Executive Summary:
CSR is one of most important parts of every company. Acting as socially responsible is must for winning the race of competition. In this report, in the 1st part I tried to show a brief about CSR, its history and how people respond towards CSR. Then I have chosen Unilever, a famous FMCG company for the analysis. Then I tried to find out the CSR activities of Unilever all over the world, its corporate strategy and the contribution of CSR activities to corporate strategy. In the last part a SWOT analysis and some recommendations are given for more clarifications. I hope that this report will be able to give a clear view about CSR and its contribution to corporate strategy.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction: 1
2 Methodology & Limitations: 1
3 Topic Background: 1
4 Company Background: 1
5 Corporate Social Responsibility: 2
6 Corporate Social Responsibility and Unilever: 5
7 Corporate Strategy: 8
8 Corporate strategy of Unilever: 8
9 How CSR contributes to Unilever’s Corporate Strategy: 9
10 SWOT analysis of Unilever: 11
11 Recommendations: 13
12 Conclusion: 14
13 References: 15
1 Introduction:
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very familiar term in today’s world. Most of the successful companies try to be ethical and socially responsible toward their stakeholders. Because becoming ethical and socially responsible gains a lot in terms of profit or capturing more market share (Aras and Crowther,2009). This socially responsible approach is paved by the CSR activities of the companies which has a great contribution to their corporate strategy of winning the customers’ mind. In this assignment, the pros and corn of CSR activities of a particular organization a...
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) invaded the corporate world over the last few decades. This concept has become an essential need for competitive advantage unlike its original role as a nicety. The companies have seen the business benefit of the initiative and stakeholders have appreciated the initiative. This has led to the wide application in the firm’s operational agenda.
Corporate Social Responsibility is the obligation from corporations to utilize their resources to aid and benefit the larger society. The four components of CSR are economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Social Responsibility is a fundamental force in the wealth creation process. If correctly demonstrated, CSR should heighten competitiveness and boost the value of wealth creation to society. A company's CSR Initiatives directly represent who the company is and what it believes it. The m...
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An important factor for the successful development of a CSR framework at the corporate level is to ensure that the framework can be easily merged with the daily routines of the store. In the Siemens case that was studied in class, putting the company back in order had to start from the corporate level and with the individual in charge of corporation – the CEO. Therefore, in order to implement CSR at the store, the initiative has to come from the corporate level, however the store here in Nanaimo can assume a key role by developing and testing new CSR practices.
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.
An organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drives them to look out for the different interests of society. Most business corporations undertake responsibility for the impact of their organizational pursuits and various activities on their customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment. With the high volume of general competition between different companies and organizations in varied fields, CSR has become a morally imperative commitment, more than one enforced by the law. Most organizations in the modern world willingly try to improve the general well-being of not only their employees, but also their families and the society as a whole.
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Businesses play a significant role with the economies of all countries, whether developed or developing. It contributes to the welfare of the society through the satisfaction of needs, provides a source of livelihood to millions of people worldwide. Businesses do not operate in vacuums but operate within business environments. The events in the environment of a company have a direct effect on the success or failure of that company. According to Jain, Trehan and Trehan (2009), business environments can be categorized in two: (1) internal business environment; (2) external business environment. Institutions and organizations are usually in a position of controlling their internal business environment. By doing so, they gain the ability of affecting their institutional performance. On the contrary, it is difficult for a business to control the external environment; however, businesses can identify in advance the opportunities and threats presented by the external environment and take decisive actions to ensure its continued success (Jain, Trehan & Trehan, 2009; Goyal & Goyal, 2009).
