Zusammenfassung
Two serious criticisms of CSR have emerged from separate ends of the political spectrum. They are levelled at the heart of the purpose of business and what companies, particularly large companies are responsible for. From the Left, Joel Bakan, in his book and subsequent film, The Corporation, alleges that CSR is a smokescreen, enabling companies to hide their bad practices and strengthen their ability to resist regulation by government, from the Right, The Economist, building on arguments that hark back to Milton Friedman and even Adam Smith, has argued that CSR is a waste of resources, distracting companies from their core roles of producing goods and services, and making profits. These criticisms are misguided but they have intellectual foundations; as such they risk undermining much that is important and require rebuttal.
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Auszug
In Defence of Corporate Responsibility
1. Introduction
Once a fringe idea, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now part of the business mainstream. Most major companies have CSR policies and leading Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) regularly acknowledge their wider responsibilities to society and the environment. Lacking precise definition, CSR has thrived as a general 'motherhood' concept but has suffered because it encompasses such a wide range of business activity from supporting good causes and investment in community projects to employment practices and environmental and human rights impact management. CSR has always attracted its fair share of critics. Detractors have dismissed it as corporate philanthropy1 by another name or worse, as meaningless froth. Now, two more serious criticisms of CSR have emerged from separate ends of the political spectrum. This is not about philanthropy or giving something back to society as some kind of conscience-easer for taking so much out. It is levelled at the heart of the purpose of business and what companies, particularly large companies,2 are responsible for. It is about whether companies should take account of social and environmental concerns beyond those that clearly affect a company's operating capabilities.In his book and subsequent film, The Corporation, Joel Bakan alleges that CSR is a smokescreen, enabling companies to hide their bad practices and strengthen their ability to resist regulation by government (Bakan 2004: 151). Separately, The Economist (2005) has argued that CSR is a waste of resources, distracting companies from their core roles of producing goods and services, and making profits. These criticisms are misguided but they have intellectual foundations and require rebuttal. Both overplay the role that governments can and will play in regulating how companies behave, and underestimate the positive contribution that NGOs can make in shaping the social environment in which businesses operate. They also exploit the confusion which surrounds the meaning of CSR. By attacking, with some justification, some aspects of CSR and its abuse, they threaten to undermine the fundamental notion ...Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes
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