Apple Inc’s CSR Initiatives
Apple Inc., the US based multinational company provides the best technological devices for the luxurious lifestyles of the people. Headquarter of Apple Inc. is in California from where the business operates in the global market . The company is committed to develop, design, and sell the computer software to the people worldwide. The innovative features of the mobile devices and the advanced technological assemble are much suitable for meeting the needs of The Sophisticated Lifestyles (Epstein and Buhovac 2014). The company provides a range of products and services to the customers. The most demanding product lines of Apple are iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac PC, Smart Watch, and different software like iTune. It is important to state that the company is highly committed to the high standards of the corporate social responsibility in the supply chain process across the globe. The company is even much transparent about the CSR process. The business operations of the company is not only limited in US, but it has established the strengthened position in other countries as well.
Samsung, the electronic device seller company was established in 1969. Gradually, the company has grown into a leader in the information technology industry. The company has been managing more than 200 subsidiaries around the globe. The major product lines of the company are monitors, TVs, refrigerators, Android phones and washing Machine. The company is also producing tablets as the key telecommunication products. The company is much focuses on developing the innovative products that can inspire the communities in upcoming years. The CSR policy undertaken by Samsung is aligned with the mission and objectives of the company. The policy lays down for the mechanisms and principles for arranging different programs in accordance with the section number 135 of Companies Act 2013 (Samsung.com 2017). The policy is introduced to apply in the CSR programs of the company in different locations for benefitting the diverse societal sector.
It is to be specified that both Apple and Samsung has been undertaking the CSR programs for satisfying the customer needs. The different companies have undertaken the different approaches for managing the corporate social responsibilities (Magnusson, Westjohn, and Zdravkovic 2015). However, it has been noticed that there are some of the recognizable issues associated with the corporate social responsibilities of both Samsung and Apple. In case of Apple, some of the specific issues are noticed in the corporate social responsibilities. The first and foremost issue is noticed is the lack of proper stakeholder management. It has been noticed that Apple has the belief that the company does not need to engage more stakeholders to promote the brand. Therefore, the company did not share the information with the Greenpace (Godelnik 2017). On the other hand, the company is even much reluctant to establish the triple bottom line thinking. The company is only concentrating on maximizing profits. Hence, this reluctant behaviour of Apple is imposing challenges for the company.
Samsung’s CSR Initiatives
On the other side, the corporate social responsibility issues of Samsung are quite different to the CSR issues of Apple. When the company launched Galaxy Note 7, it was expected to create the significant buzz in the market. However, it was exclaimed that the batteries of this handset are known to overheat. In fact, it was also reported that the handsets were even caught on fire to some of the extent (Carroll 2015). It had created the significant issues for the environmental welfare. Therefore, the environmental threat posed the huge recall even though the methods of disposing the phones are still unknown. The huge amount invested on making this smart phone was the complete waste for the company. Furthermore, it was observed that Samsung faced the significant issues with the labor violations from the Chinese suppliers. The suppliers exclaimed that they did not receive any proper safety and their working hours are too long (Tian and Slocum 2016). The difficulties that they had been facing were the main reasons of their violations against the company. The issues are thus quite dangerous for both the companies to maintain the future sustainability of the business. Even though the issues are different to these companies, these can create the similar effects on determining the secured competitive position in the business market.
The obtained ideas from the above information signify that the CSR issues have the recognizable impacts on the future sustainability of the company (Godelnik 2017). However, it can be interpreted that the issues may also differ to countries and industries. For example, Apple Inc. has the perception that the company does not need to engage the stakeholders since the brand awareness and demands are already high in US. Similarly, if the company requires launching the products in different countries, the company would take more significant approaches to engage the stakeholders and promote the brand identity (Korschun, Bhattacharya and Swain 2014). On the other hand, people seek sophistication in using the electronic gadgets. If the company were belong to different industry, it would have planned for the efficient triple bottom line initiatives.
Similarly, it was noticed that the Chinese suppliers violated the company due to the long shift hours. If the company were operated from other country where the normal shift hours are higher than the shift hours of China, the company would not have faced such problems. In fact, the company would even concentrate more on the environmental welfare if the products would have belonged to the automobile industry or any other industry. Hence, it is quite clear that the issues with the CSR activities vary from country and industry purposes. It is essential to notice the proper target market and the demands of the environment. Accordingly, the companies would be able to establish the secure position in this competitive business scenario (Cheeseman 2017). The activities if the industry and the country specifications are also needed to be taken into consideration to make the proper approaches in the corporate social responsibility.
Comparison of CSR issues: Apple vs Samsung
According to Zadek (1997) criteria, there are eight standards of quality n the social accounting. In order to understand the extent of the report of the companies reflect and contributes to the best practice, the criteria can be consulted. The eight criteria include comparability, inclusivity, completeness, management policies and systems, evolution, disclosure, continuous improvement and external verification. Regarding the corporate social activities of any firm, all these criteria should be maintain to have a basic transparency in the business. However, most of the firms consider that transparency may only be available if the information quality is good and it can be provided within a low cost. Zadek has developed these procedural standards for maintaining the transparency in the social reports and social audits in order to secure the information quality.
Table 1: Procedural standards for transparency in social reports
Source: (Cha, Yi and Bagozzi 2016)
In this table, A refers to Global reporting Initiative, B refers to Accountability, C refers to The Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability and D refers to Guideline Insurance.
