When it comes to companies operating in multiple countries with varying standards, companies should realize that they have to practice some level of corporate social responsibility if they don’t want to be publicly scorned or looked down upon in their home country. Over the past several years, companies have been experiencing pressure through their stakeholders and their consumers to show how they are committed to prevent human rights violations and environmental pollution. According to an article written by Dr. Tulder, “a strict approach, such as firing child workers or terminating relationships with companies that employ them, does not necessarily change underlying causes” (Tulder 260). In his research, it has been found that when a company does this that it can even worsen the child’s situation by driving them to a more hazardous line of work. With regards to this, companies should consider what is and is not acceptable forms of child labor in foreign countries. For instance, “tolerable might be ‘light work’ which is not likely to be harmful to a child’s health or development, which will not affect their attendance at school, and whether the child is at least thirteen years of age” (Tudler 262). Companies should also realize that unacceptable child labor “are all kinds of abusive, exploitable, and dangerous work. Or anything that involves any form of slavery such as; the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage, and forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict” (Tulder 262). Companies that are operating in countries that are experiencing any sort of economic hardship that might not adhere to these same standards should enact a policy that deals with these issues that puts the child’s safety first. Multi-nati... ... middle of paper ... .... Although the adoption of such codes or regulations might raise expectations that companies cannot always fulfill, there is no fear of not taking action backfiring against them in the future. “Negative publicity and damage to the company image is thought to be much greater if companies do not address this problem” (Thelder 269). Many multi-national companies share the view that they need to play their own role when it comes fair labor standards and safe working conditions in foreign countries, and that they must take responsibility to do whatever they reasonably can. Works Cited Lahiri, S. 2005. “Will fair trade sanctions reduce child labor? The role of credit markets.” Journal of Development Economics, 68, 137-156. Thelder, R. 2002. “The effectiveness of self regulation: Corporate Codes of Conduct and Child Labor.” European Management Journal, 20, 260-271.
Shah, Anup. "Child Labor." - Global Issues. Anup Shah, 17 July 2005. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
All of my life I have considered myself as a person who loves children. I enjoy playing with them, helping them, and just being around them. So when I first agreed with corporations who use child labor I shocked myself completely. After examining two articles; one “The Case for Sweatshops”, by David R. Henderson, and two “Sweatshops or a Shot at a Better Life”, by Cathy Young, I came to the conclusion that in some cases when young children work under proper conditions it can keep them out of the streets and be helpful to them and their families.
Throughout time children have worked myriad hours in hazardous workplaces in order to make a few cents to a few dollars. This is known as child labor, where children are risking their lives daily for money. Today child labor continues to exist all over the world and even in the United States where children pick fruits and vegetables in difficult conditions. According to the article, “What is Child Labor”; it states that roughly 215 million children around the world are working between the ages of 5 and 17 in harmful workplaces. Child labor continues to exist because many families live in poverty and with more working hands there is an increase in income. Other families take their children to work in the fields because they have no access to childcare and extra money is beneficial to buy basic needs. Although there are laws and regulations that protect children from child labor, stronger enforcement is required because child labor not only exploits children but also has detrimental effects on a child’s health, education, and the people of the nation.
A survey done every four years says that there has been less child labor in countries such as India and Morocco than in the United States (Barta and others). Some companies overseas have strict policies against child labor; for example, a toy factory in China will not accept children for work because they feel children should not be forced to do hard labor for any amount of money. On the opposing side, in some places child labor is a huge problem such as Africa and parts of Asia. For example, in Bangladesh several under 18 workers were found working in Rana Plaza and a 15 year old worker died in a factory accident in May, according to Kate O’Keeffe of the Wall Street Journal. O’ Keeffe also writes, “There is concern that child labor will go for the worse rather than for better, especially if Western economies rebound stronger.”
Nowadays, corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes an integral part of each company. CSR can be understood as a management concept and a process that links social and environmental issues in business operations to a company’s interactions with it’s stakeholders. CSR not only gives the company a chance to help society but also enhances company’s reputation and investors’ attractiveness. In this paper, we will show a brief description about CSR and effects of CSR on international business, including pros and cons when a company applies the CSR program. Besides that, I give my ideas on conflicts of interest beween shareholders and the company’s managers. And then, advantages and difficulties for companies implementing CSR in Vietnam will be defined. Although CSR was first introduced widely in Vietnam many years, it is still a new concept. Therefore, pioneers in this area are facing lots of challenges in running CSR programs in Vietnam.
