Background
The project aims to develop strategies for establishing a socially responsible business environment in Fujairah, UAE. In order to understand the essential elements needed for socially responsible business environment, it is important to analyze the role leaders could play. With this in mind, the project aims to provide a discussion on the leadership style needed for indulging in works related to society. The project has been chosen because it would help future researchers in understanding the social life in Fujairah and the way organizations contribute towards its development. The project begins with a brief background providing the rationale behind choosing the topic. Further, the project highlights the challenges experienced while conducting the analysis of the topic followed by the evaluation and discussion on the impact of the topic in the society.
The project is on social responsibility and things that can be done in Fujairah to promote it. The topic has been chosen for the project because it would help the society in Fujairah to realize the importance of promoting socially responsible business. The topic has great relevance in the business world as it encourages businesses to take more interest in social issues instead of focusing only on profits and revenues. Fujairah is a flourishing economy within UAE and it has been possible due to several policies implemented by the rulers (Government.ae, 2018). Apart from that, the city’s economy is dependent largely on agriculture and fishing. Despite having such flourishing economy, focus on the society has been very limited.
Taking up the project was difficult to initiate at first and the team leader had to convince the team about the importance of the topic. The team members were reluctant to take up the project because they did not find any social responsibility related issue in Fujairah. The leader used transformational style of leadership to encourage each member participates equally in the project.
As Hossain et al. (2015) note, the Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR is important for organizations to ensure sustainability in terms of business as well. The authors note that including social and environmental influences in the strategic decision-making process goes a long way in strengthening the company overall. In case of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) also, the CSR is very important because the NGOs deal directly with the people. It often becomes difficult for NGOs to manage the large workforce and ensure complete transparency in its functioning. Although NGOs work to help secure a better life for the common citizens and help them during urgent needs thus fulfilling CSR needs, they have to look after their employees as well. In the views of Park and Ghauri (2015), NGOs help corporations to involve in CSR activities that help both the NGO and the corporation in terms of promotion and profit. On one hand, the corporations receives accolades for involving in CSR activities and on the other, the NGOs receive funds from the corporations. Many corporations collaborate with NGOs to contribute their bit or the development of the society. However, Ditlev-Simonsen and Wenstøp (2013) are of the view that the NGOs collaborating with business corporations is a way for them to promote neo-liberalism in that they “embody the privatization and decentralization of state functions”. With all being said, it cannot be denied that CSR is very important for maintaining equilibrium between business needs and societal responsibilities. The next section shall focus on one such NGO, the UAE Red Crescent.
Importance of Social Responsibility
The UAE Red Crescent is an NGO under the International Humanitarian City that aids and manages cooperative action for a well-organized emergency response to disasters throughout the world. The NGO also provides selected airlifts without any cost to provide transport assistance evacuating staff members from risky zones. It was founded in 2003 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Ihc.ae, 2018). It is UAE’s only free-zone Authority that hosts members of organizations like the United Nations and other intergovernmental as well as commercial companies.
In terms of social responsibility, the organization is dedicated towards providing every possible help to people in distress across the globe. However, it is important that the organization also focus on the issues faced by the people in Fujairah. To achieve this, the leadership role is very crucial. As Nasser Al Issa mentioned at a conference in Abu Dhabi on Global CSR, there is an evident gap in the CSR activities carried out in the UAE and the Europe and North American countries. “These gaps are in knowledge, innovation, research, training and education and web developments amongst others”, the chief sustainable officer of Saudi Generations further added (Thenational.ae, 2018). Therefore, it is important for the project team to focus on providing suggestions for the Red Crescent to develop its research and innovation department along with training and education to reduce these gaps in realizing social responsibility. The focus area must be Fujairah.
In the process of finding ways to suggest Red Crescent on how to expand its works within the Fujairah community, some difficulties arose. Following the transformation leadership, style has helped mitigate the issues. The reason for following this style of leadership involves the characteristics of this style, which include, passionate, energetic and enthusiastic (Van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). Further, the transformational leader makes efforts to advance the followers to progress to a superior level of moral and inspiration.
Thus, when the team members had doubts regarding the project, the leader first asked them about their potential and areas of interest. After learning about the capabilities of each team member, the leader assigned those tasks as per the capabilities (Kovjanic, Schuh & Jonas, 2013). The member with the capability of carrying out extensive research and good knowledge of internet surfing was given the responsibility to outline the suggestions for research for the chosen company. Another member with a stronghold on technology was asked to build software and applications showing innovation. In this way, each member was assigned the tasks that they had interest in and it produced good results.
After going through all the possibilities, the team decided that the company would be advised on developing its research and innovation section. The reason for choosing this are to focus on is that research and innovation in the field of CSR for NGOs have not been done on a large scale. Most studies conducted previously focused solely on NGOs and their contribution to CSR. Further, the city of Fujairah and its inhabitants, both locals and foreigners have not received must attention from the NGO. The project would allow the members of the NGO to devise ways that are less time consuming and effective to meet the needs of the people. The project would have a social impact because it would be the first project to devise a systematic framework for addressing the needs of the people.
Conclusion
The research project conducted by the team revealed that the NGOs in UAE are facing shortages of innovative techniques to focus on social responsibility. The project chose the UAE Red Crescent in Fujairah to analyze the best possible ways to tackle this issue. It was found after the completion of the project that gaps in the field of research and innovation must be reduced in order to make the NGOs involve in more social responsibility activities within the locality. While undertaking the project, various issues were faced by the team but following the transformational style of leadership, it was possible to handle those. The leader made sure that each team member is given responsibilities based on his or her capability and interest. the project is sure to provide future researchers a solid ground from where they could delve further in social responsibility issues associated with NGOs in particular. However, it also needs mentioning that due to space and time constraints, the project could not include other important areas of social responsibility. Therefore, further extensive analysis is suggested.
References:
Ditlev-Simonsen, C. D., & Wenstøp, F. (2013). How stakeholders view stakeholders as CSR motivators. Social responsibility journal, 9(1), 137-147.
Government.ae. (2018). Fujairah. Retrieved from https://www.government.ae/en/about-the-uae/the-seven-emirates/fujairah
Hossain, M. M., Alam, M., Islam, M. A., & Hecimovic, A. (2015). Do stakeholders or social obligations drive corporate social and environmental responsibility reporting? Managerial views from a developing country. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 12(3), 287-314.
Ihc.ae. (2018). IHC At a Glance | International Humanitarian City. Retrieved from https://www.ihc.ae/ihc-at-a-glance/
Kovjanic, S., Schuh, S. C., & Jonas, K. (2013). Transformational leadership and performance: An experimental investigation of the mediating effects of basic needs satisfaction and work engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(4), 543-555.
Park, B. I., & Ghauri, P. N. (2015). Determinants influencing CSR practices in small and medium sized MNE subsidiaries: A stakeholder perspective. Journal of World Business, 50(1), 192-204.
Thenational.ae. (2018). Corporate social responsibility should be UAE goal. Retrieved from https://www.thenational.ae/uae/corporate-social-responsibility-should-be-uae-goal-1.566849
Van Knippenberg, D., & Sitkin, S. B. (2013). A critical assessment of charismatic—transformational leadership research: Back to the drawing board?. The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 1-60.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
