CSR CHALLENGES

Corporate Social Responsibility Challenges faced by Multinationals

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Activities in CSR1

Corporate philanthropy1

Cause-related marketing2

Award sponsorships2

Codes of conduct3

Community investment3

Investing in socially focused companies3

Prominence of CSR4

Challenges in corporate social responsibilities4

Jebsen & Jessen4

Shell UK7

Waitrose9

Conclusion10

References11

Corporate Social Responsibility Challenges faced by Multinationals

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility may be defined as the voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns with the business operations by a business (Smith 2003, p. 2). Other than a business's objective to make money and increase stakeholder value, it is also its responsibility to give back to the community it operates in. Corporate social responsibility work involves the environment, community work, ethical issues faced by the people and others. The term triple bottom line also refers to the same concept. A business that is involved in corporate social responsibility has transparent business operations. It is the responsibility of each business to manage the value for its stakeholders while remaining ethical and moral to customers and the environment in which they operate (Johnson 2004, p. 4).

Activities in CSR

In order to understand the concept of CSR, it is important to understand the various activities that a company may undertake to remain socially responsible.

Corporate philanthropy

It is a form of corporate social responsibility whereby a company makes donations. This is the simplest way that companies use to present an image to their stakeholders that they are committed to social responsibility. For instance, in order to improve the conditions of life for children and provide them a healthy living McDonalds has the network of Ronald McDonald Houses. Similarly, BP sponsors the National Portrait Award for the same reason. Although, a form of corporate social responsibility, corporate philanthropy is limited to donations only (Justice 2002, p. 8). This is normally carried out by companies that clearly differentiate between the business case and the normative case. Their motivation behind this corporate philanthropy may be to get the approval of their customers and not an actual performance of their societal responsibility.

Cause-related marketing

Cause related marketing refers to the company's partnership with a charity. The company uses the logo of the charity on its promotional campaigns and all the branding tools that it uses to market itself. For instance, Tesco's promotion of computers for schools. In this case, a disadvantage of this practice of corporate social responsibility is that a majority of the companies choose charities that are reputable and have big name in the industry. Due to this reason, the smaller agencies and charities that are in dire need of funds remain in shortage of funds as all the companies want to be working with bigger names (Dentchev 2007, p. 104).

Award sponsorships

The companies carrying out award sponsorships associate themselves with an award based on the area of social responsibility that they want to focus on. In this regard, the big multinationals that are targeting the same social responsibility area face competition and each tries to make a bigger donation in order to prove its dominance in the award ...