Public relations and corporate social responsibility: Some issues arising

The paper questions current assumptions about the benefits of corporate social responsibility and the claims that corporations make on behalf of their corporate social responsibility programmes. In particular, the paper suggests that the use of corporate social responsibility for public relations ends raises moral problems over the motivation of corporations. The paper cautions that the justifications which corporations employ may either be immoral or inaccurate with regard to the empirical evidence gained from a small-scale qualitative study carried out in the UK at a time when the practice of corporate social responsibility was expanding quickly (1989). It is noticeable, in retrospect, that great emphasis is placed upon environmental rather than social responsibility. This implies that organisations are primarily reactive in their development of corporate social responsibility programmes and that they respond to external pressures rather than working out the nature of their corporate responsibilities. It might suggest that corporations only take such actions when they feel compelled to do so by consumerist and environmentalist lobbies. The paper argues that corporations do need to find moral justifications for their moral activities and to ensure that corporate social responsibility practice lives up to the claims made by public relations practitioners. The paper explores the nature of public relations and illustrates how its responsibility for corporate social responsibility extends beyond truthfulness in publicity.Jacquie L'Etang has postgraduate degrees in history, public relations, and social justice. She is a lecturer in public relations at the University of Stirling, Scotland, teaching on the M.Sc. in Public Relations full-time and distance learning courses. She teaches design and editorial management, communications, and business ethics. Her research interests are in corporate social responsibility and the history of public relations.     

Corporate social responsibility: Another view

Numerous individuals, discussing the topic of corporate social responsibility, have exhorted the business community to demonstrate increased concern for social welfare. However, some observers [1,8,12] believe that executives have become less interested in social responsibilities and more disillusioned by the results of the social-responsibility era.The apparent change in executives' attitudes leads to several questions that need answering: Has corporate experimentation with social programs convinced managers that the pursuit of social responsibility is basically inimical to the quest for profits? Is the business community's commitment to the philosophy of corporate social responsibility moribund? Is the idea destined to die of benign neglect? Conclusions pertaining to these questions are developed in this article. The analysis includes the formulation of a theoretical basis for evaluating and resolving the central issues which confound executive decision making as it relates to corporate social responsibility.     

Business ethics and social responsibility in finance instruction: An abdication of responsibility

The shareholder wealth maximization objective for corporate management can be a very effective tool for decision making. However, it can also be used to rationalize the commission of unethical or socially irresponsible actions. Overemphasis on the SWM objective by some companies can lead to dangerous or disastrous consequences for consumers, employees, or the general population. Even so, issues of business ethics and social responsibility (BE-SR) are almost totally ignored in corporate finance textbooks. If the typical coverage of corporate finance courses is represented by these textbooks, then financial educators are abdicating their responsibility to help prepare future corporate managers to recognize and deal with BE-SR issues effectively.Delvin D. Hawley earned his Ph.D and MBA in Finance and B.S. in Psychology at Michigan State University. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Finance at The University of Mississippi in Oxford. Teaching areas include Corporate Finance and Investments. Research interests include bond market efficiency and artificial neural network applications in finance.     

Corporate social responsibility: The debate revisited

Before gaining general acceptance, an idea that jolts individuals out of accustomed-behavioral patterns undergoes a slow evolution. What is interesting in the history of the corporate-social-responsibility doctrine is that, within roughly three decades, it has achieved a status almost coequal with the bottom-line philosophy which, in the past, provided legitimacy to corporate decision making.Nevertheless, debate over corporate responsibilities continues. Two factors explain why: 1) corporate performance is perceived by some as not matching corporate rhetoric and 2) the “battle of definitions” continues.The first factor will be determined within the next five years because the Reagan Administration, by curtailing government activities, places more responsibility on the private sector. The definitional issue of CSR and CSR² (responsibility versus response) is not likely to be resolved soon but the strengths of the “response model” do not equal the strengths of the “responsibility model.” Responsibility is a moral term and response a psychological one: the American people ask their leaders to behave as “virtuous agents.”Moral decision rendered in complex situations—and on behalf of countless others—will lead people to define “correctness” differently, as the “Poletown incident” in Detroit amply illustrates. The search, however, for a new credo and a new character for America business has begun—and will continue.     

