Personal Statement: Social Responsibility
Social Responsibility/Libra Group (political)
1.Please explain why you have selected the choice(s) above and how it connects to your interests and/or background. (150 words max)
I am keenly interested in the Social Responsibility and Policy/Government Affairs internships because I hope to pursue a career in which I have the opportunity to help others through community support and/or policy. As a junior at Dartmouth College, my liberal arts education with concentrations on government and anthropology has taught me the importance of community–based organizations in a healthy democracy. Moreover, I know that international businesses have a mutually beneficial role in supporting local organizations due to the resulting intrinsic satisfaction...show more content...
Perry and Trump hope to greatly increase the use of American natural resources, coal and oil. With Perry as energy secretary and critic of the Obama administration's renewable energy research grants and loans, he will likely push the US away from renewable resources, as he concentrates on more traditional energy sources. For Greenwood Energy, this may indicate that, during the next four years, the company may have some difficulty expanding its depth in the US; therefore, Greenwood Energy should look to expand its business elsewhere in the Americas. However, if Perry were to change course on his ideas about energy, investment in US projects could earn praise from the public and the Trump administration through the creation of local jobs. So, Greenwood Energy should continue to monitor the Trump administration's view of renewable energy and react appropriately.
6.Briefly explain and evaluate a significant experience, achievement or risk you have taken and its impact on you. (150 words
Many people believe that they have a social responsibility to take care of their community and the people within that community. The community can expand from local and regional to national and international in scope. Social responsibility in not limited to individuals, but many businesses and organization have joined the call for social responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is when business and corporations make this a priority in their operations. Two questions come to mind, why a company needs to practice CSR and how can they do it?
To address why companies need to practice CSR, Liu and Liu in their article, "Implementing Corporate
Through, Organizational Design and...show more content...
External Social Responsibilities Strategies
79). Customers may purchase from a company based on a corporation's CSR. As the external stakeholders respond positively to CSR, a company will see it as "a strategic tool to win" (Liu and Liu, p. 79). The CSR can provide a competitive edge in the open market. As the pressure to meet the customers' expectations, a company's commitment to CSR may change. Liu and Liu state that Multinational corporations, like Starbucks, Shell Oil, and Nike, have felt the external pressure to act more socially responsible. The negative campaigns brought against them, compelled them to change their global image. (2009, p. 80). Although these corporations practiced CSR, the extent of their commitment changed due to external stakeholders' perceptions. . These changes due to increased external stakeholders pressure has also brought into question the motivation for these changes. The changes made to satisfy just the external pressure are unacceptable. Liu and Liu note, "Some critics complain that these companies lack sincerity and only pay lip–service to the concept" (2009, p. 80). To combat the usage of CSR to meet the needs of the shareholders, and not the stakeholders, companies should publish CSR reports, detailing their CSR involvement in their communities (Liu and Liu, p. 79).
To address how a company can develop a CSR, in "Demystifying Corporate Responsibility," McKnight presents a method to make CSR easier for companies. A CSR need not be expensive or Get more content
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility and it is a concept with many definitions and practices and also a buzzword in the media. In general, corporate social responsibility is the policies and programs of business corporations which tend to benefit society while improving a corporation's public image and profitability at the same time. The meaning of it is implemented in different countries and companies differently. Warren Buffet said that it takes 20 years to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to ruin it which means he mentioned the activity of the corporations here. In accordance with Buffet's dialogue, business should be responsible to the society, environment and towards a sustainable developed planet. Many names are used to mention CSR such as socially responsible business, responsible entrepreneurship, corporate citizenship, corporate accountability or corporate sustainability etc. Corporate social responsibility is the continuing commitment by business companies to behave ethically & contribute to economic development and simultaneously improve the standard of life and quality of life of the workforce & their families, local communities and the society according to the World Business Council. For example– Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, facilitating primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, making policies for the improvement of maternal health, HIV/ AIDS, Malaria & other fatal diseases, ensuring
Cooke and Mendelson define social responsibility as, 'the concern for the welfare of society which restrains business from engaging in destructive activities, whatever their immediate profitability and focuses their contributions on the betterment of society' . Intrinsically, corporate social responsibility ("CSR") as Yamusa postulates, involves not just charitable gestures by a company but also the application of internationally recognised best practices of business standards in its operations taking into consideration the dilemma of host communities and government and ensuring that issues of human rights, human capital development and the environment are incorporated into the company 's policies and decision–making .Thus, CSR is an issue that borders on economic, legal, ethical, and unrestricted expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time. It requires organizations to adopt a broader view of its responsibilities that includes not only stockholders, but many other participants as well, including employees, the local community, local, state, and federal governments, environmental groups, and other special interest groups. Corporate codes of conduct, community development projects and voluntary social reporting are key tools of CSR employed by multi–national corporations(MNCs); while the areas covered by their CSR initiatives include; human rights, transparency issues, employees ' welfare, environmental issues, disclosure of information, and
INTRODUCTION
Ethics is concerned with the study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right and wrong for a given situation (Crane & Matten, 2010). Since law does not necessarily cover the morality of many controversial issues, moral reflection ought to be performed on any action, regardless of its lawfulness. The growing power of business in today's society has enabled businesses to significantly impact the world. Hence, business ethics is highly relevant as it could determine whether businesses contribute or cause harm to the society at large.
