Corporate Social Responsibility of Dell and Hp

Although both Dell and HP regard corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an essential component of their strategic objectives, HP has been considered a champion behind which Dell lags significantly as a global citizen. According to the CR Reporting Awards 2011, HP produced the best corporate responsibility report of the past year (CorporateRegister.com, 2011). Moreover, in the Justmeans rankings of the top global 1000 companies, HP was ranked 7th while Dell was ranked 68th (Justmeans, 2009). Similarly, Corporate Responsibility Magazine put HP at 9th and Dell at 47th in its 12th annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List (Corporate Responsibility Magazine, 2011).

Specifically, HP outperforms Dell in nearly all categories. Considering environmental performance, both earned scores slightly above average but Dell consumed less water, used less energy, and emitted fewer greenhouse gases than HP. However, Dell trails HP because of incomplete disclosure. In particular, Dell reported only 56% of all Environmental Performance indicators, compared with 76% for HP (Dell, 2011; HP, 2010; Justmeans, 2009).

In terms of social responsibility either company has established robust and comprehensive social policies and achieved fine performance on workplace safety, employment creation, and diversity metrics. For example, HP's injury rates are among the lowest while Dell’s are the highest in the industry, whereas Dell has the highest percentages in the industry of women in the workforce and women in management. But the transparency remains a problem for Dell as HP has an 80% disclosure higher than Dell’s 69% (ibid).

Likewise, HP earns a higher score than Dell although the level of the industry remains low when it comes to the governance performance. As partly shown above, HP has a 70%, higher than Dell’s 63%, concerning the overall reporting transparency. Furthermore, the issues of shareholder rights and compensation remain unsolved for the entire industry. Finally, a more...