In terms of corporate social responsibility, Samsung ensures that the company fulfils all the responsibilities wherever it does the business. The company has built libraries as every child has the right to have proper education. However, in most of the nations they do not have sufficient resources to provide a safe and clean environment for children to study. Samsung had turned the neglected community centers and schools into libraries in countries such as Bolivia, Uzbekistan, and Iraq etc. With this initiative Samsung has also ran a program where they donated books to children. The firm has also initiated in building technical schools where the local women and men can learn the basic skills near its significant project sites. Therefore the firm could create job opportunities for local people (Hopkins 2016). Therefore, these social activities are relevant to the environment and it provides completeness to the management policies of the firm. On the other hand, Apple has also followed the CSR policies that have been proved to be satisfying for all the stakeholders of the company and the environment. One major CSR policy that Apple followed that it has promoted education and enhanced the vocational skills to enhance employment. Apple has promoted the rights of women and women empowerment. Both the companies have made a decent amount of CSR approach and made a transparent and relevant approach to the society.
The Importance of Target Market and Industry Specifications
There are several allegations on Apple regarding the labor rights that has been abused by the supplier of the company. However, Apple had been positive for addressing the conditions for working situations in the factories where they manufactures their products. Apple had already established a code of conduct in the year 2005, namely the Supplier Code of Conduct, even a year before the allegations came on the company (Apple 2017). The company had constantly stated that it ensures the fact that it works closely with the supplier to that the rights of the workers can be respected and the code of conduct can be maintained. In the year 2007, Apple had began to conduct frequent audits of the suppliers of the company and started posting the annual social responsibility reports on the official website of the firm. However, even after this effort, the critics have questioned the purpose of these actions and whether it can improve the working situations in reality in the manufacturing factories or the company has only targeted avoiding the bad marketing of the brand at a bare minimum cost. However, even if the actions of the company had been questioned, those indeed improved the conditions of the labors in the manufacturing companies. In fact, due to the immense pressure from the company, the unsafe practices, extreme overtimes, random usages of child labor had been reduced, and the pay of the labors had increased (Crane, Matten and Spence 2013). Therefore it can be said that Apple tries to reflect the similar practices as it portrays in its stated value.
On the other hand, Samsung has been considered to be a winner in taking the CSR initiatives with their ‘Solve for Tomorrow’ approach. The CSR vision statement of the company states that “Global Harmony with People, Society and Environment,” and the company seem to maintain this with their approach in reality (Samsung.com 2017). The Solve for Tomorrow was a part of the initiative of Samsung Hope for Children which was based on helping the children to lead smart, healthy and sustainable lives. The company had focused on the improvement of the lives of the children and used all the products from the portfolio of the company in relevant methods. This initiative also helped and supported the programs in education that can be proved to be significant in the future for the firm. Therefore, it can also be said that Samsung also reflects its social practices similar to its stated value.
Standards for Transparency in Social Reports
From the discussion within the group, we had a brief idea about the corporate social responsibility and how the companies all around the world are encouraged to be aware about its impact. The term basically refers to the movement that had aimed to aware the impacts of the business of the companies on the society, especially the stakeholders of the company and the environment. The CSR is an approach of business that actually contributes to the sustainable development by bringing social, economic and environmental benefits to the society and the stakeholders. We had chosen Apple, an American company and Samsung a Korean company as these two are the leading ones in the mobile manufacturing industry and there have been several issues regarding the approach of both the companies in terms of corporate social responsibilities. Both the companies have been questioned several times by the critics yet they have taken major initiatives to show their corporate social responsibility. These had changed my views about the leading companies contributing to the society and therefore, I had chosen these companies for further researches.
Reference List and Bibliography
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Carroll, A.B., 2015. Corporate social responsibility. Organizational Dynamics, 44(2), pp.87-96.
Carroll, R.J., Primo, D.M. and Richter, B.K., 2016. Using item response theory to improve measurement in strategic management research: An application to corporate social responsibility. Strategic Management Journal, 37(1), pp.66-85.
Cha, M.K., Yi, Y. and Bagozzi, R.P., 2016. Effects of Customer Participation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programs on the CSR-Brand Fit and Brand Loyalty. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 57(3), pp.235-249.
Cheeseman, G., 2017. Samsung’s Failed Note 7 Phones Pose a Big Environmental Problem. [online] Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit. Available at: <https://www.triplepundit.com/2016/10/samsungs-failed-note-7-phones-pose-big-environmental-problem/> [Accessed 15 May 2017].
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L.J., 2013. Corporate social responsibility in a global context.
Epstein, M.J. and Buhovac, A.R., 2014. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Godelnik, R., 2017. 5 Reasons Why Apple’s CSR Strategy Doesn’t Work. [online] Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit. Available at: <https://www.triplepundit.com/2012/05/5-reasons-apples-csr-strategy-doesnt-work/> [Accessed 15 May 2017].
Hawn, O. and Ioannou, I., 2016. Mind the gap: The interplay between external and internal actions in the case of corporate social responsibility. Strategic Management Journal.
Hopkins, M., 2016. The planetary bargain: corporate social responsibility comes of age. Springer.
Korschun, D., Bhattacharya, C.B. and Swain, S.D., 2014. Corporate social responsibility, customer orientation, and the job performance of frontline employees. Journal of Marketing, 78(3), pp.20-37.
Magnusson, P., Westjohn, S.A. and Zdravkovic, S., 2015. An examination of the interplay between corporate social responsibility, the brand’s home country, and consumer global identification. International Marketing Review, 32(6), pp.663-685.
Samsung.com, 2017. Samsung Electronics in India | Samsung Electronics | About Samsung. [online] Samsung in. Available at: <https://www.samsung.com/in/aboutsamsung/samsungelectronics/india/csr-policy/> [Accessed 15 May 2017].
Tian, X. and Slocum, J.W., 2016. Managing corporate social responsibility in China. Organizational Dynamics, 45(1), pp.39-46.
Wickert, C., Scherer, A.G. and Spence, L.J., 2016. Walking and talking corporate social responsibility: Implications of firm size and organizational cost. Journal of Management Studies, 53(7), pp.1169-1196.
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