Corporate social responsibility in China: implementation and challenges

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly important in China. This paper investigates the implementation of instruments for dimensions of CSR that are relevant for the Chinese context and the challenges that Chinese companies face. Based on a survey among 109 Chinese companies, we find that formal instruments to implement CSR are rather common. Companies spend most effort in improving the economic aspects of CSR, such as competitiveness, product innovation and process innovation. Only a small minority of the companies set concrete targets and report the realization of these targets for social and environmental goals. This indicates that the attention to social and environmental aspects of CSR is still rather loose. The most important challenges for improving CSR are strong competitive pressure, insufficient support from the government and/or nongovernmental organizations and high costs of CSR implementation. Multiple regression analysis shows that the use of instruments is positively related to company size and foreign ownership and negatively related to lack of resources and support for CSR by investors and consumers.     

Corporate social responsibility and employee commitment

Effective corporate social responsibility policies are a requirement for today's companies. Policies have not only to be formulated, they also have to be delivered by corporate employees. This paper uses existing research findings to identify two types of factors that may impact on employee motivation and commitment to CSR 'buy-in'. The first of these is contextual: employee attitudes and behaviours will be affected by organizational culture and climate, by whether CSR policies are couched in terms of compliance or in terms of values, and by whether such policies are integrated into business processes or simply an 'add-on' that serves as window-dressing. The second set of factors is perceptual. Motivation and commitment will be affected by the extent to which they can align personal identity and image with that of the organization, by their perceptions of justice and fairness both in general and in terms of how CSR performance is rewarded, and by their impressions concerning the attitude of top management to CSR issues and performance.     

Strategy,social responsibility and implementation

This paper correlates community service goals from 82 business firms with various organizational characteristics, including goals, niches, structure, context, and performance. The results demonstrate that community-service goals are positively correlated with prestige goals, assets goals, superior-design niche, net assets size, and performance on income to net assets. Community-service goals, however, were not significantly correlated with profit goals, low-price niche, multiplicity of outputs, workflow continuity, qualifications, or centralization, as expected.Kenneth L. Kraft received his D.B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1982. Over the past seven years, he has been teaching Strategy and Social responsibility at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He recently assumed a position as Associate Professor of Management at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Jerald Hage is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park who has for the past thirty years published books and articles in the area of organizations. His recent papers deal with a panel study of American plants and the factors that affect survival, the causes and consequences of automation, and the impact of innovation strategies on the nature of the plant. His most recent book (1988) is entitled The Futures of Organizations.     

Corporate social responsibility and public accountability

The development of legislation determining corporate behaviour is a fascinating topic, offering insight into the societal problems of corporate enterprise as they are related to their accounting, their administration, and their external reporting. In this paper the following specific implications for accounting are examined:

-Should accountants get involved in social auditing and are they the ‘core’ persons in corporate social accounting systems?

-Should corporate social performance measurement and reporting become obligatory and to what extent?

-A general framework for the implementation of corporate social accounting systems is suggested and quidelines for its auditing are proposed.

-A tentative set of social auditing standard is outlined together with its methodological accompaniments.

     

In defense of social responsibility

Recent journalistic criticism of the concept of corporate social responsibility rests on the assertion that social responsibility adds nothing to corporate profits. Hence, inclusion of the motion in the business vocabulary amounts to nothing more than “double talk.”The author of an influential 1953 book on the topic took another look at social responsibility twenty-five years later and found “few gains in the quality of business stewardship over that time.” The idea “remains peripheral to the mainstream of economic thought.”Corporate social responsibility involves more than simply being a law-abiding corporate citizen. It reaches into these decision-making areas where perfectly legal choices may have harmful social consequences. As evidence of social harm amounts, society has to define and defend the ground on which it requires an appropriate response from the business corporation. Society will get the response it demands.     

