CSR activities and governance structure
Write a Business Report on Inghams Enterprises (Company) status on corporate responsibility and governance.
The primary aim of this assignment is to outline the CSR activities, ethics and corporate governance of Inghams enterprise. It is popular for the chicken and turnkey products in all over the world. Here is the discussion about the Carroll’s pyramid and Wartick and Cochranne’s typology. It also highlights the roles of the stakeholders and on the other hand, it explains the gap between espoused and realized performance on CSR.
Inghams enterprises is known as Inghams is owned by a producer of poultry and fodder.It is one of the biggest producers of chicken and turnkey products in Australia. It employs approx 9,000 employees in more than 100 countries in Nez Zealand and Australia. Inghams enterprises was incorporated in 1918 and it is managed by the members of the Ingham family (Inghams, 2018).
CSR plays a significant role in each and every company. In today’s era, corporate social responsibility is the biggest and foremost requirements of the business. It refers to the initiatives that are taken by the company with aiming to look after the environment and social well being. It is also known as corporate citizenship. CSR is a term that used to describe Ingham’s efforts to improve society in an effective way. CSR helps in brand recognition as it also improves the business reputation in the competitive market. No company can survive and grow its business activities without exercising corporate social responsibilities.
At Inghams, the top management aim to ensure that people respect and protect the environment in which business operate and minimize its impact upon the natural resources. The company is continuing working towards the greater sustainability. The main aim of the company is to carry out the business in a responsible and effective manner (Cabrera, 2012). The firm is proud to support the community through the sponsorship of several organizations. Inghams CSR activities have been detailed below.
- Inghams customers and employees have contributed more than 3 million hours of community service over the past years.
- The company is responsible for water management and conservation. It has been identified that Inghams commitment to sustainability is being recognized by various companies across the Australia (Lee, Park and Lee, 2013).
- The company opened an advanced water treatment plant at site in South east Queensland and Murarrie. Furthermore, the firm is committed to reduce the adverse impact on the environment. It helps in gaining competitive advantages in the global market.
- In 2017, the company developed and enhanced its first corporate social responsibility strategy with a vision to be at the heart of the society. Apart from this several milestones were attained by the company in this year including the formalization of a partnership with Ingham institute for medical research which was incorporated by the Ingham’s family (Kim and Lee, 2012).
- Moreover, the firm implemented a sustainable procurement program and started engaging and cooperating with the employees in an effective and meaningful manner.
- The company launched various core values such as integrity, operational excellence, customer service, high performing people, quality and safety (Martinuzzi et al, 2011).
- Inghams conducts an audit and compliance regime in order to focus contractor compliance and to protect the environment of the country. The company ensures that all the workers get home safety at the workplace.
- A risk program is initiated to asses’ quality, sustainability, and financial, commercial and operational considerations across a broad range of procurement categories to analyze and identify the ethical sourcing risks.
It has been identified that CSR activities are effectively carried out by the company to maintain sustainability at the workplace (Inghams, 2018).
Corporate governance is the mechanism, processes and relations by which corporations are controlled in an effective way. Inghams corporate governance practices and policies framework for the financial year ended on 1st July 2017 have been discussed below. The corporate governance structure has been permitted by Ingham’s board in 22nd August 2017.
Governance structure of Inghams
Principle 1-Lay solid foundations for management and oversight
Board responsibilities: The board is accountable for the overall governance of Inghams including appraising Ingham’s policies, strategies, approaches and performance to the shareholders. Evaluation is done by the board to analyze the performance in an effective way. They monitor on the corporate performance and implement the strategy and policy.
Diversity: The Company follows diversity policy for achieving the goals and objectives. The gender diversity strategy is followed by the company(Rani and Gautam, 2017).
Board appointments and reviews: A written agreement is done by the firm in terms of the appointments.
Executive responsibility and reviews: An agreement is done by the company explain the roles and responsibilities of senior executives such as CEO.
Principle 2-Structure the board to add value
Board structure, skill and experience: The board entails five non-executive directors, one of them executive director and three are independent directors. The company focuses on the skills and talents of the senior executives.
Principle 3: Act ethically and responsibly
Inghams is committed to and strives to work with honesty and integrity within the organization. Along with this, code of conducts is adopted by the company to run the business successfully and effectively.
