Corporate Social Responsibility?

Question

What is it? Can social responsibilities and obligations be reconciled with a company's need to maximize its profit?

Answer 1

Wikipedia has a very good writeup on corporate social responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility

Many companies are adopting CSR because it makes them look good to socially conscious audience and even to the government. It's branding mechanism and it helps the image of the company to be perceived as socially aware.

Hence, you have Dell with their Dell Foundation Dell Foundation http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/foundation/en/index?c=us&l=en&s=corp ; community involvement programs from Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/citizenship/giving/ and Philip Morris http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/our_initiatives/community_involvement.asp

Here are some great resources on CSR
http://www.csrwire.com/
http://www.business-ethics.com/

Answer 2

Corporations are just as responsible as individuals. Remember that corporations do not exist without individuals.

Corporate Social Responsibility is about corporations not polluting the environment, not hiring and firing people randomly, not ignoring the affect that the corporation has on the world around it.

As a person you have the responsibility to take care of yourself and the world around you. That means that you should not litter, abuse animals, hurt other people, take advantage of situations and you should make sure that you are aware of your affect on your world.

Corporations have the same responsibilities that individual people have. While these responsibilities may reduce profits, they are still imperative.

Example: If you see someone with a million dollars in their hand that does not give you the right to take it and possibly kill that person in the act. A corporation may see a lake, but that does not give the corporation the right to dump hazardous waste into that lake.

Maximizing profit should not be without scruples. Profit is not real if it is stolen and that is what corporations do when they destroy the Earth just for their own gain.

Take care,
Troy