
Analysis of the Unsuccessful CSR approach of Unilever
The Forbes article “Unilever and The Failure of Corporate Social Responsibility”, has provided
some major information associated with the approach of CSR taken by the Unilever organization
as well as the reason behinds its Failure. It has been found that the organization was leader in the
business market. However, since 2009, the organization started facing some major issues and
challenges that led to deterioration of its public relations along with the financial damage faced
by the organization due to the disastrous leadership of the CEO of Unilever, Polman.
Paul Polman, who is the CEO of the organization, put more emphasis on the superficial feel good
policies as well as practices instead of implementation effective CSR polices upon the
operational functioning of the business (Unit, 2015). Instead of focusing on the issues within the
organization that are responsible for the lack of sustainability of the business, he concentrated
more on global issues like climate change and social issues. As a result of this, the company got
mired in several controversies associated with sexual harassment as well as environmental
issues. According to the Business ethics theory, it is the moral duty of the business owners to

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provide safety as well as security to its employees and thus is should be one of the primary steps
towards sustainability of the business. In the year 2006, lawsuit was filed against Unilever for
exposure of employees to mercury (Grayson & Hodges, 2017). Due to the emergence of internet
and popularity of the organization, this issue had gained global attention. Following this incident,
in the year 2011, the name of Unilever was highlighted in Irish times for sexual harassment of
workers in Africa. The newspaper stated that officers of Unilever were demanding bribes for
stopping sexual harassment against social workers. The focus of Polman on social matters
unfocused him from addressing the core challenges of business.
Some steps have been taken by Polman, as the CEO of Unilever to address the issue of Sexual
harassment claims. As per one of the report in the year 2004, the balances and checks has failed
to prevent the abuse of Kenyan workers by the Unilever offers and it has been found that good
number of workers were compromising their poor housing condition in order to deal with sexual
harassment (Borelli, 2017).
The company was facing major issues associated with the safety of the employees and
sustainability of the business, it was highly crucial for the CEO to address these factors instead
of focusing on global social issues. Along with the mentioned factors, the decision of Polman to
reject the takeover of Kraft Heinz was another major blunder. According to researchers, the offer
of the takeover was rejected by Polman since it could have prevented Polman from using
Unilever for his personal political career (Grayson & Hodges, 2017).
CSR in Other Companies
With the enhancement of awareness of the global consumers, the importance as well as
significance of corporate Social responsibility is emerging with time. The concept of CRS is
now considered to be a key strategy that is responsible for the success of the business. A good
number of reasons are there behind the importance of incorporating CSR strategies by the
organizations for their development, growth and success of the organization (Schrempf-Stirling,
Palazzo & Phillips, 2016). According to the stakeholder theory of CSR, stakeholders impose a
major impact on the business and hence the interests of stakeholders should be considered in
order to ensure a sustainable business. Considering the fact that employees are one of the major
stakeholders of the organization, it is highly crucial for the management to empower its
employees and understand their perspective in order to ensure employee satisfaction and

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employee empowerment (Frynas & Stephens, 2015). Effective relationship with the stakeholders
will ensure an ethical business and impose positive impact on the reputation of the organization
which in turn results in enhancement in consumer base in the long run. Organizations like Apple,
is highly focused on the satisfaction of their stakeholders which helps them to conduct an ethical,
suitable and flourishing business across the world.
Another major example of organization that has successfully implemented effective CSR in
their business is Google. One of the most expensive brands across the world, Google is known
for its CSR strategies that addresses both micro as well as macro factors of the organization. The
organization supports a vast range of initiatives on the basis of innovative technology usage for
achieving social goals (Jurietti, Mandelli & Fudurić, 2017). On the other hand, one of the major
goal of the organization is to ensure data driven, human focused philanthropy that takes the form
of programs like using data for uncovering social injustice, translating books with the help of ope
sourced platforms for enhancing educations and others. According to the theory of business
ethics, each and every business possesses a wide range of social obligation as well s moral duty
towards the society. The business ethics theory considers Corporate Social Responsibility more
as philanthropic as well as ethical responsibilities instead of legal and economic responsibilities
(Wang, Tong, Takeuchi & George, 2016). In this highly competitive business market, it has
become highly crucial for organizations to prove themselves to the consumers to develop a
sustainable as well as reliable association with them.
Conclusion and Recommendation
From the above discussion, it can be clearly understood that the Corporate Social
responsibility possess the potential to highly contribute towards the sustainability of a business.
It has also been understood that lack of strategic approach and analysis of both internal and
external environment before incorporating CSR along with the urge to fulfil personal benefit has
resulted in deterioration of business of the Unilever organization (Schäfer, 2016). While the
focus of the management should be primarily on their stakeholders and consumers, the CEO of
the mentioned organization has focused on global issues which have resulted in drastic
decrement of the consumer base and revenue of the organization. It can be understood that , in
today’s world, no employees or shareholder would prefer to relate to an organization who are not

