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Corporate Social Responsibility |
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PIA's understanding of CSR has come about from monitoring global and regional trends. We present our understand as taken from Wikipedia 's online services.
Internationally increased awareness of CSR has also come about as a result of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, in which a major goal is the increased contribution of assistance from large organizations, especially Multi-National Corporations, to help alleviate poverty and hunger, and for businesses to be more aware of their impact on society. It is apparent that in today’s business practice, CSR is entwined in many multinational organizations strategic planning process.
"Business are made up of people those posses both the humanistic and naturalistic view points. The humanistic view is that growing poverty and deteriorating environment is of no relevance in sustaining human life let alone a business. The naturalistic view is where we draw the line between exploiting our natural resources and destroying our fauna and flora for the sake of profiteering and sustainability." (Grace and Cohen 2005,144).
The reasons or drive behind social responsibility towards human and environmental responsibility is sometimes questionable whether based on genuine interest or have underlining ulterior motives.
CSR has been an issue of some debate. There are some people who claim that Corporate Social Responsibility cherry-picks the good activities a company is involved with and ignores the others, thus 'greenwashing' their image as a socially or environmentally responsible company. There are some other people who argue that it inhibits free markets.
These critics generally suggest that stronger government and international regulation rather than voluntary measures are necessary to ensure that companies behave in a socially responsible manner.
Other views from this perspective include:
- Corporations really care little for the welfare of workers or the environment, and given the opportunity will move production to sweatshops in less well regulated countries.
- Companies do not pay the full costs of their impact. For example the costs of cleaning pollution often fall on society in general. As a result profits of corporations are enhanced at the expense of social or ecological welfare.
Video on CSR
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