In defense of social responsibility

The purpose of the present article is to argue against the minimalist theory of social responsibility (i.e., that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize profit in conformity with law), particularly as it is advanced by Butler D. Shaffer. Against this view, I argue that such a theory does not necessarily support or achieve greater levels of corporate efficiency than does a more demanding theory of social responsibility, and that the argument for the former view is no more valueneutral than for the latter. Finally, I argue that Shaffer fails to show that the more maximal theory demands too much from executives and is too unclear to be applicable to their decision-making.     

Understanding the social responsibility puzzle

In our pluralistic society, business is influenced by all other groups in the system, and business in turn, influences them. Therefore, the businessman must be socially responsible for his actions. Mr. Davis explains why such responsibility has had recent emphasis. Not only are the parts of modern society more interdependent, but the social sciences are giving us new knowledge about how business affects the other parts. Also, in modern business, with ownership and control separated, managerial responsibility must be identified and directed. The power-responsibility equation (social responsibilities of businessmen arise from the amount of social power they have) clarifies managerial obligations. Business, in the long run, to maintain its position of power, must accept its responsibility to the whole of society.     

Corporate social responsibility: review and roadmap of theoretical perspectives

Based on a survey and content analysis of 462 peer‐reviewed academic articles over the period 1990–2014, this article reviews theories related to the external drivers of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (such as stakeholder theory and resource‐dependence theory) and the internal drivers of CSR (such as resource‐based view [RBV] and agency theory) that have been utilized to explain CSR. The article discusses the main tenets of the principal theoretical perspectives and their application in CSR research. Going beyond previous reviews that have largely failed to investigate theory applications in CSR scholarship, this article stresses the importance of theory‐driven explanations of CSR and the complementarity of different theories. The article demonstrates that the current mainstream theorizing of CSR is dominated by theories related to the external drivers of CSR and is less developed with regard to the internal dynamics. The article outlines several productive avenues for future research: the need for multi‐theory studies and more research at multiple levels of analysis, particularly at the individual level of analysis. It suggests that CSR scholarship can benefit from combining theoretical insights from a range of established theoretical lenses such as institutional theory and RBV, and can gain new insights from theoretical lenses such as Austrian economics and micro‐level psychological theories.     

Identity and social responsibility policies: Six large corporations examined

Managers in all industries reach a time in their careers when they must answer certain questions about their firms. They are required to deal philosophically with the questions of social responsibility and identity; failure to do so may limit the firm's growth. The author examines management strategies and policies related to responsibility and identity as they have been resolved in six large firms, all highly oriented to consumer products. The firms include Ashland Oil and Refining Company, Standard Oil of Ohio, General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Kroger, and Federated Department Stores. Each has a special identity and egocentrism. Guidelines established by these six companies may help other businessmen and managers in reaching decisions for themselves and their organizations.     

Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and perceived importance of social responsibility information characteristics in a decision context

This study addressed the questions of perceived importance of social responsibility information (SRI) characteristics in a decision context, as well as the attitudes of institutional investors toward social responsibility involvement. The results showed that SRI presently disclosed in company annual reports did not have any significant impact on institutional investors' decisions. However, if SRI were presented in quantified, financial form, and were focused on product improvement and fair business practices, such information would be perceived as more important for investment decisions. Attitudes toward corporate social responsibility also suggested that institutional investors were not totally opposed to company involvement in social activities. Hai Yap Teoh is associate professor in the Department of Accountancy, The University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. He has published extensively in local and international journals including Accounting, Organizations and Society and The International Journal of Accounting Education and Research. His major areas of research interest include corporate social responsibility and reporting.Godwin Shiu is teaching fellow in the Department of Accountancy, The University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. He is also doing a master's degree in accountancy.     

Corporate social responsibility and the development agenda

The European Commission has designated 2005 as the year of corporate social responsibility in EU countries. Likewise, individual EU member states have taken important steps, such as the UK appointing a Minister for CSR within the Department for Trade and Industry, France legally requiring companies to include social and environmental impact in their annual reports, the Netherlands linking financial support schemes for large companies to compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the Danish Government establishing the Copenhagen Centre (a CSR focused research institution). What is this emphasis on CSR all about? The present paper reviews recent trends in CSR theory and practice placing special emphasis on their relevance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and on the context of economic development in developing countries.