Principle 4-Safeguard integrity in corporate reporting
This principle includes audit, risk committee, CEO, external audit and CFO certifications. Inghams external audit is KPMG. The company ensures that its external auditors attend the company’s and whether they are available to answer questions from the shareholders (Doucouliagos, Haman and Stanley, 2012).
Principle 5-Make timely and balanced disclosure
It has been identified that Ingham’s has originated a continuous disclosure policy for the purposes of complying with its constantly disclosure obligations. The disclosure policy explains the processes that the firm initiates to ensure compliance and issues with its disclosure obligations (Bhutta and Shah, 2014).
Principle 6-Respect the rights of security holders
Under this principle, the main aim of the company is to promote effective and unique two communication with shareholders so that business activities carry out successfully. The shareholder communications include market announcements, half yearly and annual reports and media releases. Inghams also provides the full text of all notices of explanatory and meetings on its website (Inghams, 2018).
Principle 7-Recognize and manage risk
This principle includes audit and risk committee, and evaluation and management of risk. It has been identified that the company’s audit and risk committee is accountable for the overseeing the company’s risk management system.
Carroll’s Pyramid
Principle 8-Remunerate fairly and responsibly
It includes remuneration committee, director, executive remuneration and securities trading policy. The corporate governance helps the company to run the business activities and operations effectively.
CSR activities are organized by the Carroll (1991) in four-layered pyramid model and this model is known as the pyramid of responsibilities. The four layers of this pyramid are economical, legal, ethical and philanthropic. All these layers are defined below in context of the Inghams enterprises:
Economic aspect of this pyramid imposes responsibility on the business to be profitable because this is the only way to provide long term benefits to the society. Inghams enterprises reflect tremendous growth in the FY 2017 because in this year company shows solid progress in their strategy and also provide $102.0 million net profit after tax. Sales volumes of the poultry were also cross the expectations as it reflects 8.81% growth in Australia and 1.11% in NewZealand (Guliyev, 2014).
Legal aspect of this pyramid states that company must follow all the laws and regulations implied on the company. Corporate governance policies of the Inghams are framed in such manner as it ensures compliance with all the legal requirements.
Ethical aspect of the pyramid imposes responsibility on the company to act morally and ethically, and for this purpose business can go beyond the narrow requirements of the law. Company ensures ethics and morals in its strategy and governance structure, and also develops the code of conduct in this context.
Philanthropic responsibility states that company must give back to the society and it must be noted that this responsibility is discretionary in nature. Inghams conduct number of programs and activities through which they help the society such as number of animal welfare programs are conducted by this company (Inghams, 2017).
As per the wartick and Cochran’s CSR responsibilities are divided into three segments that are principles, process, and policies, and all these segments are stated below:
Principles define the corporate social responsibilities which are divided into four segments that are economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropy. This segment considers the business as the moral agent. In this context, Inghams fulfill all these responsibilities and details of these responsibilities are already defined in carroll’s pyramid model (Wartick& Cochran, 1985).
A process defines the corporate social responsiveness which is also divided into four parts that are reactive, defensive, accommodative, and proactive. This segment defines the ability of the business to respond to the changes occurred in the society, and it also focus on the approach of the manager in developing the responses. In case of Inghams, there responsive approach is proactive in nature because this company already leaves some gap in their strategies for the purpose of responding the changes (Inghams, n.d.).
Policies define the social issues management and this segment includes three pillars that are issues identification, issues analysis, and response development. this segment of the model reduce the surprises which can be get by the company while conducting their operations, and it also determine the policies related to CSR in effective manner. Inghams focus on the identification of the issues and for this purpose company focuses on their strategy framings, and after analyzing the issues this company focuses on developing the response.
While conducting its operations, company ensures open dialogue with all its stakeholders, and also considers the views and expectations of all the stakeholders and makes efforts to fulfill those expectations in the best possible manner. The most important stakeholders of the company include society, customers, shareholders, and employees. The main aim of this company is to strengthen the company and its related people. In context of the society and customers, the importance of the corporate responsibility and corporate security in the company were extended further.
