Soln1.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience,

corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business) is a
form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions
as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business monitors and ensures its
active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms.
The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage
a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees,
communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. CSR is the
deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, that is the core
business of the company or firm, and the honouring of a triple bottom line: people,
planet, profit.

In the above mentioned case the CSR which is discussed is the education which
Wipro chief dreams of distributing evenly in the minds of junior school kids by bringing
together the school majors and the parents together as one.

Wipro believes that every entity has the responsibility of improving the system
which it inhabits and contribute positively towards its development. And that it is vital for
every organization to contribute towards the society

Wipro Applying Thought In Schools is our initiative to help in societal change and
development. This initiative is long-term, deliberate and focused. The intent of this
initiative is to improve the Quality of education – so that life opportunities and
possibilities are expanded for everyone, including the most under privileged.

Wipro applying Thoughts in schools and azim Premji foundation working in urban
and rural areas respectively look forward in “bringing together people who believe that
change is needed in the way teaching and assessment happens and those who believe
that education system should keep pace with changing times.” WIPRO believes that the
conventional system of education is not equipping children with abilities like thinking
analytically and creatively and be life long learners. WIPRO prescription to upgrade
school education recognizes that the teacher has the most profound influence on a
child’s learning ability. Thus teacher empowerment and reskilling lies at the heart of the
WATIS. Other stakeholders such as the parents and the principals are being reached
out in an attempt to change their world view of the purpose of education.

Approach of this programs lies mainly in urban areas. They also support holistic and
deep engagements with schools to catalyze a change in school culture. This covers
teaching-learning processes, assessment frameworks, school-parent engagement,
curriculum reform, teaching-learning material improvement and administrative and
management processes. The thought is to encourage the school to relook at all aspects
of the school and help revamp the collective culture taking it towards being more
democratic and inclusive.
School education systems do not change overnight. WATIS believes that a sustained
effort will be needed, and we are committed to the process of bringing about a change
in the way our schools function.

There is a need to constantly engage in systemic education reform to transform the

nature of our schools and the way education is perceived and hence rendered in
schools. The work has to be done at all levels.

• on the ground with all types of schools, the rural and marginalized ones as well
as the aspirational urban elite.
• building capacity in social organizations for education reform and helping
build new organizations that will continue to engage in this effort
• advocacy and sharing of experiences and findings to larger citizenry, within the
education sector and at a policy level.

As a corporate, the leverage is in networking and advocacy; and people in WATIS use
this actively in their initiative.

Soln 10. Monitoring and assessment of CSR efforts are very important as they provide
standards for measuring the progress and reach of the CSR programs in the society.
They are the tools which gauge the penetration of CSR into certain culture.

In India several major CSR initiatives have been launched since the mid-1990s. Among
these is the first voluntary code of corporate governance, “Desirable Corporate
Governance: A Code”, established in April 1998. This was an initiative by the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India’s largest industry and business association.

Assessment of WATIS:

As an Education reform initiative

WATIS is one of the largest networks of civil society working in education and includes
the most renowned and talented organizations across the country. They have the
capabilities to provide mentorship, consulting, visibility and support to the organizations.

Their thoughtful and deliberate approach to the initiative and participation in a long
gestation effort towards social change makes us unique as a CSR initiative. It also
amply demonstrates our sincerity and commitment to education reform.
Contribution to school reform
They are supporting a diverse set of experiments and interventions that are holistic and
deep to understand systemic change. These interventions have reached out to over
1000 schools and more than 10,000 educators across the country across 17 states in
the country.
Some of the schools we have supported now have the capability to help other schools
in the vicinity through the resource centers.
Support new organizations
Many young, motivated and talented individuals and organizations struggle through a
process of acquiring direction of thought, procuring funds to launch their work, getting a
sense for the larger picture and building capabilities and capacity to sustain themselves
over time.
Given the diversity of our partner base, depth of our relationships, collective
understanding of education and willingness to experiment and continuously learn from
the experiments, they are encouraged to play a larger role in advocacy for good
education.

Advocacy
Their efforts in advocacy constantly make people aware of the limitations of the current
education system and the need for every individual to contribute to changing the way
education is seen.
For example, along with Educational Initiatives we did a research study of learning
levels of children in the ‘top’ 142 schools in the 5 metros across the country. Around
42,000 children from grades 2, 4 and 6 were assessed on their conceptual
understanding in maths, science and languages. The results of this study were
published in India Today as a cover story in Nov 2006. This report triggered numerous
responses from schools wanting to revisit their approaches and this catalyzed a series
of such efforts from schools in reform.