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demonstrating, ethical, legitimate as well as socially responsible way of earning money. Not only
this, consumers will not prefer to accept the products and services provided by organizations that
are using unethical or non sustainable means. In order to eradicate the CSR related issues faced
by the Unilever and ensure a brighter future a good number of recommendations have been
provided for the organization in the following paragraph.
Considering the fact that the organization has already lost a good amount of revenue as well as
consumer base due to lack of appropriate CRS, Unilever should definitely opt for implementing
CRS strategies that will have more focus on its internal issues rather than global issues.
1. The first step that needs to be taken by the organization is to conduct a detailed
investigation of its internal environment. This will help the management to find out the
issues faced by its employees in different parts of the world (Carroll, 2015). Along with
the detection of the issues, stern and rapid steps should be taken by the management in
order to prevent any issues associated with discrimination, sexual harassment or any tr
safety and security concerns of the employees.
2. The next step that needs to be taken includes takeover of popular and ethical brands like
Kraft Hienz. This will not only enhance the share of the organization but will also ensure
enhancement its revenue as well as consumer base.
3. Along with these, the organization needs to focus on promoting the positive steps taken
by the management through both online as well as offline platforms, considering the fact
that more than 67 percent of the overall population across the work are on social media,
Unilever can promote the positive steps taken by it through the same (Carroll, 2015). This
will not only enhance the awareness of the potential and target consumers about the CSR
strategy of the company but will also ensure an effective business.

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References
Borelli, T. (2017).Unilever and the failure of corporate social responsibility, Forbes. Retrieved
from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/econostats/2017/03/15/unilever-and-the-failure-of-
corporate-social-responsibility/#65db175b498d
Carroll, A. B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. Organizational dynamics, 44(2), 87-96.
Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2015.02.002
Carroll, A. B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is on a sustainable
trajectory. Journal of Defense Management, 5(2), 2167-0374. doi.org/10.4172/2167-
0374.1000132
Frynas, J. G., & Stephens, S. (2015). Political corporate social responsibility: Reviewing theories
and setting new agendas. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(4), 483-509.
Doi: 10.111/ijmr.12049
Grayson, D., & Hodges, A. (2017). Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make
corporate social responsibility work for your business. Routledge. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arjen_Van_Witteloostuijn/publication/
46683993_Nations_and_Firms_in_the_Global_Economy_an_introduction_into_internati
onal_economics_and_business/links/00b4952ca901531f95000000.pdf#page=114
Jurietti, E., Mandelli, A., & Fudurić, M. (2017). How do virtual corporate social responsibility
dialogs generate value? A case study of The Unilever Sustainable Living Lab. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 24(5), 357-367. Retrieved from:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/csr.1407
Schäfer, H. (2016). 26 Corporate Social Responsibility Rating. A Handbook of Corporate
Governance and Social Responsibility, 449. Retrieved from: Schäfer, H. (2016). 26
Corporate Social Responsibility Rating. A Handbook of Corporate Governance and
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%20responsibility%2C%20unilever&f=false
Schrempf-Stirling, J., Palazzo, G., & Phillips, R. A. (2016). Historic corporate social
responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 700-719. Retrieved from:
https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2014.0137

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Unit, B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. Retrieved from:
https://usa.ingrammicro.com/Documents/ingrammicro/c/corpcomm/Environmental
%20Stewardship%20Policy_V2.pdf
Wang, H., Tong, L., Takeuchi, R., & George, G. (2016). Corporate social responsibility: An
overview and new research directions: Thematic issue on corporate social responsibility.
Retrieved from: DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.5001