Porter along with Mark Kramer. In this article, the authors emphasize on the importance of creating shared value on the strategic level of an organization vs corporate social responsibility which is viewed a separate moral obligation for the sake of company’s reputation and making profits. According to the authors, shared value must be embedded into the core value and strategy of business. What the authors of the article are implying is that awareness of social economic challenges is growing making them clearly visible. Businesses and their legitimacy are now viewed as part of the problem. CSR is considered as a scheme to make money and an area which is separate from its core business. Economists believe we should raise the bar and embed the concept of creating shared value on the core strategies of business. CSR activities are externally determined whereas, Creating Shared Value (CSV) activities are more company specific therefore understanding and legitimacy of value chain is needed for sustainability, for example the products and customers being served. CSR activities are limited to CSR budget whereas Creating Shared Value is mobilizing the entire budget of corporation to impact social issues. Creating Shared Value is a genuine way to restore the legitimacy of corporations as results are measured not just by profitability but by the social and economic value created. Companies who
A corporations CSR should be shaped in order to fit the goals of the corporation, although every corporation’s CSR should differ, since most have different goals and different communities behind them. The CSR should be molded into fitting the corporation’s goals in order to make it easier on the corporation in giving back to the community while achieving its goals. For example, a corporation located in a desert wishes to be more efficient, by reducing water usage it is not only creating lower costs, which result in higher revenue, but also helps the community by not taking up so much water. Taking this into consideration, it is critical that the corporation goals and values are established and clear throughout the corporation, they should be developed by the board or directors and CEO, and the highest managerial level should stress their importance to the rest of the corporation. By making the goals and values at the top branch of the corporate hierarchy, it will be simpler for the corporates community to develop in order to nurture those goals and values. Therefore, a corporation can reach the “shared-value,” a value for both its shareholders and community in a simpler manner that can result benefiting the corporation in the end as well. Throughout the article many examples are given of actual corporations that have benefited and changed their CSR in order to fit their goals, therefore, providing solid proof that these methods work. Nevertheless, as acknowledged by the author’s themselves, most of the corporations taken into consideration where one’s that Harvard CSR students were employed
Business organizations regularly run into demands from various stakeholders groups when conducting day-to-day business. These demands are generated from employees, customers, suppliers, community groups, governments, and shareholders. Thus, according to Goodpaster, any person or group of people that can shape or can be shaped by attainment of the objectives by an organization is considered a stakeholder. Most business organizations recognize and understand their responsibilities to these groups and endeavor to honor and fulfill them. These responsibilities are often communicated to the public by a statement of principles or beliefs. For many business organizations, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential and integral part of their business. Thus, this paper discusses the two CSR views: the classical view and the stakeholder view. Furthermore, I believe that the stakeholder view has brought ethical concerns to the forefront of businesses, and an argument shall be made that businesses would improve both socially and economically if CSR, guided by God’s love, was integrated into their strategic planning.
...t in becoming more socially responsible corporations. For example, Pos Malaysia through their CSR practices, this corporation had focuses on a dual-pronged approach that is aimed at bringing value to the community and nation at large by the means of enhancing education particularly towards the enhancement of human capital development mainly in underprivileged areas and also Enriching Communities in which Pos Malaysia seeks to promote commerce and entrepreneurship within the communities they serve particularly in rural areas. The above CSR themes are aligned with Pos Malaysia mission to constantly strive to be a caring corporate citizen by supporting nation building and community services. This CSR will focused on the meeting the need and interest stakeholder of an organization by becoming more socially responsible and as well as to improve their image and reputation
In the current time of growth and progression, individuals should know that how a business not only flourish but sustain itself. Making profit is one of the main targets of every corporates but it must not be the only one. When an individual builds a company in order to do business, they should be well aware of their contribution towards the society as well as their business and employees in it. It is total strategy of all. We should be able to realize every increment contributes of it. One of the major factors that affect a business is how well it participates in Corporate Social Responsibility. According to (Werther & Chandler, 2006) corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to a business practice that involves participating in initiatives that benefits the society. In authenticity, there is a whole lot to argue about it. There are no major guidelines that decides either a business is participating in Corporate Social Responsibility; what might be considered a Business practicing CSR to some, can still not be accepted for it by others. CSR may be restrained a term which his highly flexible. This paper will discuss about Corporate Social Responsibility and its
Corporate Social Responsibility is an organisation’s obligation to serve the company’s own interest and the one’s of the society. Moreover, Corporate Social Responsibility has a definition of a concept where the companies integrate social and the environmental concerns into their own business operation and also on a basis of voluntary with their interactions they have with the stakeholders. Corporate Social Resp...
Now-a-days it is considered that CSR is one of the major concerns of organization’s business ethics. Companies increasingly increase their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical management accepting the positive impact on the bottom line. The vast bulk of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies publish sustainability reports unfolding their program challenges and achievements. These pre-emptive efforts can pr...