Stakeholder Management and Corporate Social Responsibility at Unilever

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's stakeholders and its approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). It begins with a definition of stakeholders and their importance to a company's operations, emphasizing the impact of various groups, including customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and communities. The report details Unilever's stakeholder engagement strategies, highlighting the significance of each stakeholder group and how the company addresses their needs based on their influence and interest. It explores the role of CSR in maintaining stakeholder engagement and strengthening the brand. Additionally, the report examines the ethical considerations and codes of business principles that guide Unilever's interactions with its stakeholders. The analysis utilizes a stakeholder matrix to prioritize engagement efforts. The conclusion underscores the critical role stakeholders play in organizational survival and growth, emphasizing fair treatment and ethical practices in managing stakeholder relationships.

Business

 INTRODUCTION
 MAIN BODY
 Stakeholders of Unilever
 Corporate Social Responsibility
 CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES
Table of Content

Stakeholder can be defined as a party or individual interested in business of company who
can get affected by company and its operations and at the same time can affect the
company. Stakeholder engagement is a process through which company involves all its
stakeholders who might get affected by the decision or can influence implementation of
decision in Unilever. It is a British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company,
founded in 1929 and headquartered at London, UK.
INTRODUCTION

There are several parties that affect and get affected by the operations of the company. These all parties are
different impact on the operations. Impact of stakeholders is as follows-
Customers
Customers are most important stakeholders of the company because most of the decisions get affected by
customers.
Employees
Employees are internal stakeholders of the company and play important role in functions of the company.
Effectiveness of operations of the company gets affected by the effectiveness of the employees
Investors
Investors are those parties who invest their money in organisation and expect return for the money they
have invested.
Stakeholders of Unilever and
stakeholders Engagement

Suppliers
Suppliers of those parties that supply required resources and material for the products which are produced by
Unilever. They are very important as material for product is is supplied by them and they are external
stakeholders. In order to engage with suppliers, company required to take adequate measures so that it can
identify best and effective suppliers who are able to supply products with high quality and low rate.
Government
Unilever cooperates with governments, regulators and legislators directly as well as through trade
associations. Government is very important stakeholder because effect Governance of organisation
through regulations.
Communities
Communities are important stakeholders of the company and Unilever contributes in economic level hood of
many people and communities across its value chain.
Trade Associations
Trade associations are seen by Unilever as a resources through which they can increase their knowledge of the
industry and trends and as well as engaging on policy topics.
Cont..

In order to maintain engagement with customers corporate social
responsibility also plays important role. This contributes in adding
value to communities and societies and along with also strengthen
brand of consumer goods business. Strengthen image of the brand is
beneficial for investors as well and this also enables employees to take
advantage of this.
Importance of stakeholders in the organisation can be analysed through
their interest and power within organisation. To analyse the power and
interest the following matrix can be utilized.
Corporate Social Responsibility

Stakeholders Matrix
 Among these stakeholders, those with high power and high interest are kept at priority
and later stakeholders with high power and less interest are kept at priority in order of
their preference. Company requires to keep informed when interest is high but power
is low and in terms when power is low and interest is low they requires least efforts.

Unilever addresses needs of stakeholders based on their importance for the organisation and among all the
stakeholders of the company they are addressed in following sequence.
 Consumers (Highest Priority)
 Employees
 Investors
 Suppliers
 Communities
Addressing needs according to their importance ensures that stakeholders are getting favourable and required
treatment from the organisation and along with this organisation also get their benefit from stakeholders.
Ethics at Unilever has been outlined in its code of business principles and code policies. Ethics also
significantly affect response of the Unilever to its stakeholders and ethics of Unilever includes avoiding
conflict of interest and this recommends that stakeholders are treated fairly on the basis of their role and
importance.
Cont..

On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that stakeholders are
important elements because they play important role in survival and
growth of the organisation. Stakeholders by Unilever are treated based on
their importance to the company and based on what role they are playing
in the organisation and their ethics also ensure that all are treated fairly.
CONCLUSION

 Cooper, S., 2017. Corporate social performance: A stakeholder approach. Taylor & Francis.
 Freeman, R.E., Harrison, J.S. and Zyglidopoulos, S., 2018. Stakeholder theory: Concepts and
strategies. Cambridge University Press.
 McGrath, S.K. and Whitty, S.J., 2017. Stakeholder defined. International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business.
 Nartey, L.J., Henisz, W.J. and Dorobantu, S., 2018. Status climbing vs. bridging:
Multinational stakeholder engagement strategies. Strategy Science. 3(2). pp.367-392.
 Vracheva, V., Judge, W.Q. and Madden, T., 2016. Enterprise strategy concept, measurement,
and validation: Integrating stakeholder engagement into the firm's strategic
architecture. European Management Journal. 34(4). pp.374-385.
References

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