Importance of CSR and sustainable development
Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility Access To Finance.
Business organisations are shedding the model of business where the finance and the economics of the company received the focus of interest, increasingly corporate are realising their duties and obligations they have towards the society (Cheng et al. 2014). Corporate social Responsibility is a concept that is coined in order to change the approach of the business organisations from a finance perspective to a more sustainable direction. Business organisations have an evident impact on the society, the environment as well as on the economy hence the company should consider the importance of all the three aspects without giving preference to just the financial aspect of the business. Sustainable development is the foundation of the concept. It can be defined as the acknowledgment of the obligations one has towards the environment and the society (Benn et al. 2014). The resources that are used by an organisation depend upon the environment or the society therefore it is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that they give back and understand the duties they have towards the source of their resources (Choi et al. 2013).
This article as a culmination of the concepts of Corporate Social responsibilities that is researched by authors in order to understand the depth and insight of the subject as a contemporary topic in business management there is scope for the topic to be further researched. The first point that is being highlighted by the authors is to understand the theory of organisational purpose, in this case there are six values that have been highlighted by the authors that will help or guide the companies to achieve their objectives or aims, these values are: dignity, solidarity, plurality, subsidiarity, reciprocity, and sustainability. To make the purpose of the organisation a defining feature the company should incorporate subsequent behaviour and strategy (Mair and Hehenberger 2014).
Another issue that has been highlighted is the generation or creation of the image or reputation of the company and how business organisations seek leverage and benefit from such social evaluations. This article also highlights the section where business organisations contribute responsibly towards the society and the environment. According to Ernst and Young (2012), there are two rising trends that are observed in the industry first is the popularity of acceptance of the concept of CSR and making it and incorporating it as a dedicated function of the organisation and secondly, organisations have incorporated the involvement of the employees in the CSR activities that are undertaken.
The issues that have been addressed in the article are as follows: it is hard to measure the effectiveness of the activities that are undertaken by the organisation. And this ambiguity in the impact is elevated when the investment process is short term. This gap in the measurement may be due to the internal environment factors in the organisation that do not allow companies to monitor their sustainability impact. There is also a gap in the clarity of the goals that are set by the organisation in terms of sustainability which in turn makes it difficult to understand the success indicators.
The six values for organisational purpose
Another issue that has been observed by the authors is that the companies face an issue with the financial resource as the concept of sustainability is multi-dimensional; it is not possible for an organisation to focus on all the issues that are prevalent in the society or environment (Wang et al. 2016). This situation involves several stakeholders of the organisation and hence this causes conflicts of interest among stakeholder groups contending for financial resource allocation to the project of interest. Prioritizing for the managers to develop CSR concepts are one of the most evident challenges faced by the organisation in terms of CSR (Wang et al. 2016).
The process of strategizing the plan of action for a CSR project is also challenging for the multinational organisations to develop activities and program that will have an international impact and effectiveness.
The above highlighted points are important for the study as these are the trends that have been further divided in themes; these are further discussed throughout the article (Wang et al. 2016).
As the article is a cumulative review of the journal articles on the topic of CSR, the methodology that is undertaken to write this article is different it is not like any other research paper that follows a direction of set headings or subheadings. The first section of the article is an introduction to the assignment it offers background information and it also has the issues and the challenges that are faced by the organisation while incorporating CSR activities.
The next section of the article is divided into the trends in the CSR research; these trends are observed by analyzing the articles which have been published in AMJ for past six decades. Each of these trends has been discussed with the help of graphical representations. This is like a literature review of the articles that are being studied in the studied. This section has a thematic approach which helps the reader to understand the rational of the discussion that is been undertaken better, this type of research is called qualitative approach (Wang et al. 2016).
The next section is another important part of the study that is the future prospects of the subject the purpose of this study is to understand the dynamics of the CSR as a subject of research and in this section the authors identify some of the aspects which according to them are the areas which are untapped and are yet to be worked upon (Weigelt and Shittu 2016).
Lastly all the vital points that are discussed in the paper are summarized in the conclusion paragraph.
