Analysis of Social Performance: A Wesfarmers Business Report

This business report provides a critical analysis of Wesfarmers, a major Australian conglomerate, focusing on two key aspects of its social performance: environmental impact and equality. The report examines Wesfarmers Chemicals, Energy, and Fertilizers, highlighting the company's ethical sou...Read More

Business Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Social performance is defined as “the effective translation of an institution’s mission into
practice in line with accepted social values.” In other words, it is related to making social
mission of the organization in the reality whatever it may be. Moreover, for accomplishing
strong social performance, a company should have to manage its work carefully and deliberately
(Bititci and et. Al, 2012). An organization perform several activities which impact negatively and
positively as per its nature market consequences. The entire assignment is based on Wesfarmers
which is an Conglomerate industry enterprise founded in 1914 and headquartered in The
Esplanade Perth, Western Australia. This project will attempt to carry out a critical analysis on
two social performance aspects of organization along with their impact on society.
MAIN BODY
Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian conglomerate company and it deals in Australian
and New Zealand retail, chemicals, coal mining, fertilizers and several other safety products.
The organization is largest private employer in Australia with approx. 220000 employees. It was
listed on the Australian Security Exchange in 1984 and grew into a major retail conglomerate.
WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers which is a leading manufacturing company which
deals in chemicals and engaged across the domestically as well as internationally. Basically, this
enterprise was founded in around 1976 as a subsidiary of parent organization WesFarmers. As
the company contribute huge role in society and overall market, the roles and duties of
organization toward society increase which they have to perform. Firm's behavior, actions and
activities toward society builds their brand recognition and contributes in the environment,
employment, diversity and equality and various other determinants of society (ChiuShih-Chi and
Mark Sharfman, 2011) . Here is discussed social performance of WesFarmers chemicals Energy
and Fertilizers.
Social performance of the WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers and this
company focus on ethical sourcing and human rights, mainly on supply chain transparency while
trading within the society . WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers is the enterprise which
provide opportunities to women in comparison to men's as. For example; around 54 per cent
females are working and 46 per cent males which shows the significance of women's at
workplace. Moreover, in the last five years, there has been a 5 per cent increment in women

management roles as well as 5.5 per cent in female senior roles. However, one of the m ost
important social performance of an organization is that they are trying to reduce the amount of
wastage year by year and in 2017 their waste of landfill is decreased by 4 per cent. For the
welfare of society, company must have to perform social activities by taking in mind equality
and environmental factors. Such activities assist enterprise in profit maximization and also in
building brand image.
Wesfarmers and its impact on environment – It is the sum up of all the surroundings
which includes living organism, including natural forces and some other living things also as
well several other natural forces. Moreover, in the surrounding, there are different interactions
within animals, soil, water, insects, living and non-living things. Every individual person want to
live in healthy, pollution free and clean environment because company is worrying about health.
Whereas, WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers is an organization which deals in
Chemicals, fertilizers, coal mining and so on that gives negative impact on the surroundings
(Ebrahim and et. al. 2014). There are several pessimistic effect on the environment due to the
working of respective enterprise are as follows :-
 Noise pollution created by the machinery which is used by Wesfarmers for their day to
day working. Along with this, such equipment's also result in creating air pollution that
emerge chemical smoke in environmental surroundings.
 Fertilizers productions is also harmful for the environment because while applying this in
the land for production purpose at that time plants and several other crops will grow
much good. But after sometime land will loss their fertility no agriculture work can be
done by anyone on that particular land (WESFARMERS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT.
2018).
 Coal is the limited stock after some time of continuous utilization it will also get finished
when maximum consumption of this will be done by the Company.
 Wesfarmers Limited also doing production work in this process wastage also their which
is dumped by the same company in river or pond. This result in water pollution and after
some duration their will be no clean water for drinking (Felício, 2013) .
Their are some exceptions also of society from the enterprise i.e. people want unique,
high quality goods and services but without harming environment. For company, it is not
possible to produce such type of offerings without any environmental pollution, waste and so on.

