Corporate Social Responsibilities
Corporate Social Responsibilities
‘The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a long and varied history. The evolution of the CSR constructs begins in the 1950s, which marks the modern era of CSR. In the 1990s, CSR continues to serve as a core construct but yields to or is transformed into alternative thematic frameworks.’ (Carroll, 1999)
This essay will discuss about corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is one of the key factors face by corporations today, where it become relatively important to employees and stakeholders. This essay will also discuss why stakeholders are giving CSR more attention and how companies by abiding to the CSR standards create conflicts of the company’s objective with stakeholders.
What is corporate social responsibility? ‘Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to an organisation’s moral obligation towards all its stakeholders.’ (McShane & Tavaglione, 2007, p15) In organisation, Vogel (2005, p2) stated, ‘Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a practices that improves the workplace and benefits society in ways that go above and beyond what companies are legally required to do.’
In Singapore, in order to encourage organization to adopt the CSR concept, the National Tripartite Initiative (NTI) on CSR was launched in May 2004. The NTI on CSR committee review and formulate broad CSR strategies and has since founded a society known as Singapore Compact for CSR, in bringing the CSR movement forward. (CSR Singapore Compact 2005)
Singtel a local telecommunication organization not only excels as the market leader in Singapore, it also helps the less fortunate through social programmes. It started the Touching Lives Fund in June 2002, encourage the community to be involved in the company’s fund raising event. Lee (2004, p4) states that ‘Singtel makes an effort to ensure that the fulfillment of this social responsibility comes from all levels in its ranks, from senior management to workers.
This lead to a question in why should companies...