Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Ethics in business has always been a problem for academics, practitioners and governmental regulators for decades some believe that unethical, immoral and illegal behavior is widespread in the business world today. Numerous scandals in the late 1990s and early 2000s seemed to add impact to the criticism of business ethics. E.g.:-WorldCom, Enron, ImClone, Arthur Andersen, etc. Hence to improvement in perception of the company among, Firm staffs, Community Customer; and Share holders. Firms started to use CSR activities. And it is now widely recognized that companies should take a broader responsibility than shortterm profit and more companies are initiating corporate social responsibility (CSR) program Defining Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) CSR can be define as companies try to bring social and environmental concerns in their business operations or activates and also in their interaction with their stakeholders for a better functioning. In other word it is also often referred to as business responsibility and organizations action on environmental, ethical, social and economic issues. One writer defines CSR as treating the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a responsible manner.

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (1999) define CSR as An ethical behavior of a company towards society; management acting responsibly in its relationship with other stakeholders who have a legitimate interest in the business; and it is the commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large. Jackson (2003) defines CSR is the overall relationship of the corporation with all its stakeholders. Elements of corporate social responsibility include investment in community outreach, employee relations, creation and maintenance of employment, environmental responsibility, human rights and financial performance The World Bank also acknowledged the importance of corporate social involvement. Is CSR simply a cost to an organization or whether it is a strategic issue for business leaders? Many business leaders have realized that CSR is also a viable component of their overall business strategy, along with traditional functions like marketing, branding, research and development, innovation etc, and so the business leaders are therefore giving CSR strategy the same level of attention they give to these other vital corporate functions or strategies like branding, marketing,

and operations. CSR has also been a very good reactive strategy to gain the confidence of the communities and customers in which they can operate very well. CSR strategies are also useful in nonprofit organization. One of the good examples to see how important or useful CSR Strategy is. Pfizer (Baker and Jenkins, 2008) reports an example of involving their workforce in voluntary activities in their local community. The benefits to the charities are assumed although demand in the community for volunteers is high. The benefits to Pfizer are clear in terms of employee motivation and improvement, and the development of a vibrant community to attract and retain world-class scientists. CSR in practice is being influenced by two major concepts. One is the stakeholder model and the other concept is triple bottom line, where companies would no longer be judged on the conventional single i.e. financial bottom line, but also on their performance in the social and environmental bottom-lines. Triple bottom-line term was developed by Sustainability, a UK based international business consultancy. (Mahabir Narwal, Social Responsibility Journal Volume 3 Number 4 2007) Stakeholders play a very important role towards the development of a business. A stakeholder is the heart of the business so we need to protect it every well. Stakeholders are the most important pressures pushing companies toward

corporate responsibility (Ledgard and Taylor, 2002; Waddock et al., 2002) also.
The CSR agenda is clearly about strategic decisions, and business leaders need to

thoroughly consider in which aspects of CSR to invest in order to satisfy various stakeholders (Husted, 2003; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). Because stakeholders are the people who invest into the business, investments are like a blood in the body so we to see way how can we stratify stakeholders. Some scholars have argued that managers should conduct business purely in the interests of the stakeholders. Sustainability is one of the major or critical features of CSR which has evolved over the past decade. Before this no one thought about it nor practiced it. Sustainability is nothing but the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We has a responsible citizens of country should try to look into the need of the coming generation also. Historical Review of the concepts of CSR : CSR has been practice over a past few decades. Although there no proper evidence of the stage by stage development of CSR, But we have a overall outline of the history of CSR. The history we can see that CSR took its roots around the time when Industrial revolution begun in UK. When CSR first began as a charity

principle and its links to religious conceptions of charity and good works for society is a thread that continued through later history in Western Europe. Later the influence of industrial revolution took over it as in the actions of philanthropists etc. to have a good well for the business. Then they started calling it or labeled as corporate philanthropy or even CSR, was practiced by industrialists like Robert Owen, Joseph Rowntree, and Titus Salt (see for example Maclagan, 1998; Grint, 1998). Despite the importance of charity as a best principle, the twentieth century development o of CSR can be more readily traced through the debate on the separation of ownership and control in firms. This separation was a natural result of the increasing complexity and size of corporations during industrialization, to the extent that the owner of the enterprise could no longer be realistically expected to exercise control over its Stakeholders. Friedman is also one of the person who made a remarkable change in the CSR. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits in 1970 so strongly influenced the subsequent development of the CSR discourse that the search for a link between CSR and firm performance became a dominant preoccupation of the academy.

Current Corporate Practices of CSR There is a lot of CSR practice which we can see around us. I think in every successful business we can see that they are practicing CSR. Some example for this is The Levi Straus example of replacing their exploitation of child labor with education is an example of the protector stage described by BT. Unilever educates 2000 Kids every year. Royal Philips Electronics in The Netherlands funds a charity called Caritas that provides financial support to socially disadvantaged school children in Austria (Weber, 2008). Supporting a local football club for youngsters, employee development, and environmental initiatives or donating end of day sandwich stock to homeless charities. Is also some of the current corporate practices. Conclusion In this era were there so many unethical business and practices. Were people are just thinking about profit and just increasing profit and nothing else.CSR play a very important role in having Positive effects on company image and reputation . CSR-related risk reduction or management. Cost savings, Positive effects on employee motivation, retention and recruitment. To protect the environments etc.

References 1. An exploratory study of the historical landscape of corporate social responsibility in the UK VOL. 11 NO. 2 2011, pp. 149-160, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 2. Defining corporate social responsibility A view from big companies in Germany and the UK Daniel Silberhorn Burston-Marsteller, Frankfurt, Germany, and Richard C. Warren Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, United Kingdom 3. CSR Initiatives of Indian Banking Industry Mahabir Narwal, Social Responsibility Journal Volume 3 Number 4 2007 4. Corporate social responsibility: a strategic issue or a wasteful distraction case study 5. from quality management to socially responsible organizations: the case for CSR International Journal of Quality &Reliability Management Vol. 24 No. 7, 2007pp. 669-682 6. From corporate social responsibility awareness to action? Social Responsibility Vol . 6 NO. 3 2010, pp. 452-468, Resposibility 7. Defining corporate social responsibility A view from big companies in Germany and the UK European Business Review Vol. 19 No. 5, 2007 pp. 352-372 8. CSR strategy in multinational firms: focus on human resources, suppliers and community Journal of Global Responsibility Vol. 2 No. 1, 2011 pp. 60-74 9. CSR in the global marketplace towards sustainable global value chains .

10. Building Your CSR Business Strategy. A Case study VOL. 24 NO. 1 2008, pp. 25-27 11. Combining faith and CSR: a paradigm of corporate sustainability International Journal of Social Economics Vol. 35 No. 6, 2008 pp. 449-465 12. Case study How to move from gloss to strategy VOL. 24 NO. 1 2008, pp. 12-14, 13 Be seen to talk the talk, How national perception can influence a companys CSR strategy, VOL. 24 NO. 1 2008, pp. 25-27 14. UC RUSAL unites cultures through local CSR programs Vol 6 Issue 6 September/October 2007