Question

Meaning social responsibility advantage and disadvantage

Answer 1

Different organizations have created different grounds for defining Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, they do share one common ground on the basis of which CSR can be described as a voluntary activity that a corporation does for its employees and society as a whole as well as the environment around it for its operations and functions. It is what the corporation gives back to the community after using its resources to make profits.


Corporate Social Responsibility: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

According to Horrigan (2010), there is no definite answer to what CSR is owing to the high level of ambiguity and controversy related to the topic. However, Baker (2004), proposes CSR as, ‘It is how the organizations manage the business process to produce an overall positive impact on the society.’
Emergence of CSRTimelineOccurrence1930s‘CSR’ as a term came into existence in the 1930s supposedly because Prof. A.A. Berle and Prof. C.G. Means at Harvard University, USA, wanted corporations to take responsibility after the Great Depression of 1929. According to them, this event had occurred because of the irresponsibility shown by the corporations1960s & 70sExamples of CSR started being put across in the business world. Owing to the civil rights movement, consumerism and environmentalism transformed the perspective of the society regarding the business world’s behavior. In the year of 1960, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) convention was developed to advocate the policies that aimed at achieving sustainable economic growth and employment and elevate the living standards in the member-nations while maintaining financial stability at the same time.1980s & 90sIn 1980, International Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN) published a World Conservation Strategy. This strategy was aimed to create more stable world economy, stimulate world growth, perish world equalities and work on the worst impacts of poverty.In the year of 1992, the UN Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, where ‘triple bottom line’ business model was floated along with an idea of using sustainable development to a company’s competitive advantage.
Thereafter, many significant incidents took place that further strengthened the roots of CSR and forced the business developments to see the need for CSR.