Submitted by: Submitted by aminradi
Views: 383
Words: 785
Pages: 4
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 03/13/2011 10:17 AM
Corporate Social Responsibility
For the past decades, we have understood that the “duty” of organizations engaging in the business world traditionally was to make a lot of money and increasing the wealth of the shareholders. Unfortunately, the issue of social and environmental concern is also an integral part of an organizational performance. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a very important matter nowadays and every companies view CSR differently. The definition of CSR may be dissimilar between companies but the definition has some common ground that make outside people understand what the companies are talking about. Therefore, we will try to understand the CSR first by looking at the definition of it from several trusted sources.
Mallen Baker – a writer, commentator and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the chief executive of businessrespect.net – defines CSR in his website mallenbaker.net as how companies manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. He added that the companies need to answer two aspects of their operational. The first aspect is the quality of their management and the other one is the nature and quality of their impact on society. He also mentioned that outside stakeholders are taking serious interest in the companies’ activities and they want to know how is the performance of the companies and the impact on the environment and local communities.
Catalyst Consortium (2002) argued that there is no universal definition of CSR but it generally refers to transparent business practice that are based on ethical values, compliance with legal requirement and respect for people, communities and environment. As a result it can be understood that besides making money, companies are actually responsible entirely for their impact on people and the planet. Catalyst Consortium define the “people” as the company’s stakeholders including its employee, customers, business partners,...