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1.7 Research into CSR

It means Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility, not Corporate Social Responsibility


https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Corporate-Social-Responsibility-subsumed-under-Corporate-Sustainability_fig1_334097268


  • /viContested topic, related and overlapped with concepts like sustainable development, corporate citizenship, corporate (social) responsibility, environmental management, business ethics and stakeholder management.

  • by Prof. Dr Wayne Visser is Professor of Integrated Value and Holder of the Chair in Sustainable Transformation at Antwerp Management School. He is also Founder of CSR International, Director of Kaleidoscope Futures and Fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Definitions:

  1. CSR is the ability of business to respond with care to society's needs.

  2. CSR is an integrated, systemic approach by business that builds, rather than erodes or destroys, economic, social, human and natural capital.

  3. Umbrella Concept, where it will interfere with business, society and the environment it manages.


 

Key factors:

  1. Value Creation

    • It refers to financial profitability and economic development. Meaning it contributes to the enrichment of shareholders and executives.

    • Context of how a company operates: investing in infrastructure, creating jobs and providing skills development

    • Beneficial products and inclusive business.

      1. does it really improve the quality of the consumer's life or harm

      2. does it have economic benefits



  1. Good Governance

    • Properly integrated into policies

    • Institutional effectiveness with social and environmental ideals

    • Using expert tools to accurately report CSR performances

      • GoodGuide, KPMG's Integrity Thermometer, Covalence's EthicalQuote


this might be the main factor why many of Singapore's urban landscape planning is green. Especially with the LKY's plan when he was prime minister. This can be cross-referenced to my research at the National Library Board's Human X Nature exhibition.

  1. Societal Contribution

    • Stakeholder engagement

    • Importance of fair labour

    • Community participation

    • Supply chain integrity


  1. Environmental Integrity

    • Maintaining and improving ecosystem sustainability

    • 100% renewable energy and zero waste

    • Responsibility is more about the journey while sustainability is the end goal


 

Local CSR Drivers

  1. Cultural Tradition

    • strongly on deep-rooted indigenous culture (e.g: Latin America)

    • Community embeddedness

    • Region's religious beliefs (a major motivation)


  1. Political Reform

    • Socio-political reform processes drive businesses towards CSR

    • With the goal of improved corporate governance and collective business action


  1. Socio-economic Priorities

    • Developing nations will not have the same priorities compared to a developed Western CSR.

    • Developed nations can have the privilege of being green when they are stable


  1. Governance Gaps

    • CSR used to plug the inadequate providence of a weak government

    • 'filling in when government falls short'


  1. Crisis Response

    • A catalyst for CSR

    • Hurricane Katrina of USA, HIV/AIDS of South Africa, Climate Change of the World

    • Industrial accidents by Exxon


Global CSR Drivers

  1. Market access

    • enabler for developing nations to access the developed market


  1. International Standardisation

    • Multi-national companies spilling their CSR KPIs (key performance indicator) to their subsidiaries in the developing nation

    • but the profile of CSR reflects the country of operation rather than the country of origin


  1. Investment Incentives

    • Socially responsible investment (SRI) becoming more prevalent

    • Companies want to be more CSR so that they can the SRI pie

    • Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Fund, Dow Jones Sustainability Index


  1. Stakeholder Activism

    • NGOs, developing agencies and the media have promoted CSR


  1. Supply Chain Integrity

    • Imposed by MNCs and how they will follow their CSR and only buy from companies they deem to be more responsible


Cases for CSR:

  1. Business case

    1. Operational efficiency

    2. Risk reduction

    3. Recruitment and retention talent

    4. Protecting the resource base of raw materials

    5. Creation of new markets, products and services


BY

  • increases legislation

  • quantifies external impacts

    • government able to fine and restrict bad companies and rewards good one


  • extends stakeholders accountability

    • harder for companies to fight back stakeholders


  • shapes public reputation

  • introduces new trade

    • countries and companies can use the CSR framework to reject predatory companies


  • spawns new market

    • clean tech, ethical consumer products, ecotourism, sociocultural tourism


  • infringements are expensive companies will slowly implement the more profitable CSR

  • investors and banks will be more strict in scrutinising on CSR criteria

  • expands corporate governance as it is easily implemented with the tools

  • motivates employees

    • increase recruitment and retention of skilled workers as they prefer to work in a CSR company


 

Proof that CSR works financially:

pg 14: Griffin & Mahon (1997) showed a positive link between CSR and financial performance






Counter arguments:

  • other sources stated that it is hard to find a link between positive financial gain due to

    1. too many variables to isolate performance

    2. hard to give a score to a company as it depends on their circumstance

    3. some CSR businesses are misleading (greenwashing)/ hard to promote the right companies


Most would judge the success of CSR by whether the communities and ecosystems around it are getting better or worse.

However, some would say the programs are just making the problems less bad rather than good, making it less likely to holistic change (Hollender & Breen, 2010) (pg16)

Wall Street Journal called "The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility as an idea is fundamentally flawed when companies can easily profit from just acting in the public interest. (Karnani,2010)

CSR might not be the only solution needed to solve such complex issues, however, Visser had gone through and made a more systematic approach to CSR which he names CSR 2.0.

A myth for CSR is that it is universal worldwide (pg 47)

  • we already have universal models like UN Global Compact and ISO 14001

  • CSR has to be tailored to the environment and the stakeholders involved



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