Dissemination Advocacy
The Wipro Education Fellowship provides an opportunity for individuals to learn about
education through work in specific assignments and interaction with a network of
organizations and academicians across the country.

A National Foundation for Corporate Governance (NFCG) has been established by the
Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This is a partnership with the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII), the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) and the Institute of
Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). The purpose of the National Foundation for
Corporate Governance is to promote better corporate governance practices and raise
the standard of corporate governance in India towards achieving stability and growth.

Soln 8.
The concept of stakeholders is central to that of CSR. Stakeholders may be
defined as "groups and individuals who can affect, or are affected by, the
achievement of an organization’s mission" Stakeholders are like the thumbing heart
in a body of nerves, bones and muscles. They are the active and breathing unit of any
csr program, without their pains and diligence to deliver their role and achieve the set
values no program can be canvassed upon the definition of a triumph. Programs are the
plans and stakeholders are the heroes behind the plans, their continuous strive towards
promising a responsible and better society is nonnegotiable. They are the catalyst in the
reaction which generates fortunes for the firm and glory for the nation.

Stakeholders in the given case were the teachers, the parents, the principal and the
authorities like the state or the central board. They all chained together act as chemical
agents and propellant for launching the aspiring new budding talent on the platform of
education. The stakeholders work together as a system and work towards the
achievement of the highest objective through step-wise contribution into csr program.

Companies have about as much ability to choose their stakeholders as children have to
choose their parents, so the best any firm can do is to identify their stakeholders. The
location, scale and nature of operations will determine who sees themselves as
stakeholders. Stakeholders will expect to be recognized when the firm's effect on them,
for better or worse, is direct or immediate -- employees, for example. Even people who
seem to have no direct connection to the business may consider themselves
stakeholders, such as the families of the employees and those who live in the
communities in which the business is located.

Stakeholder theory emphasizes the organization survival and success hinges on the
organization’s ability to generate sufficient wealth, value, or satisfaction for its primary
stakeholders, but not exclusively for shareholders

The firm may be contemplating stakeholder engagement to better understand its

impacts, to help articulate its values, mission, strategy, commitments and
implementation, to facilitate a regulatory approvals process, to participate in
measurement and reporting, to avert or solve a crisis, or to proactively improve
relationships. The reason for engaging stakeholders will determine the style of
engagement and stakeholders' expectations, all of which could change over time.

Soln. 7 CSR strategy development and implementation could be considered as an

organizational change process, or as a new way of organizing and working. The aim is
to align the organization with the dynamic demands of the business and social
environment through the identification and management of stakeholder expectations.

Designing of CSR involves plans at the basic level. Identification of the main
objective, Like in the above case the education is targeted, its upliftment is the objective
and the stake holders, teachers, principal, parents and the school board are the keys.
Design means identifying the ways in which all of the above can be brought in together
in order to successfully chase down the goal.

Approach means the steps which are required to be taken and resources like
money, man and machines which are required to be put in for accomplishing the goal.
Approach is closely related to the design, as they define the tools and physical body of
paper plans.
Although top management decides about CSR direction and strategy, middle
management and employees are the ones who have to implement CSR in reality. The
middle management’s role is “to put into effect the direction established by top
management by making sure that resources are allocated and controlled appropriately,
monitoring performance and behaviour of staff, and where necessary, explaining the
strategy to those reporting to them” (Johnson & Scholes, 2002: 552). In addition, the
middle management helps to communicate and perform the top-down decided vision
and CSR implementation.

• Implementation means execution of ideas bringing them to life, it’s the real action
in the real world. This is the stage where most output is required and fruits
maximum result. WATIS has initiated a significant Educational Literature
program. As part of this program they create good educational literature,
commission books for children. They have also initiated a Good Books Advocacy
program in partnership with Tulika Publishers to advocate the cause of good
children's literature.
• They take up significant advocacy projects to advocate the cause of good
education and these projects also provide means to schools, educators and
educationists to understand a specific area and how it could be dealt with in
schools. The recent example is student video interviews to understand better
how children think and how this could be used to improve teaching-learning
practices in schools.
• Te regularly write in popular media on education to spread an understanding
of how education can be and bring significant issues to the notice of larger
citizenry.

In addition to change, CSR involves learning over time and the ability to understand the
specific context and confluence of stakeholder expectations. Whilst there is no best way
to bring about change enhanced learning of stakeholder expectations and the specifics
of the context will help to ensure that change is beneficial and supported by appropriate
mechanisms This requires managers to understand and be actively aware of both the
context and expectations, but also to recognize that any changes they implement will
also shape the environment in turn. The development of CSR practices can therefore be
seen as an evolutionary and recursive activity, acting and reacting on and with the
business environment.