CSR researches are categorized in three divisions: antecedent, outcome, and process. It has been identified that the last division that is process has gained popularity in the trends of the research in the recent past. It is intended to analyze and understand the “process” by which the management of an organisation takes decisions regarding CSR activities or the process by which these activities or plan of action is to be implemented.
The role of employees in CSR activities
The focus is in the organisational performance and not in the financial performance of the company in terms of corporate social responsibility (Wang et al. 2016).
There has been a shift in the focus of CSR dimensions; nowadays the organisations have focused on specific elements that will be targeted by the strategies of the management (Weigelt and Shittu 2016). As there is an increasing understanding among the organisations due to researches regarding CSR that an aggregate activity do not impact the effectiveness of the social performance of the organisation the companies have directed the concentration of the strategies to a specialized areas (Servaes and Tamayo 2013). The findings show that the focus of research and the companies in the time period that has been analysed has diverted from questions such as should business organisations take on the responsibility of the society and the environment or should they mind their own business to the ways in which communities gain from organizational involvement in dealing with difficult challenges such as environmental degradation, poverty, de-forestation, lack of education and health opportunities etc(Wang et al. 2016). With the help of thematic analysis of the previous paper the authors have cumulated literature regarding CSR they have also recognized the opportunity that researchers have to explore in the subject. The focused approach form the organisation towards the segments, understanding and examining the role individual stakeholders claim and have to play in the process, analysing the process of motivation in term of CSR activities etc are some of the scopes discussed.
As one of the purposes of this assignment is to understand the prospect of the subject in the future research these are following themes that the authors have recognized: claims of the stakeholder and the way they are interdependent on one another, understanding or evaluating the process of prioritizing for a company to invest upon this further investigates the motivation and the intention of the organisation in terms of their CSR action plan. Evolution of CSR in various institutional contexts as well as the internal environment of the organisation that drive the corporate goals and initiate programs. There is also scope for research regarding he individual role that each stakeholder of the organisation has to play in the CSR imitative or program that has been incorporated by the company, the macro level research of the company’s involvement had been studied but new studies are also emphasizing on individual roles (Surroca et al. 2013).
Conclusion
It can be concluded form the article the discussion regarding the article is that, despite of Corporate Social Responsibility being a contemporary concept in management, organizations have accepted their responsibility and duty towards societal obligations as well. The six decade long research process regarding the topic indicates a growth and depth in the knowledge and application of the process. With the popularity of adaption of CSR within the strategic management of the company the research of the subject has also become very focused and imperative; the studies help understand the trends in the business environment as well as help organizations understand the scope or gap that is available for them to fill in the duties.
The findings are from a global prospective and there is scope for research in these topics in the Middle East as well. CSR is a topic that is extensively researched all over the world and because there is a lot of oil and energy industries located in Middle east there will be a lot of information available for the research.
Reference List:
Cheng, B., Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2014. Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), pp.1-23.
Choi, B. and La, S., 2013. The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and customer trust on the restoration of loyalty after service failure and recovery. Journal of Services Marketing, 27(3), pp.223-233.
Ernst & Young. 2012. Six growing trends in corporate sustainability. 1-32, E&Y: Gemany.
Mair, J. and Hehenberger, L., 2014. Front-stage and backstage convening: The transition from opposition to mutualistic coexistence in organizational philanthropy. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), pp.1174-1200.
Servaes, H. and Tamayo, A., 2013. The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm value: The role of customer awareness. Management science, 59(5), pp.1045-1061.
Surroca, J., Tribó, J.A. and Zahra, S.A., 2013. Stakeholder pressure on MNEs and the transfer of socially irresponsible practices to subsidiaries. Academy of Management Journal, 56(2), pp.549-572.
Wang, H., Tong, L., Takeuchi, R. and George, G., 2016. Corporate social responsibility: An overview and new research directions thematic issue on corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Journal, 59(2), pp.534-544.
Weigelt, C. and Shittu, E., 2016. Competition, regulatory policy, and firms’ resource investments: The case of renewable energy technologies. Academy of Management Journal, 59(2), pp.678-704.
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