Using ethical theories to guide moral reflection, business ethics can help businesses avoid scandalous conduct that could harm the...show more content...
A utilitarian would strongly advocate businesses to consider all the happiness and pains of all its stakeholders and focus on maximising happiness for the greatest number. Businesses have to look beyond short–term monetary gains and consider the impact of their actions on their significant stakeholders. In the subprime mortgage crisis, the financial institutes could have better analysed the extensive pains that its external stakeholders may face when they invest in subprime mortgages. Although high returns from risky investments may seem beneficial to the investors in the short run, greater costs may be incurred in the long run due to subprime mortgage foreclosures and its significant repercussions on the society. If the financial institutes had adopted the utilitarian framework and acted in a way that maximises overall happiness and not out of self–interest, the society could have avoided a major economic downturn.
Nevertheless, businesses may face challenges when applying the utilitarian framework. In many real life situations, businesses may not have sufficient time to make adequate predictions of the consequences of their intended actions. It may also be difficult to quantify happiness and justify what action will maximise the overall happiness. In order to optimize the utilitarian framework, it is critical that businesses can efficiently
The ever–growing social demands and the intense competitions between individuals continuously change education institutions' behavior. This perspective comes from the socio–economic environment. Under this circumstance, more attention has been paid to Social Responsibility (SR) that all organizations need to take for the interests and welfare of the society (Vasilescu et al., 2010). When it comes toHigher Education Institutions (HEI), SR becomes the obligation of universities via responsible actions to make social and economic impacts on the society (Vallaeys, 2014). There is no denying that universities play increasingly paramount roles in a global context. The primary aim for them is to instill knowledge which has become the key driver of economic growth (Faust, 2010). From a broader perspective, universities address societal problems and bring advantages to the society where they are based. Due to the needs of attracting and retaining students, universities pay more attention to SR when they make decisions and plans (SГЎnchez–HernГЎndez and Mainardes, 2016). Thus, this essay will determine the importance of being a socially responsible university, the obligation of a responsible university, together with a focus on the way a university makes its different stakeholders believe its commitment to social responsibility.
It is hard to give a precise definition of University Social Responsibility (USR). It is simply about universities show their ethical performance to the whole
There are four dimensions of social responsibility are economical, legal, ethical, and voluntary including philanthropic (Ferrell, Hirt, & Ferrell, 2009, p. 41). The economic dimension is the basis that the firm demands profits and being profitable assures its endurance. A firm is accountable to its shareholders, to its employees and to the customers in the economic sense. It has the responsibility to make profit for the investors that trusted the corporation with their funds and have a reasonable and acceptable return on their investment for them. Furthermore the corporation has the duty to have fair compensation for the employees employed by it. To the customers the responsibility is to provide product and services for a fair price. Thus, meeting the economic responsibility is the foundation of responsibilities and the basis for the subsequent responsibilities. These are responsibilities that are required by the society (Carroll, 1991). Also when thinking about the economical aspect of social responsibilities, there is also another external consideration which is the supplier. The fate of the company can be closely tied to the fate of the supplier (Freeman, 2001), although depending on variables and factors exceptions can be made. The company–supplier relationship a lot of times determine when expansion and growth can happen or vice versa. Therefore the willingness of the supplier to follow company's ethical behaviour or resist it can have major impact on the company Get
Business and Social Responsibility It is widely known that for a business to be successful it needs to provide a good or service that is desired by the public and also to obtain a profit in providing said good or service. Now while these are the most important components to a successful business, they are not the only ones. The social responsibilities of a business include the following: environmental protection and preservation, employee safety and morale, product safety for the consumer. The financial manager must keep these three social responsibilities in mind when making any and all decisions. The environment has become a big issue over the last 30–40 years, especially for the businesses that may negatively affect it....show more content...
