Est 1 Task 310.2.1

Assessment of Company Q’s Social Responsibility

Social responsibility is defined as “an organization’s obligation to maximize it’s positive impact on stakeholders and to minimize it’s negative impact”. Recently, Company Q has made business decisions which are not perceived as conforming to the guise of the company’s expected behavior in this regard. Today’s political environment demands a focus on business to be more socially responsible, let’s take a look a company Q’s actions and provide some recommendations of how they can be more politically correct.

The company recently closed two stores due to their location in high crime areas. The stores were losing money. Taking jobs away from the high crime areas as well as creating a vacant business location is not perceived as a socially responsible action. While I completely support the company’s decision to shutter unsafe and unprofitable locations, there are a couple of things which may have improved the situation. First, the company could have increased security at the two unsafe locations. Secondly, they could have advertised that they accept EBT cards (food stamps) and offer all low cost items that qualify for government assistance programs.

Per the request of the company’s customers they have begun to offer health conscious and organic products. The products have high margins, which seem to indicate they are not necessarily what their customers requested, but rather the most profitable the company could offer. The company should adhere more to the Absorption Strategy when implementing its customer’s requests. Instead of offering only the most profitable health conscious items, the company could improve its social responsibility by offering, in addition to the higher cost items, products which are more affordable and conform more toward the clientele’s desires.

The company decided to throw away food instead of donating to food banks because they are concerned their employees will steal the...