Chapeter 7 - CSR Flashcards
CSR
“A businesses approach that contributes to sustainable development by delivering economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders.”
Corporations
A large company or group of companies authorised to act as a single entity and recognised as such in law.
Should we view corporations as ‘person’s’?
If we do, then we are seeing them as an integral part to society. They thus, must act responsibility like person’s and adhere to the 3P’s: People, profit and planet.
Peter Fisk (Anthropologist And Entrpreneur)
Founder of Genius Works - brand innovation company.
- His objective is too work with business leaders on how to see things differntly and to ask new questions of people and things.
- Founders and CEOS are beginning to CHANT their ethos and core value stoat involve being socially responsible.
He deals specifically with CSR and the 3 P’s.
He created ‘genius works’ where corporations who want to be more corporate socially responsible go to genius works and ask for help. Is CSR thus a trend? Or do corporations embrace it?
Bill Taylor (CoFounder Of Fast Magazine)
“In a world that is being reshaped by relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of generosity and connection that remind us of what it means to be human”
- ‘Generosity and connection are part of everyday sociality.’ When businesses pay interest to the everyday values and beliefs that make up national and organisational culture, you get a socially attuned business.
- This highlights that understandings of society and cult are constantly changing: there is no final work on what it means to be responsible.
- We have a responsibility to keep our attention firmly on what it meat to be socially responsible in a business - looking at cultures can help do that.
Fernanda Duarte (Fieldwork With A Brazilian Mining Company)
- Ethnographic research on a mining company in 2008 named ‘Ferrus’ to explore what kind of culture of foster and how it might be fostered and then emerge in a business.
She explains CSR as coming from:
- An organisation, identity, this can foster and inform culture.
She wrote about 3 dimensions of CSR: Structures, cultures and symbolic manifestations, by a way in which a company can promote a culture of CSR.
Ethics
Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.
Anthropologists see ethics as not how one should act but how they are culturally attuned.
Organisations should conduct ethnographic research in to culture In order to get a more ethical and socially responsible business.
Further Examples Of CSR
Anita Roddick- The Body Shop
- She talks about the dangers in thinking in terms of productivity and efficiency and not in terms of CSR.
Starbucks
- It has a project called “commitment to origins” that develop coffee sourcing guidelines and help the local farmers.
- But can Starbucks really be ethical when although it recycles cups it doesn’t pay taxes.
Corporate Personhood
The legal notion that a corporationD separately form its associated human beings, has some, but not all, of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons.
What happens when you start understanding corporations as people?
You begin to attribute a sense of responsibility to them, you see them as essential part of society, and thus expect then to be socially responsibly, like everyone in everyday life.
Duarte’s objective is to build a more general theory of how CSR cane promoted in an organisation by using her 3 dimensions of CSR…
Structures, cultures and symbolic manifestations
The principles are so that companies around the world can apply them and become socially responsible.
Anita Roddick
Founer of The Body Shop
- She sees CSR as being invaded by commercial capitalistic as opposed to the interests of the people.
- Promotes a lifestyle and has very strong set of values and beliefs that tries to imprint on its consumers.
- Throughout history it has tried to be socially responsible and has projects for great causes.
- She talks of the dangers in thinking in terms of measurement, thinking in terms of productivity and efficiency and forgetting the other 2 P’s.
THE THREE P’S
PEOPLE, PLANET, PROFIT
STARBUCKS
They use CSR to portray a sense of public awareness e.g. helps local farmers who make coffee beans, fair trade and organic coffee. Economic sustainability. “Commitment to origins”. “By buying our coffee you are making an ethical choices”
But, it may not actually be true? They have a lot of CSR schemes, but do not pay their taxes. Boycotts across UK due to them avoiding tax.
- there is a link between where a business is ethical and where they aren’t.
By conducting g ethnography on the consumers and workforce…
business can promote a culture of CSR.
Symbolic manifestations:
(Fernanda Duarte)
‘symbols, logos, brands that communicate particular values to the consumer’
She says that CSR ‘culture’ is about shared meanings, which are underpinned by the notion of SUSTAINABILITY which gives an organisation a DISTINCT CHARACTER of being ethical to the public.
