Introduction
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the world’s largest broadcaster. Established in 1926, it operates under a Royal Charter which is reviewed every ten years. The current charter is valid until 2016 and, like its predecessors, charges the BBC with the provision of impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. (BBC Watch. n,d).
Corporate Social Responsibility involves going beyond looking only at how to make the most money, to include a wider commitment to building a better society the best way you can. This can be done through day-to-day business practices or through charitable donations and staff volunteering projects. One of the BBC’s major CSR projects is the Beyond the Broadcast campaign which has various mini-projects beneath it. The Difference is the BBC’s approach to sustainability and looks at Environmental Responsibility.
The reasons behind choosing the BBC as the CSR company would be because of a clip viewed in class about Lord Michael Hastings and his phenomenal socially responsible work with major British companies such as the BBC and KPMG.
Hastings frequently travels the world to convice businesses and leaders that they play a vital role in changing society for the better. Lord Michael Hastings was the first head of Corporate Social Responsibilty at the BBC a position formed in 2006 because the broadcaster wanted to be in “parellel with other major British organizations”. Hastings has been nicknamed the “business evangelist”. The BBC is a company with a very strong CSR initiative mostly due to the solid groundwork done by Lord Michael Hastings; they are very transparent in their dealings.
Outreach and Corporate Responsibility
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...xisting proof that even the biggest corporations, businesses or companies in the world can be extraordinarily Socially Responsible. The BBC does not just try to be Socially Responsible just to look good, they go the extra mile to ensure that they try to influence everyone on every corner of the UK in a positive manner whether it is through bringing communities together or helping people fulfil their dreams. Even though they do not technically follow it the BBC has shown that the King Code is not just about “reporting”, where there is opportunity for huge exaggerations and greenwashing, but rather about “doing” and also “doing” because you care about your influence on society. Lord Michael Hastings is the inspirational figure behind the success of the BBC’s Outreach Programme and the humility shown by the corporation’s staff when volunteering is certainly admirable.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a word that is bandied about with really little regard as to what the full implications actually are. Consider a few thoughts: What exactly is a corporation’s responsibility? Who are the arbiters of CSR for corporations? What does it cost to “rein in” corporations? Why are some companies held to a different standard than others?
This company is a cloud-based CRM system which allows salespeople to track their sales, support people to track their cases, and the entire company's employees to collaborate with each other. Salesforce obtains technology that powers billions of transactions and also securely manages data for business-critical apps and users. This business is extremely effective and powerful, and with it’s success, Salesforce has practices methods of corporate social responsibility. The chairman and CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, spoke on social responsibility stating “The business of business is improving the state of the world.” This quote means businesses should be concerned about the issues around the world and help improve conditions, doing so will eventually help improve businesses. A form of social responsibility Salesforce has followed is the 1-1-1 model. This philanthropic idea is meant to have one percent of the company’s equity set aside for grants in the communities where employees live and work; this is CSR because the company is going the extra mile and creating a comfortable work environment for their workers as well as improving communities . Another one percent of the company’s product is donated to non-for-profit organizations; donating is a form of CSR. Lastly, one percent of each employee’s time is donated to community initiatives; therefore Salesforce allows their
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the way a corporation achieves a balance between its economic, social, and environmental responsibilities in its operations so as to address shareholder and other stakeholder expectations. In general, when firms hold this wider encouraging role on the public by being engaged with stakeholders, a variety of profit can be produced for both company and the stakeholders. A key inclination is the combination of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the organization strategy, culture, mission and communications. By incorporating corporate citizenship into the company it is no longer an additional “nice thing to do” or something made to obey laws or regulations. Instead, corporate responsibility has become something business leaders and workforce want to engage in, frequently because executives who believe in the long-term see business profit. The four types of social responsibilities a...