Soln5. Quality assurance is a value which is just not related with men in tuxedos and
women in evening gowns. The people in sheds respect and comprehend quality as
much as the people living in condos of skyscrapers. Let us understand it through the
practice of agriculture, and relate it to industries. If a farmer cultivating a certain crop,
having all the knowledge and idea about it does not adulterate his mind with the feeling
of holding back the good crop and selling away the average one why should the
industrialist benefiting from people of both urban and rural areas should restrict his
development schemes to the urban areas only?
 The answer to this is no! The social responsibility we owe is equally distributed
towards all the regions of our country and all the ranks in our society. So quality is an
aspect which should be taken care of not just in urban areas but in rural too.

The WATIS does not follow this trend and allows more flexibility in the case of
rural areas. They are more focused first on taking education to rural and sub-urban
areas instead of providing same quality education as in cities. Of course it is very
complex to start something from scratch but even then if it is at the primary level, it must
be assured that the standards are kept equivalent to those as for all. WATIS believe
seducation is a fundamental enabler of social change. Schools tend to mirror social
realities including the issues that concern society. To create a citizenship that is
creative, caring and driven by a spirit of inquiry and democratic principles, schools need
to go beyond this and become labs for change. While it is essential that schools engage
with social realities they also need to provide the space for children during their
formative years to question, to challenge and understand society. Fundamental
principles of justice, equity and humaneness need to be nurtured in this environment.

Soln2. CSR is the concept that provides theoretical support for the transformation in
business management from striving for quantitative expansion to striving for qualitative
improvement.

Benchmarking competitors’ practices and CSR norms and standards

Benchmarking CSR practices should allow the company to continue to highlight what
should remain and give competitive advantage, and to identify inappropriate activities
with respect to CSR. Benchmarking criteria should be defined in accordance with the
characteristics of the industry sector under scrutiny.

Benchmarking competitors’ CSR practices should include three broad critical steps.
First, identifying and selecting the best performers for each CSR-related issue to be
benchmarked on the basis of the organization’s industry knowledge for industry-specific
issues and on the basis of recognized CSR champions for what concerns CSR more
general issues. Secondly, identifying norms and standards used or developed by
competitors and measuring the performance of the best-in-class companies for each
benchmark being considered. Finally, comparing with the organization’s performance
for each variable to determine the gap between the organization and the best
performers.

CSR not just provides an organization with an ISO certificate but also a heavier public
image which guards its position and boosts its growth. The CSR in not about personal
advantage and in the above case it can be concluded that when we talk about
education and education at primary level it can hardly be of any strong interest of a
company. Mr. Azim premji looks forward towards a developed India, a nation filled with
more potential which can throw over all the other economies of the world. A world which
has to compete with 3,50000 exceptional talent in every field every year. CSR here
merely just not targets easy money. It focuses on converting this subcontinent into a
mine of unmatchable gems.
Indian IT Industry has been harbinger of indian economy, bringing home revenue in
billions of dollars. On the other hand millions indian poor are surviving on a mere $1 per
day. There is an urgent need to address this indian urban-rural digital divide. Have
indian it industry taken enough steps to ensure they fulfill their obligations towards
indian society.

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in India sets a realistic agenda of grassroots

development through alliances and partnerships with sustainable development
approaches. At the heart of solution lies intrinsic coming together of all stakeholders in
shaping up a distinct route for an equitable and just social order.

SOLN 4. Corporate social responsibility is represented by the contributions

undertaken by companies to society through its core business activities, its social
investment and philanthropy programmes and its engagement in public policy. In recent
years CSR has become a fundamental business practice and has gained much
attention from chief executives, chairmen, boards of directors and executive
management teams of larger international companies. They understand that a strong
CSR program is an essential element in achieving good business practices and
effective leadership. Companies have determined that their impact on the economic,
social and environmental landscape directly affects their relationships with stakeholders,
in particular investors, employees, customers, business partners, governments and
communities.
India has a distinct culture. On the one hand, there are long-standing traditions of
respect for family and social networks, and high value placed on relationships, social
stability and education. Diverse religions and cultures also bring distinct attitudes
towards community social behavior and engagement as well as support and
philanthropic contributions.
Governments in the region also play distinct roles – often stronger in terms of influence
on economic and social priorities, yet not as advanced in terms of social safety nets.
This has resulted in the drivers for corporate citizenship being very different from those
in other regions.