In recent years, companies are becoming socially responsible and now stakeholders almost expect a company to have CSR policies. Therefore, in twentieth century, corporate social responsibility (CSR) became an important development in public life (Barnett, ND).Corporate social responsibility is defined as “the ways in which an organisation exceeds the minimum obligations to stakeholders specified through regulation and corporate governance” (Johnson, Schools and Whittington, N.D cited in March, 2012). Stakeholders can be defined as “those individuals or groups who depend on the organisation to fulfil their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends” (Johnson, Schools and Whittington, N.D cited in March, 2012). There are many purposes for this essay, the first purpose is to descried the key principles of corporate social responsibility and explain their importance for stakeholders. Secondly, is to show how far this company follows those principles in order to be accountable to at least three of its stakeholders. In this essay, three stakeholders, environment, customers and employees will be evaluated respectively and the key principles of the stakeholders will be examined.
Child Labor is not an isolated problem. The phenomenon of child labor is an effect of economic discrimination. In different parts of the world, at different stages of histories, laboring of child has been a part of economic life. More than 200 million children worldwide, some are as young as 4 and 5 years old, are slaves to the production line. These unfortunate children manufacture shoes, matches, clothing, rugs and countless other products that are flooding the American market and driving hard-working Americans out of jobs. These children worked long hours, were frequently beaten, and were paid a pittance. In 1979, a study shows more than 50 million children below the age of 16 were considered child labor (United Nation labors agency data). In 1998, according to the Campaign for Labor rights that is a NGO and United Nation Labor Agency, 250 million children around the world are working in farms, factories, and household. Some human rights experts indicate that there are as many as 400 million children under the age of 15 are performing forced labor either part or full-time under unsafe work environment. Based upon the needs of the situation, there are specific areas of the world where the practice of child labor is taking place. According to the journal written by Basu, Ashagrie gat...
So I believe that the issue of child labour is not simple. As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report argued, children’s work needs to be seen as having two extremes. On one hand, there is the destructive or exploitative work and, on the other hand, there is beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest. ‘And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect a child’s development.’ My firm belief is that there is a difference between child labour and child work and that in both cases the issue is whether or not the child is deliberately being exploited.
In the article, The Truth About CSR by Kasturi Rangan, Lisa Chase, and Sohel Karim, the importance that coherence plays in corporate social responsibility (CSR), is emphasized. Throughout the article, corporate social responsibility application, within corporations, is broken down into three theaters. According to the article, many corporations do not focus on their CSR programs, and usually see these CSR actions as a secondary responsibility following the responsibility they hold towards their shareholders. It is argued in the article that in CSR is a key and essential block for corporate success, focusing on CSR coherence throughout all three theaters will bring positive results along the way, possibly making the corporation
First of all globalization has led to exploitation of labor. We can’t ignore the fact that ethical aspects of international business deserve special attention. Corruption and engaging in illegal practice to make greater profit is a source of continuing controversy. Sometimes companies go international and move their production to foreign countries so they could employ workers for long hours, at low wages and in poor working conditions (sweat shops). They are also using child labor, the employment of children to a full time work that can be otherwise done by adults all that so they could get out of their responsibility towards their workers by avoiding paying them national insurance …When these multinational firms go abroad they forget all about principles and about human beings and their rights, according to Kent, J., Kinetz, E. & Whehrfritz, G. (2008/March24). Newsweek. Bottom of the barrel. “The dark side of globalization: a vast work force trapped in conditions that verge on slavery”, David, P. Falling of The Edge, Travels through the Dark Heart of Globalization..Nov 2008. (p62) also agrees with them when he explained his concerns about Chinese and Indians t...
Masaka, D (2008) Why forcing corporate social responsibility is morally questionable, Electronic Journal of Business ethics and organizational studies, 13, 1 pp. 13-21
Canadians globally discourage the use of Child Labour, while the lack of proper implementation of laws keeps Canada unsafe from this epidemic at home. With homogeneous laws in place throughout all levels of government and banning the importation of goods can make a huge difference nationally and internationally. By the implementation of sales dropping for the company that uses Child Labour abroad Canada can tackle this issue at home and at abroad.
While the concept of an individual having responsibility is commonly recognized, modern views have lead to the emerging issue of corporate responsibility. Business Directory.com defines corporate social responsibility as, “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.” But such a concept has been much disputed since at least the 1970’s.
Not to mention we also have HR and OSHA rules that oversea a lot of other regulations and rules are broken down showing political corruption of power. Business managers must understand territories across regions managers. They must follow rules, guidelines, and acceptable approaches. It’s no different from a woman going to Saudi Arabia and having to cover herself up versus a man that does not, while in United States she is freely allowed to dress as she pleases. A company that’s able to follow the guidelines within a country is able to increase is growth. The majority of the time businesses can cut costs if it operates within a third world market.
Child labour is an issue that has plagued society since the earliest of times. Despite measures taken by NGOs as well as the UN, child labour is still a prevalent problem in today’s society. Article 23 of the Convention on the Rights of a Child gives all children the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child 's education, or to be harmful to the child 's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.1 Child labour clearly violates this right as well as others found in the UDHR. When we fail to see this issue as a human rights violation children around the world are subjected to hard labour which interferes with education, reinforces