Corporate social responsibility: intentions and practice

Abstract

CSR is the continued commitment by a business to behave ethically and contribute to the economic development and welfare of the society while at the same time improves the quality of life of its workforce, their families as well as the larger society. The national government, together with institutions like state corporations, the police and the judiciary among others are obligated to provide its publics with necessities and amenities that ease and make life worthwhile. Businesses, NGO activists and local communities have taken a lead in addressing those issues which the national government has failed or is slow to come up with solutions so as to ensure that the public’s life is comfortable. Social responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity whether it is a government, a corporation, an organization or individual has the responsibility to society. It is the economic, legal, ethical and discretionally expectations that society has organizations at a given point and time [1]. The pressure on businesses to play a role in social issues is growing and over the last ten years, these institutions have grown in power and influence as they compete in playing CSR roles to a point where the public is forced to define a business by how much and how conspicuously it contributes towards CSR. The modern day business has almost capitalized on CSR, to create awareness that it exists, advertised its goods and services and demonstrated how philanthropic it is. Actually CSR is more of an advertising side show where the media plays an important role in ensuring that all and sundry notice that “we give back to society”. The largest corporate giving programs are driven by either strategic or commercial interest with their basic motivation being a combination of wanting to acquire greater market share, improve public image and to encourage staff motivation and competition in the labor market. Therefore, over the years, the brand and public image of a corporation has increasingly become CSR’s focal point providing support so as to look good and drive up sales. The major cry is that business organization plays CSR roles not with any hidden agenda but for the very purpose of giving back to the public who keeps giving to the organization by purchasing their products and services. The objectives of this review are: to give an overview of CSR practice, to bring to light wrong motives in CSR performance by some organizations and to give recommendations on positive CSR practices. This article reviews documents such as research studies, journals, scholarly texts and the internet. The review’s scope is both the public and private sector organizations that undertake CSR activities.