The Pros And Cons Of CSR Benefits For Companies

Companies today are heavily influenced by the demands of customers and stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the social and environmental responsibility policies and practices developed by an organization to increase its positive influence and reduce its negative activity towards society (Parks, 2008). The business approach and corporate philosophy of an organization is easily altered due to economic pressures, technological improvement and stakeholder needs and demands. "Going green" or being eco-friendly is one such demand. Environmental and sustainability concerns originate most often from governments, consumer activists, and the general public (Schlosser, 2008). Thus, organizations must implement sustainability into daily practices. In addition, sustainability alters the nature of competition and drives companies to think differently about products, processes, and technologies (Parks, 2008).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.

In this article, “The Truth About CSR,” authors Rangan, Chase and Karim stress the importance in aligning a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values (Rangan, Chase, & Karim, 2015, 41). Outcomes of CSR programs should be a “spillover” and not a primary focus of a business, expressing concern towards social responsibility and corporations failing to contribute to society accordingly (Rangan, Chase, Karim, 2015, 42). There is a great deal of importance in companies refocusing their CSR activities on a primary goal and in providing an organized process for bringing consistency and discipline to CSR strategies (42). Rangan, Chase and Karim want corporations to understand why it is important for them to evaluate their CSR activities and refocus them towards the goal of reinforcing the firm’s societal and environmental actions, while also ensuring their actions add to the overall purpose and values of the corporation. According to the authors, even though

CSR is how companies control their business processes to provide an overall positive impact on society. There are many factors that determine how socially responsible a business is, but alongside these are the benefits and costs relating to the level of CSR produced in this essay, I will be analysing companies from the retail industry and a car manufacturer to discuss the potential costs and benefits to both business and their stakeholders of CSR.

In a contemporary world, a business-society relationship has evolved well beyond a simple business model to a much broader - socially responsible - corporate stewardship. As of this result, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) emerged as a concept that encourages companies to be ethical and responsible with the environment it operates in so as to wider impact on society. Though, CSR is now argued so widely as to have become a subject matter for serious arguments. Whereas business‘s human side stressed the importance of social responsibility, it also opened the room for criticism for its opponents, some of who have expressed legit business concerns; others endorse the belief that

With the increased crisis that the planet faces, the business practices of companies has ever become an important issue for people. CSR is one way that companies could improve their image.

In the today’s business world, there are many strategies being used to run businesses. In the recent past, the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has grown rapidly.

Both views on Corporate Social Responsibility have become the topic of controversy as CSR is becoming increasingly essential for the society where the business operates. With time the classical theory or the narrow view of CSR is becoming fader and the socio-economic approach is gaining motion. Internationally most businesses are adopting CSR along with their economic interests.

A Net Impact survey stated that 53% of workers want were they can have an impact because it was important to their happiness, another important fact that the survey mentioned is that 35% would like to work for a company committed to CSR, 45% for a job that makes a social or environmental impact, and that 58% would like to work with values like their own (as cited in Meister, 2012). Looking at the survey results stated above, should organization focus first in their internal CSR strategy and used CSR as “a tool” (Mirvis, 2012), to engage, retain, and attract skilled employees while creating “a dynamic, vital, living entity, fed by the interaction among its myriad stakeholders,” (Vallaster, Lindgreen & Maon, 2012).

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is a popular debate topic over decades, has divided into five major dimensions over time. They are known as the stakeholder dimension, the social dimension, the economic dimension, the voluntariness dimension and the environmental dimension in research (Dahlsrud, 2008). The relationship between CSR and company’s performance, which is classified as the stakeholder dimension, aroused a controversial discussion among different research studies. Some research reported positive relationship in CSR and company’s performance (Mirvis, 2012), some research found negative results (Karnani, 2010), while there are also other research view CSR as

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become imperative on business convention nowadays. CSR can be defined as the way that firms manage the business processes to generate a positive influence on society (Baker, 2004). The term CSR was appeared in the 1950s, but until 1989, Ben and Jerry’s was the first company which truly publish a social responsibility report (Coles, 2012). In recent years, numerous organizations evaluate firms on their CSR performance since the society is concerned about the CSR ranking. Consequently, business managers in various countries may treat CSR as an inevitable priority (Porter & Kramer, 2006). Nevertheless, CSR is still a controversial issue in the world. Some businesses are struggling to balance corporate

Corporate social responsibility has become one of the most popular trends in today's world. CSR has now become an instrument to measure the company's interest in various issues that are not directly related to profit making. CSR also make aware of the public and media about the company's interest in the community. There are several reasons for a company to set up its corporate social responsibility. First of all, having a CSR policy and activities improves the public image of the company to a greater deal. It has been found that company's reputation is always built on its CSR programs besides its services and products (Cheng, Ioannou, & Serafeim, 2014). Therefore, most of the companies start their CSR policies and share those to the world so that everyone should be aware of the activities organized by the corporation for the

Recently, the expectations of society for companies have increased more than before (Craig, Bhattacharya, Vogel and Levine, 2010), so one significant issue that most firms have been actively involved in is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Some may debate that it decreases company’s profits by spending much money on CSR. However, according to Needle (2004), ‘good’ CSR is also good for business, a firm could benefit from doing CSR. Thus, this paper aims to explain its importance. It begins with the definition of CSR and its four responsibilities, then presents how it influences a business and benefits it can bring. Finally, I am going to describe strategic CSR and discuss why firms have social responsibility.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization(UNIDO) defines ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’(CSR) as “a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their stakeholders”. The term is explained through a “Triple-Bottom-Line Approach” as being the way through which a company achieves a balance of economic, environmental and social imperatives (“Triple-Bottom-Line”) while at the same time addressing the expectations of shareholders and stakeholders (Elkington, 1997). This approach assumes a very significant light in today’s dynamic world where every aspect of life is inter-connected in a very mysterious fabric, where the alteration of one can affect the others in ways beyond comprehension. Corporate Social Responsibility, both as a term and concept, started becoming popular in the 1960s, when industrialization which sprouted in the Industrial Revolution was fixating its roots all across the world. Industrialization can be defined as the “period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one”. Just like the correlation and dependence of the various aspects of life with each other, it is seen that CSR and Industrialization shared their space of mutual effects as well.

Corporations that do not equip themselves with CSR activities will often be left behind with the increasing global competition and borderless markets, and international corporations with sound CSR activities grow stronger (Altman, 2007). As the education level increases, consumers are made more aware of the need for pro social corporate behaviour.