Est1 Task1

Evaluation, Determination and Explanation of Social Responsibility

Grocery chain Company Q has a very negative attitude towards the community and as a result their attitude toward social responsibility is lacking to say the least. We can see based on several of their actions that they have no real interest in helping their community, they seem to worry more about profit, and they have a trust issue with their employees. These issues are contributing factors to Company Q’s attitude and how they are perceived by their stakeholders. The company has proven over the years that their main concern is showing a profit for the stakeholders and they do also provide jobs for the local community. This is the most basic level of social responsibility. In closing the 2 stores the company showed that they were more interested in maintaining profits rather than fixing the issues and being able to also provide jobs in those higher crime neighborhoods which would have also helped those communities. Second, they ignored their own customers, a primary stakeholder, when asked over a period of several years to provide healthy organic products. When they finally did offer the products they kept the margins on those items high to make more money. Finally, when a local food bank asked for donations of day old products Company Q management worried about lost revenue again. At the same time they also cited worries about fraud and theft from employees. Once again the social responsibility to 2 more groups of stakeholders were weakened. There are several things that Company Q never considered when making these choices that could benefit both the community and the company.

Recommendations to improve

In order for Company Q to become more Socially Responsible there are 3 things I would recommend. First, I would recommend Company Q implement a stricter hiring policy and developing a code of conduct or handbook for all management and employees. This will address the issues with the...