Ingham’s consider all the aspects for the purpose of fulfilling the expectations of the stakeholders of the company and this is defined below:
Shareholders: financial year 2017 of the company is very profitable for the company because in this period company ensure solid progress through their strategy and give $102.0 million net profit after paying the tax, and also exceeds their prospectus forecast. Company also ensure tremendous growth in the markets of Australia and New Zealand, and there sales volume related to the poultry are also stronger in comparison of the expectations with 8.81% growth in Australia and 1.11 percent in New Zealand.
Society: this company is the long and positive contributor to the number of local communities in which company operates its business. Medical research is conducted by the Ingham Institute in context of different health issues such as cancer and mental health. This institute is established in 2012 in context of the Bob Ingham’s vision and ensures commitment towards the community (Inghams, 2017).
Customers: customer relationships of the company are highly collaborative and related with the sales, marketing, technical services, new product development, planning and supply chain and sustainability. This year important progress in context of formalizing the supply relationships with the customers and this also includes the national agreement.
Employees: this company value’s the integrity and it is very important for the company to follow the ethical labor practices on continuous basis and company makes this their tradition. This company employed the staff on direct basis and more than 90% of the workforce is directly employed. All the wage employees and contract employees of the company are regulated by the enterprise agreement, employment agreements on individual basis, and individual contracts or an award.
There is no gap in the company’s performance and stakeholders expectations, and this can be seen through the above stated factors. However, company can do more in context of the employees as they can initiate some programs through which employees of the company get the benefit (Inghams, 2016).
Conclusion
After considering the above facts, it can be said that corporate social responsibility is the most important aspect in modern business world as it is the only factor through which company can serve the society. For ensuring long term growth and profitability, company must give back to the society through this framework.
References
Bhutta, N.T. and Shah, S.Z.A., 2014. Investors’ Reaction to the Implementation of Corporate Governance Mechanisms. Open Journal of Accounting, 3(01), p.3.
Cabrera, E.F., 2012. The six essentials of workplace positivity. People and Strategy, 35(1), p.50.
Doucouliagos, H., Haman, J. and Stanley, T.D., 2012. Pay for performance and corporate governance reform. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 51(3), pp.670-703.
Guliyev, S. (2014). Carroll’s Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140905115337-70750023-carroll-s-pyramid-of-corporate-social-responsibility. Accessed on 6th June 2018.
Ingham’s, (2016). Code of Conduct. Available at: https://investors.inghams.com.au/Investor-Centre/?page=corporate-governance. Accessed on 6th June 2018.
Ingham’s, (2017). Annual report. Available at: https://investors.inghams.com.au/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/11sM2pu-rkuf_aNBmyFnWw/file/ING-FY17-Annual-Report.pdf. Accessed on 6th June 2018.
Inghams. Sustainability commitment. available at: https://inghams.com.au/corporate/sustainability/sustainability-commitment/. Accessed on 6th June 2018.
Inghams.2018. Annual report 2017[Online], Available from https://investors.inghams.com.au/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/11sM2pu-rkuf_aNBmyFnWw/file/ING-FY17-Annual-Report.pdf, [Accessed as on 6th June 2018].
Inghams.2018. Inghams group Ltd 2017 Corporate governance statement[Online], Available from file:///C:/Users/System%2304027/Downloads/Inghams_Group_Limited_Corporate_Governance_Statement%20(2).pdf, [Accessed as on 6th June 2018].
Inghams.2018. Sustainability[Online], Available from https://inghams.com.au/corporate/sustainability/, [Accessed as on 6th June 2018].
Kim, S. and Lee, Y.J., 2012. The complex attribution process of CSR motives. Public Relations Review, 38(1), pp.168-170.
Lee, E.M., Park, S.Y. and Lee, H.J., 2013. Employee perception of CSR activities: Its antecedents and consequences. Journal of business research, 66(10), pp.1716-1724.
Martinuzzi, A., Kudlak, R., Faber, C. and Wiman, A., 2011. CSR activities and impacts of the retail sector. Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS). Working Papers, (4).
Rani, A. and Gautam, V., 2017. Corporate governance: Need for changing scenario. International Journal of Education and Management Studies, 7(3), pp.375-377.
Wartick, S. & Cochran, P. (1985). The Evolution of the Corporate Social Performance Model, Academy of Management Review, vol. 10(4), 758-769.
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