In turn this bad publicity has negatively affected the business and in a lot of cases, caused the business to fade away. It is the job of the financial manager to oversee these environmental issues and make socially responsible decisions not only to avoid bad publicity, but to do their part in aiding the environment in a financially sound manner.
A business's employees are probably the most important part of the organization. In short, if there is something that hinders the performance of the employees the whole company suffers. Providing a safe and stimulating work environment is another thing that a financial manager should do to efficiently and effectively turn out a superior product. By keeping employee accidents to a minimum a business will avoid costly lawsuits and down–time.
Every business must realize that an unsafe product will not last in the open market and will, in the long run, cost more money to correct. The financial manager must understand that, above all, the product must be safe. He/she must decide the most cost–effective manner to manufacture the product and also have it deemed safe to use. I believe that this detail of product safety should be addressed very early on in the production process, as should the other two.
In conclusion, a business has an obligation to return something to society. Although the financial manager's main purpose is to acquire and control funds efficiently and effectively to maximize
Social responsibility is an ethical ideology or theory by an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Social responsibility is a duty every individual or organization has to perform so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the ecosystem. A trade–off always exists between economic development, in the material sense, and the welfare of the society and environment. Social responsibility means sustaining the equilibrium between the two. It pertains not only to business organizations but also to everyone who's any action impacts the environment. This responsibility can be passive, by avoiding engaging in socially harmful acts, or active, by performing activities that directly advance social goals.
As the cost and profit were major subjects of business reports, but it should not step over social responsibility. Social responsibility involves in saving environment and using nature resources properly, serving community by defending human rights, and insuring safety standards among working environment and production.
Among modern century more companies are being interested about corporate social responsibility (CSR) as business reports proved that it became a fact in business growth. CSR is a mechanism accomplished to maintain the economic, legal, and ethical responsibility to the community as same as organization. Stakeholder theory enables managers to take account of these different interests in business ethical responsibility:
Reevaluation
At the beginning of this course I wasn't sure what was meant by social responsibility and civic engagement. During this course I realized the meaning of both and the responsibilities that both imply. A definition of social responsibility that I found particularly poignant and concise comes from Entrepreneur Magazine, "Acting with concern and sensitivity, aware of the impact of your actions on others, particularly the disadvantaged" (Entrepreneur Magazine.com). Social responsibility can be as simple as paying your taxes or recycling your glass bottles. Social responsibility can be as complex as finding solutions to global warming or hunger in Africa. You can be personally socially responsible or you can be socially...show more content...
I grew up in an environment where I was sensitive to the needs of those immediately around me; my family, my neighbors, my classmates but my world was a very narrow one. This course has taught be to look at the world as my neighbors and feel a responsibility to the health, safety and welfare of all. I used to believe there was nothing I could do about the famine in Africa or the genocide in Croatia but I now realize that ANY small step I take is a step toward a path leading to action and understanding. One of my closest friends is a Major in the U.S. Army and she has been to Croatia, Iraq and Afghanistan; I am blessed to have her in my life because through her eyes and her stories, I am more in touch with the trials of our modern day world. "Lao Tzu said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step" (Loeb, 2010). My opinions on specific topics have also evolved throughout this course. For example: my group project group chose to tackle the issue of capital punishment. "What goes around comes around. Or does it? I believe my awareness of this issue started when the five of us decided which side, pro or con, we were going to speak for. Originally we had four for pro and only one for con. Well, this was not going to be a balanced paper obviously so I said I would join the con side. Therefore, I had to research a view that I previously had discounted.
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