April 21, 2008 by John Morelli , AYOUB MOHAMED and NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility, General
This discussion will address:
- Whether engaging in CSR is just a means to maintain a company’s competitive viability . . . or it is an end in itself?
- Does an inherent conflict exist between social and economic objectives or can both contribute to improved competitive advantage?
July 25, 2008 by Brian Butler | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
This summary is also available as a Word Document
Overview
The workshop was moderated by CUB graduate student and assistant professor Simon Milton and was attended by one practicing environmental management professional, a number of graduate students from environmental management programs and one member of department faculty.
Participants:
Moderator: Simon Milton: Simon.milton@uni-corvinus.hu
1) Anna Szechy Anna.szechy@uni-corvinus.hu
2) Szilvia Gartner sgartner@denso.hu
3) Laura Baritz laura@hcbc.hu
4) Prof. [...]
April 28, 2008 by AYOUB MOHAMED and NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2, 3-The Goal of the Environmental Manager, 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility, Collaboratory
CREATING SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISES – A ROLE FOR LAW IN ENSURING OUR FUTURE
Nancy J. King, BA 230, Spring 2006
www.bus.oregonstate.edu/programs/Sustainability2006.ppt
This is a unique presentation about sustainability and corporate social responsibility, it firstly explains the unclarity of defining sustainability, what the classic and triple-bottom line definitions are, [...]
by NEIL MILLER and Justin Morelli | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
Although short, I think this article gives some good information on the benefits of CSR for businesses and how it can give them the competitive advantage. Also, it touches on economic viability.
“Progress: Improving Performances in the Board Room”. ECO Volume 27, pg 137. Issue: June-July 2007. CSIRO Publishing. April 25th, 2008.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=EC137p26.pdf
Process: [...]
April 21, 2008 by NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
This article is, in my opinion, a very good example of how companies are affected by the way they implement CSR. I chose to post this because it shows clear cut industry examples, including cause&affect, and also because it talks about the Starbucks company (which Ayoub posted about last week). I hope this will help evlove our discussions on weather an inherent [...]
April 20, 2008 by NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
Here is a paper first published in 2004 by the UK Government to show their current status in CSR and their future goals. It is a really good article, showing how the government wants to get the message across to the citizens that they are working toward civilian values.
“Corporate Social Responsibility A Government Update”. [...]
by NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility, General
Hello, my name is Neil Miller and I would like to contribute to this EM discussion topic and will be attending the Environmental Management Workshop. I would like to move forward in the discussion and start off with the quote by Professor Peter Pruzan of Copenhagen Business School:
“I would argue that corporate social responsibility [...]
by AYOUB MOHAMED | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
Reading more in the Hitachi CSR 2007 report I learned that Hitachi sets stricter voluntary standards than those enforced by law.
I am sorry I couldn’t attach the pdf file to my previous post (Hitachi Corporate Social Responsibility Report). maybe because of the file size. Please flow the link below or cut and paste the URL [...]
by AYOUB MOHAMED and NEIL MILLER | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
This is a report for CRS in the multinational corporation, Hitachi. In 2006 Hitachi took part in an event sponsored by the Nature Conservation Society, a non profit organization, where they had dialogues between students on CSR and ecosystem conservation. Students asked Hitachi to get consumers and society involved in the widespread of eco-products.
Every year [...]
April 2, 2008 by Brian Butler | Filed under: 1, 2-The EM and Corporate Social Responsibility
Csutora, Mária, Sándor Kerekes, Wetzker Konrad, Gábor Harangozó, and Léda Szőnyi. “Electrolux Lehel – more than a profitable enterprise”. Budapest-Jászberény, July - August, 2006. Corvinus, University of Budapest; School of Management.
Today’s practices of corporate social responsibility were defensive in nature and were about mitigating or remedying operational harm. “Most of what constitutes CSR or corporate [...]
John Elkington of SustainAbility in a conference of the European Business Campaign on Corporate Social Responsibility, put the increasing interest of business in society issues into a global context, showing how external pressures, arising from processes of globalisation and culminating in the 1999 Seattle street protests, have forced businesses to re-examine their role and their business practices.
Milton Friedman the professor of the Chicago School of Economics, the father of economic liberalism has a 40-year-old proposition that increasing profits within the bounds of legal compliance is the one and only social responsibility of business. His followers could not overcome his opinion after more than forty years and repeat his ideas in different forms. The articles in the Financial Times or in different websites are repeating the exercise learned from him many years ago: “The role of well run companies is to make profits, not save the planet. Let them not make error of confusing the two.”
“Corporations aren’t allowed to be nice. Company directors are legally obliged to act in the best interest of their shareholders’ investments. … This is why corporate social and environmental initiatives can’t really get beyond the marketing and greenwash stage.”
In spite of some noteworthy differences in corporate citizenship theories, most authors generally converge on some points, such as a strong sense of business responsibility towards the local community, partnerships, which are the specific ways of formalizing the willingness to improve the local community, and for consideration for the environment. The concern for local community has extended progressively to a global concern in great part due to the very intense protests against globalization, mainly since the end of the 90s. This sense of global corporate citizenship led to the joint statement “Global Corporate Citizenship – the Leadership Challenge for CEOs and Boards”, signed by 34 of the world largest multinational corporations during the World Economic Forum in New York in January 2002. Subsequently, business with local responsibility and, at the same time, being a global actor that places emphasis on business responsibilities in a global context, have been considered as a key issue by some scholars (Tichy et al., 1997; Wood and Lodgson, 2002).
In spite of a global world economy, standpoints related to CSR feature “local” specialities, as shown by an international survey. It is perhaps understandable that third world countries are a little sceptical about CSR . . .
. . . Professor Peter Pruzan of Copenhagen Business School has a slightly different opinion: “We have to ask ourselves whether responsibility is just a means to maintain a company’s license to operate as so many people contend, or whether indeed it is an end in itself,” said Pruzan. “I would argue that corporate social responsibility is a ‘mind-set’ with fundamentally different concepts of what success is, of who a company is accountable to and of what a company’s identity is. So it is only through a change in managers’ and employees’ ‘mind-sets’ that corporate social responsibility can go from being an organisational means to being an organisational ends or concern.”
Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School has a more optimistic but still very critical opinion. According to Porter, today’s practices of corporate social responsibility were defensive in nature and were about mitigating or remedying operational harm. “Most of what constitutes CSR or corporate philanthropy today is about doling out money to those who don’t like you, about establishing relations with those who don’t like you,” said Porter. “We need to move away from these defensive strategies and start thinking in terms of efficiency and value creation. There is no inherent conflict between social and economic objectives, both can contribute to improved competitive advantage.” Porter argued that companies should only engage in ‘context enhancing’ social activities. For example, home appliance manufacturers or property insurance companies could advantageously work to develop affordable housing for the under privileged, while IT companies could set up training academies in low-income areas to ameliorate any shortages in skilled labour. [Excerpted from: "Electrolux Lehel – more than a profitable enterprise" by Wetzker Konrad, Sándor Kerekes, Mária Csutora, Gábor Harangozó, and Léda Szőnyi, Corvinus School of Management, July-August 2006, pp 10-12.]
This discussion clearly frames some of the questions that need to be asked and answered:
- Is CSR just a means to maintain a company’s license to operate . . . or it is an end in itself?
- Is CSR about doling out money to those who don’t like you?
- Does an inherent conflict exist between social and economic objectives or can both contribute to improved competitive advantage.”
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