5003 - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sustainability, and the Circular Economy - Basics (Lecture 1)

Question 1

What are the four aspects of CSR?

Answer 1

• Governance
• Workers
• Community
• Environment

Question 2

What is CSR?

Answer 2

‘The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time.’ (Carroll, 1979:500)

Question 3

EU Commission’s definition of CSR

Answer 3

The responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society

Question 4

How can companies employ CSR?

Answer 4

• integrating social, environmental, ethical, consumer, and human rights concerns into their business strategy and operations
• following the law

Question 5

What is a corporation?

Answer 5

A corporation is a legally entity with many of the same rights as those of individual people. A corporation is formed when investors exchange value (e.g., cash) for shares of the corporation becoming shareholders, which in turn creates a right to a portion of profits.

Question 6

How did corporations develop?

Answer 6

Corporations have been developed over the last few hundred years following a huge boom in trade from globalisation