Corporate social responsibilities are activities that businesses engage in for the benefit of their societies starting with their employees to all the other stakeholders and to improve the overall physical environment that they do their operations. It is more or less an activity meant for giving gratitude to the society for using their resources. Each business is set with goals and objectives which are either short term or long term to meet, within a specified time span. However, it is important that a business considers the corporate social responsibilities alongside its goals. There are three major types of corporate social responsibilities that business organizations offer to the society. These include environmental focused, community-based and human resource based CSTR. This paper explains the various corporate social responsibilities that businesses engage in, the dangers that a business exposes itself on by ignoring the corporate social responsibilities, the importance, and disadvantages of the responsibilities to the business organization and the overall view of the businesses engagement on the corporate social responsibilities.
Well established companies like Google and Microsoft are at the forefront of maintaining their corporate social responsibilities. They offer financial support to the development projects such as educational and health centers, offer good treatment to the employees and also voluntarily offer charity services to the society as a whole. Companies taking part in corporate social responsibilities earn chances of improving their images to the society (Christensen, 2014). They can seek more market for their products every individual would always want to purchase from a product manufacturer who is showing some sort of care to the environment where she or she resides. The good name with the company is normally associated with high-quality products, and this would attract more customers to the company. Again, most of the individuals in society would always prefer being associated with high performing and most popular company. This stands a strong point for the development of a company which works in line with corporate social responsibilities earning more customers and profits as well.
Companies that show concern for the social responsibilities also can attract and retain their good employees (Tai, 2014). During recruitment of employees, most of the workers would always prefer getting employed in companies that have good CSR history. Mostly this occurs because they expect to get better services as employees like the healthy working conditions, and good facilities for their services at work. Older employees would also like to maintain their working place only if their well-being is valued by the particular company. It is [perceived by the workers that are practicing ethical business operations are indications of job security and no0 employee would always wish to have his or her job terminated without early notice. Employees, therefore, believe that a good company should be able to abide by the CSR requirements. A company with a desirable commitment to CSR would, therefore, be likely to have an advantage over the others that do not in case of tight labor market situations.
When a business organization has set up a corporate social responsibility program gets a positive rating in public. The good publicity of the business in the society in most cases act an advertisement for their products in the market. Individuals who care for their environment would always opt to buy from a company that serves the community and environment irrespective of any factor that is good for the competing companies. This happens as they are at the will of maintaining the company’s operation within their community to continue getting the favors from the business firm. The company in this situation would be able to make more sales and establish faster because of the bigger market volume.
The local authority regulators tend to show some respect to the business organizations that have good histories of CSR. In case a company with good corporate social responsibility history gets involved in an unethical issue, the regulators would always give some favor to such companies considering their records with the community interest programs that they have always taken part on. Not very harsh fines will always be forced from such businesses if a case is presented against them. Treatment with leniency is very good for any business as they get it easy working under a peaceful environment (Scherer, 2014).
Although there are very many advantages that a business enjoys when they participate actively on development programs and treat their customers well, a lot of challenges are also faced when a business decides to be in alignment with the corporate social responsibilities. There is a much likelihood of the company shifting from its profit-making objective. A company may end up using a lot of resources serving the community rather than maintaining the path that would lead to the achievement of its objectives that it was set up to achieve. Too much participation in CSR programs causes the neglecting of the profit-making art that the shareholders had in mind at the time of starting the business. Constant failure to meet the obligations would result in loss of interest by the shareholders. They may decide to pull out their resources, and the company may even collapse due to inability to handle all its business based issues.
The company expenditure is likely to go higher when the company is much into CSR programs. A lot of the companies resources are used in making the community comfortable hence increasing the overall cost of production (Koh, 2014). Some of the individuals in the community may not be able to understand the benefit that the company programs bring to him or her, forcing the business management to constantly be at the region trying to explain the importance of the projects to the locals to appease them and keep their name clean in the media. The cost of production is increased without any benefit to the company gained in this case. The company, in turn, will be forced t set higher prices for their products so that they can get reasonable profits for their sales. This may not work in a competitive market as most people will go for cheaper alternatives, resulting in great losses incurred by the business.
Despite the great losses that the company is likely to incur due to increased costs of production and shifted working lines in trying to show activity in corporate social responsibilities, there are many benefits of actively taking part in such programs. The business is likely to gain more customers, get positive comments by the media and the society, enjoy freedom in the process of their operations and have ease in recruiting and maintaining their employees during tight labor situations. Businesses are therefore not only responsible for profit making but also for CRS programs as it works best for them.
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- Tai, F. M., & Chuang, S. H. (2014). Corporate social responsibility. Ibusiness, 6(03), 117.
- Scherer, A. G., Palazzo, G., & Matten, D. (2014). The business firm as a political actor: A new theory of the firm for a globalized world. Business & Society, 53(2), 143-156.
- Koh, P. S., Qian, C., & Wang, H. (2014). Firm litigation risk and the insurance value of corporate social performance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(10), 1464-1482.