The notion of companies looking beyond profits to their role in society is generally termed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  It refers to a company linking itself with ethical values, transparency, employee relations, compliance with legal requirements and over all respect for the communities in which they operate.
The entirety of CSR can be discerned from its three significant words: corporate, social, and responsibility.  Therefore, CSR covers the responsibilities corporations have to the societies within which they are based and operate.  It involves a business identifying its stakeholder groups and incorporating their need and values within the strategc day-to-day decision-making process.

A long time ago, the primary concern of companies is profit maximization.  Milton Friedman, in his book Capitalism and Freedom, forcefully argued that a business has no social responsibilities other than to maximize profits.  He stressed that businesses’ one and only social responsibility is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engage in open and free competition, without deception or fraud.

Critics of this viewpoint corrects that profit maximization is not wrong.  They, however, maintain that corporations have other responsibilities as well- to the consumers/clients, the employees, and of course, the society at large.

Putting socially responsible actions in another perspective, they could also actually help in improving corporate profits.  For example, charitable contributions made by a company may attract the interest of possible clients who are driven by the same cause.

For a relatively young organization like ours, we can only do so much in the meantime.  However, over the years, our community outreach programs continue to take shape.  Linking it to the concept of family, we try to reach out to the financially troubled people that are actually a part of our organization- for example, our janitors, canteen personnel, and their families.  Also, we have started to do our own share of community work, particularly in public schools.  For example, every summer vacation, we volunteer to do a total make-over of a school or a classroom whose students are relatively of the lower class.  Then, we give out old instructional materials, toys, notebooks, and other school supplies for them to have a good start for the coming school year.  It is important to note here that students who go to these schools, though with very low tuition fees, belong in families who are having difficulties making ends meet.  Though our actions cannot be classified as big time charitable programs, we are nonetheless awarded with smiles of appreciation and gratitude from them- gestures that indicate that we are on the right track.

Our programs are actually not much, but at least, they are a good start.  As we continue to be gifted with many blessings, we wish to share these blessings with others, too.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am and is filed under Management Matters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.