Whereas, in this situation, enterprise can take some steps which assist in minimizing or reducing
level of negative effect on surroundings. There are some majors :-
 Company can do production in such a way that their will be less wastage and make sure
that not to dump it in river or pond. Recycling is the best way for it so that water will not
get polluted (Wong and et. al., 2011).
 Utilization of coal must be minimum or as per the requirement because this is an
nonproductive resources.
 WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers have to grow plants and tree so that society
will gain healthy as well pollution free environment.
Thus, it is hard for Wesfarmers to produce most unique and fine quality products without
harming the environment. The key performance of organization is creating negative influence on
organization that is creating negatively portraying brand among stakeholder and society . Hence,
WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers can opt CSR activities to improve their brand
image and create unique recognition along with using environment friendly techniques (Ioannou,
Ioannis and George, 2012) .
WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers and its impact on equality - Equality
means “state of being equal” in simple term. It can be said that every individual have right to
being treated fairly without any discrimination. In term of the company, each and every
employees have equal rights in society and they must be treated without any partiality . Most
important is that equality is the right of every person whether they are working in company or
not (Treadway and et. Al 2013).
Basically, one of the most important act was also amended at marketplace for
maintaining the equality among employees. For example; Equality came into force on October
1st, 2010, which merged over one hundred and sixteen different pieces of legislation into single
Act. By the combination of these merged acts, making up of new activities is done which
provides a legal framework to safeguarding the rights of individuals and equal opportunities for
them. Hence, this act strengthens and protects employees at workplace from unfair, biased or
discriminating situation and promote the equality in society. Therefore, selected firm needs to
follow this act in order to understand the expectations of common people in respect of equality
(Jones and et. Al, 2014) .

The Nine Main legislation act that are merged together and contribute in Equality Act
2010 are- Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976,
Disability Discrimination Act 1995, Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations
2003, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, Employment Equality (Age)
Regulations 2006, Equality Act 2006, Part 2 and Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations
2007. Hence, these acts are also supports an organization in understanding the way how to deal
with employees and various staff members as well as common people (Soana, Maria-Gaia, 2011)
.
In the society, every individual person want equal opportunities from the company when
the are doing job. As well as it is the responsibility of the association that they should not to
include these terms gender, age, color, status and so on while offering job. Because such
practices give negative impact of the business in the eyes of people or in the overall society.
Wesfamers is the association which gives preference to the women's more compare to men's
such activities help them in building their image in the society (Jones and et. Al, 2014). In simple
term it can be said that, they are providing opportunities to females for their as well as society
Upliftment (Silvestre, 2012). It can be taken in other sense because they are not providing equal
opportunity to men's as compare to women's. According to the equality act, 2010 WesFarmers
chemicals Energy and Fertilizers have to provide equal opportunity to all the gender employees
who are working with them.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been concluded that social performance is important
and must be performed by the organization in which they are existing. WesFarmers chemicals
Energy and Fertilizers deals in coal mining, chemical, retail and fertilizers these activities gives
directly negative impact on the environment. Apart from this, equality which is important for the
society and right of everyone. WesFarmers chemicals Energy and Fertilizers is the company
which don't discriminate between their employees in term of color, cast, money and so on as well
as provide equal right to male and female both. Whereas, company is providing more and more
opportunities to the women's which result in growth of society.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bititci, and et. al. "Performance measurement: challenges for tomorrow." International journal
of management reviews 14, no. 3 (2012): 305-327.
Chiu, Shih-Chi, and Mark Sharfman. "Legitimacy, visibility, and the antecedents of corporate
social performance: An investigation of the instrumental perspective." Journal of
Management 37, no. 6 (2011): 1558-1585.
Ebrahim, and et. al. "The governance of social enterprises: Mission drift and accountability
challenges in hybrid organizations." Research in Organizational Behavior 34 (2014):
81-100.
Felício, J. Augusto, Helena Martins Gonçalves, and Vítor da Conceição Gonçalves. "Social
value and organizational performance in non-profit social organizations: Social
entrepreneurship, leadership, and socioeconomic context effects." Journal of Business
Research 66. no. 10 (2013): 2139-2146.
Ioannou, Ioannis, and George Serafeim. "What drives corporate social performance? The role of
nation-level institutions." Journal of International Business Studies 43. no. 9 (2012):
834-864.
Jones, and et. al. "Why are job seekers attracted by corporate social performance? Experimental
and field tests of three signal-based mechanisms." Academy of Management Journal 57.
no. 2 (2014): 383-404.
Silvestre, Hugo Consciência. "Public–private partnership and corporate public sector
organizations: Alternative ways to increase social performance in the Portuguese water
sector?." Utilities Policy 22 (2012): 41-49.
Soana, Maria-Gaia. "The relationship between corporate social performance and corporate
financial performance in the banking sector." Journal of business ethics. 104. no. 1
(2011): 133.
Treadway, and et. al. "Social influence and interpersonal power in organizations: Roles of
performance and political skill in two studies." Journal of Management 39, no. 6
(2013): 1529-1553.
Wong, Eland et. al. "The effects of top management team integrative complexity and
decentralized decision making on corporate social performance." Academy of
Management Journal 54. no. 6 (2011): 1207-1228.
Online
WESFARMERS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT. 2018. [Online]. Available
Through.<https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/>