Corporate Social Responsibility

The issue of corporate social responsibility has been debated for many years and yet it has not yet clearly been defined. But from the various arguments certain things can be said about social responsibility. “It deals with corporate conduct in respect to the broader societal values”. “It questions the responsibilities of business to the entire society.” Despite the lack of an accepted theory or corporate social responsibility it is obvious that CSR draws on the fields of ethics and morals which are basic to most cultures.
Ethics is the discipline dealing with what is right or wrong or what is good or bad.

Morals imply the practice of right conduct.

Corporate social responsibility may therefore refer to the moral and ethical content of managerial and corporate decisions. i.e the values used in business decision making over and above the requirement of the law and market economy.

Closely related to social responsibility is the concept of social responsiveness which simply means the ability of a corporation to relate its operations and policies to the social environment in ways that are mutually beneficial to the economy and the society. The difference between social responsibility and social responsiveness is that the latter implies actions and the ‘how’ of enterprise responses.

Business organizations do not operate in a vacuum but have to constantly interact with society. A business organization is a part of society. It interacts at a primary level with groups such as employees, distributors, consumers, stockholders, banks, suppliers and competitors. At a secondary level it interacts with such institutions as governments, local communities, media social pressure groups, business support groups and the general public.

With all these interactions business cannot afford to go on with their businesses without responding to issues affecting these groups. Some people argue that there is no such thing as corporate social responsibility, others argue that CSR must and will eventually result in long run profits, while others feel that modern organizations must undertake social responsibility regardless of the profit. Whatever the argument the question of accountability arises!