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be defined as the "economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time" (Buchholtz, 2014, p. 32) The basic principles of corporate social responsibility consists of organizations that has the moral, ethical, and philanthropic duties to not only to earn a profit for investors, but they must also comply with the laws and standards set for businesses as well. Today’s CSR requires organizations to assume a much broader spectrum of their responsibilities that includes not only the stockholders, but employees, suppliers, customers, the local community, state, and federal governments, special interest and a variety of environmental groups as well. (Sharma, 2014)
What is CSR? CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility indicates the actions or conducts that have strategic importance to companies. CSR has been defined as a company’s efforts or obligations in reducing and getting rid of any detrimental effects on the community and maximizing long-term beneficial effects to the company and community in which it operates (Mohr et al, 2001, cited Trendafilova et al, 2013). CSR usually starts with the general emphasis that businesses are not only responsible to generate economic returns for shareholders, but are also responsible to the environment and to other stakeholders. This is usually known as the “triple bottom line” – the company’s returns for investors, the environment and stakeholders (Markley, 2014). In today’s modern business environment, CSR is undoubtedly important because whenever possible, customers would like to purchase goods from companies they trust; suppliers want to develop business partnerships with companies they can entrust; employees want to work for companies they have a high regard for and NGO’s want to work with companies seeking possible solutions in areas of common concern. Pleasing each of these stakeholder groups enable companies to maximize their obligations to their shareholders who gain most when the needs of other stakeholder groups are met (Waldman et al, 2010).
Fleming and Jones, in their book, The end of CSR, fundamentally question the existence of Corporate Social Responsibility because they think it ‘never really began’ (Fleming and Jones, 2013). The reason for the authors’ abovementioned stance is highlighted in the quote where they assert that ‘social value is subordinated to economic rationality’ in capitalism (Fleming and Jones, 2013). The current government provisions follow the same logic and try to outsource education, healthcare in order to implement business ontology and maximize profit. They agree with Friedman’s view on capitalism that businesses do not have social responsibilities. Therefore, every action of business is taken to fulfill its ‘sole purpose’ (Friedman). They consider that CSR evolved to pursue the same goal practices, including ‘marketing, branding, recruitment and employee motivation’.
...ld thus seem that CSR was initially a shareholder strategy (Roberts, 2001), but that a socially responsive CSR approach will encompass a broader spectrum of issues (Andriof et al. , 2002), including ethical considerations (Roberts, 2003). In “the path to Corporate Responsibility” Zadek (2004) refers to two dimensions of learning regarding CSR – organizational and societal. He argues that organizations’ learning pathway is complex and iterative and follows a learning pathway where the two last stages of five in the learning curve are: “It gives us competitive edge” and “We need to make sure everybody does it” (Zadek, 2004). Zadek (2004) argues that it is easy to start “but making business of a deeper sense of corporate responsibility requires courageous leadership – in particular, civil leadership – in learning, and a grounded process for organizational innovation”.
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.
The BBC Organization The BBC stands for the British Broadcasting Co-operation. The British Broadcast is a very well established organisation. It was formed in 1922 by a group of leading wireless manufactures, the daily broadcasting by the BBC began from Marconi's London Studio on November 14th, this followed the next day by broadcasts from Birmingham and Manchester. During the following few months the BBC organisation was successfully able to broadcast around the U.K this effectively showed how popular and in demand the BBC became around the U.K and therefore had to remain a prestigious and impressive organisation and to remain its high standards and popularity. The Secretary of State's approval is required under the Royal Charter for certain of the BBC's commercial activities.
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.
Covey & Brown (2001) “the role of business in society has progressed over the years, from being primarily concerned with profit for sharehold¬ers to a stakeholder and community approach with a focus on corporate social responsibility”
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.
Corporate Social Responsibility is management’s obligation to protect and promote their stakeholders welfare. Social Responsibility is more than just obvious ethical issues like honesty and integrity in business dealings.
However, there can be more definitions about what Corporate Social Responsibility can be. For example, Corporate Social Responsibility can be the commitment which is continuing for a business to behave ethically and bring to economy the development to improve the workforces’ of the whole society and local community and their families’ quality of life. Corporate Social Responsibility is also known as the obligation of a company to serve the society’s interest and of course its own. With the help of the Corporate and Social Responsibility, social and environmental concerns companies can integrate into their business and stakeholders operations.