Corporate Social Responsibility

SIX MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY

5. Practices and values

Why is it important to have corporate values? Corporate values are the

very foundation of your organization. Core values are the guiding principles that
dictate human behavior and action. Core values can help people to know what is
right from wrong, it acts as a guideline or code of conduct for decision-making in
the company. When companies have clear written values, they tell the world
what they stand for, they give their employees a reason for what they do and
their customers a reason to believe in or cheer for them. Human management
becomes easier with core values and guiding philosophy and it’s easier to
delegate tasks. Moreover, it’s better to teach values than teaching rules because
core values and it’s very basic structure inherently defines the do’s and don’ts. In
a company, people are aligned by its values, they become the bond and the
common purpose they pursue and the meaning they define with everything they
do. The corporate values are the building blocks of the organizational culture. It
sets the code of conduct and it guides in the collective behavior of people in any
organization. Without a codified value system, there will be confusion and
disharmony among employees and management because values clarify the
direction on why you do what you do.

CSR is clearly about a particular set of business practices and strategies

that deal with social issues, but for many people it is also about something more
than that – namely a philosophy or set of values that underpins these practices.
There is a study that examined the relationship between personal values and
CSR initiatives of managers. The study concluded that to a greater extent CSR
practices are influenced or affected by the personal values of managers,
because they formulate the CSR policies of the business organization and their
personal attitude is part of their individualistic characteristics which affects the
way they behave.
6. Beyond philanthropy

Corporate social responsibility vs. Corporate philanthropy. They are

related but they are different

Think of corporate social responsibility as the umbrella that has a whole

bunch of different pillars. So these are the enabling aspects of corporate social
responsibility. Those are the house. Corporate philanthropy is just one of the
house that fits under the broader corporate responsibility umbrella and beside it,
it has the diversity, equity and inclusion. You’re going to have your supply chain,
you’re going to have your sustainability environmental initiatives and then you’ll
have an employee engagement aspect of things so this would be your employee
giving and volunteering programs and those should all be working together with
one another but they all have their own strategies and measurements. So for the
corporate philanthropy aspect of it under this broader CSR umbrella, this is
where companies are giving back strategic grants and money to their
communities in a one specific way. Corporate philanthropy is the large amount or
product donation money aspect of CSR. Corporate philanthropy is just one
aspect of corporate social responsibility.

In some regions of the world, CSR is mainly about philanthropy – i.e.

corporate discretionary responsibility or voluntarism towards the general public.
CSR is currently a mandatory practice backed by regulations and accepted
international standard which is shifting from altruistic to instrumentality or
strategic CSR. It is no longer altruistic in nature only but more than just
philanthropy and community development projects, because of the impacts it has
on profitability, human resource management, marketing, and logistic support
which are all part of the core functions of business organizations. CSR extends
beyond philanthropy because of its viability to be instrumental or strategic in
satisfying stakeholder expectations and its potential capability to achievement of
organizational objectives. This debate rests on the assumption that CSR needs
to be regulated and institutionalized into normal business practice rather than
being left simply to discretionary activity. The attempt to consider how CSR might
be integrated to the core business functions of firms is in contrast to the notion of
it serving simply as an ordinary added value to the business organization
(Grayson & Hodges, 2004).