The Importance Of Corporate Social Responsibility

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Since its very appearance the traditional historical role of business was just to “make money”, if put simple. In other words, corporate financial responsibility was the driving force: all the companies used to care about were to increase the profit and shareholder value. In the few last decades, however, the companies’ attitude has considerably changed. The modern world lives in conditions of pressing social problems. In this regard, the importance of social responsibility of business, companies and organizations associated with the development, manufacture and supply of goods and services, trade or finance, is high as never before. Only they have major financial and material resources to work out solutions for the world’s social problems. Business leaders’ understanding of the key values and their leading role in this matter has led to the birth of the idea of "corporate social responsibility" in the late 20th century. It has become an essential part of the concept of sustainable development, which is not only relevant for businesses, but also for humanity as a whole. As globalization accelerates and huge corporations serve as universal provider, they have also recognized the significant benefits of implementing CSR strategies and values in their various locations and processes. Thereby corporate social responsibility is becoming an increasingly important activity to businesses nationally and internationally. What is CSR? The concept of corporate social responsibility in the everyday life of the international business community has emerged in the 50's - 60's of last century, when the concept was introduced at the enterprises of the United States and Canada. At that time, it was perceived solely as responsibility of the company f... ... middle of paper ... ...e assessed in a different way by various users of the information, representing their individual values and priorities Transparency It implies that the external impact of the actions of the company can be ascertained from organization’s reporting and pertinent facts are not disguised within that reporting. Therefore the whole impact of the corporation’s actions, also the external effects, should be visible to all from the company’s reports. Transparency is especially important to external users of such information as they don’t possess all the essential background details, in contrast to the internal users of such information. Thus transparency can appear to come out of the other two principles, but may also appear a part of the process of acceptance of responsibility from the company for the external impact, that its actions have caused (D’Amato & Henderson, 2009).

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