Corporate Social Responsibility And Its Global Impact

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Businesses are implementing more and more socially conscious practices, policies, and procedures. A corporation’s financial line benefits from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy, but so do its stakeholders, customers, employees, local communities, the environment, and society in general. Therefore, evaluating and understanding how socially responsible a company is, is crucial. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) advocates for companies to consider how their actions may impact society and the environment.

Global And Local Challenges

The world is confronted with numerous seemingly intractable economic, social, and environmental issues. More than one billion people suffer as a result of poverty. Every day, the gap between rich and poor widens. Climate change and environmental degradation continue unabated. Businesses and population growth continue to wreak havoc on fragile ecosystems. Millions of people lack access to health care, and far too many people, both young and old, die from preventable diseases. Millions more are denied basic human rights. Worldwide educational systems, including those in the most advanced countries, fail to provide young people with the necessary tools. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) knowledge and training are not being provided to students sufficiently to make them desirable employees in the future. These challenges have disastrous human consequences.

NGOs And Corporates

National borders restrict governments’ ability to solve global challenges that transcend political boundaries. Non-governmental organizations work selflessly to address global and local issues. NGOs are mission-driven, can be experts in their fields, are often admirably dedicated to their goals, and boast tremendous accomplishments. However, most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lack the financial and political resources required to have a long-term global impact.

On the other hand, international businesses are well placed to act decisively.

In contrast, corporations have the human and intellectual resources, financial assets, global footprint, scalability, and market power to approach and advance on problems that cross governmental borders and overwhelm non-governmental organizations. Though non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have the commitment, corporations have the assets, specialized knowledge, and expertise to work on transforming the world into a better place.

Corporates and Corporate Social Responsibility

Governments have judged and mediated the relationships between society and companies. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be summed up simply as adhering to the public sector’s rules and laws. Although regulations can have a significant social impact, most companies look at compliance and CSR as a cost to the operations of their business and a source of potentially damaging and costly attacks in terms of litigation and reputation. Due to globalization, companies are entering new markets and working with global suppliers, and due to this fact, the costs of compliance have also markedly risen. The failure of companies to follow not only the local but also international regulations can destroy their reputational capital as well as their brand name. However, compliance alone cannot build brands. In addition, compliance cannot provide the same growth and power that a brand name or reputation can bring to the company.

Takeaway

Leaders of multinational corporations have discovered that solving global issues may be profitable. Businesses that uphold the standards that today’s activists and customers require – and those that exceed those standards to help solve global problems – win enthusiastic public support, which benefits their brand reputation and profits. Besides the obvious value of acting as good global citizens, big corporations profit from facilitating solutions to global problems. For example, when corporations help people shift from poverty into the middle class, they expand and maintain their customer base.