Importance of Different Aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility - Case Study Example

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Author Affiliation Date Table of Contents 1.Introduction 3 2.Corporate Social Responsibility 3 3.Importance of different aspects of CSR 4 4.Google Inc and CSR 4 5.CSR model and Google 5 6.CSR Techniques of Google 6 7.Advantages 6 8.Disadvantages 7 9.Recommendations and Suggestions 7 10.Conclusion 8 11.References 8 1. Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a promising concept for all the national and multinational companies. CSR is an only business tool that provides many ways to the organizations to achieve their desired goals and targets. Many companies are not gaining only financial profits through CSR, but it also brings a positive reputation to the company. Corporate social responsibility has different aims and objectives, but the real aim of CSR is the welfare of the society. Thus, in this paper the meaning and importance of CSR have been discussed in detail. Moreover, Google Inc. has been selected to understand the CSR practices of the multinational organization. In addition, this paper also explains the advantages and disadvantages of CSR. Lastly, there are also some recommendations to further improve the CSR practices of Google, Inc. 2. Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibility is an important concept of global marketing management. CSR covers many significant activities like social philanthropy, social responsibility, sustainability management and corporate citizenship of the modern organization. In the globalized business world, it is impossible for a country to sustain for longer period without the corporate social responsibilities activities and practices. CSR can be defined from different perspectives even different companies and management analysts define corporate social responsibility in different ways. The definitions that are given by different companies about CSR are based on the company’s aims and objectives. One of the important definition is, “CSR is a practice of treating the stakeholders and customers of the company in an ethical or responsible manner”[Sim04]. In this definition, the meaning of “ethically responsible” is used to provide values of civilized society through the product or the service. Stakeholders are the significant part of the company because they are responsible for each and every activity of the company. Thus, it is very important for the company to satisfy all its stakeholders and customers as well. CSR provides opportunities for the companies around the globe for satisfying customers and stakeholders. In addition, the other definition of CSR explores new areas of CSR that is “CSR is a way of improving the corporate financial performance because it increases overall profitability and sales of the company”[Kas12]. This definition, explores the new perspective of the corporate social responsibility. It shows CSR does not only covers social and environmental factors, but it is also beneficial to the financial position of the company. Businesses are the integral and significant part of the society. Thus, they need to be responsible towards the society and the environment. Therefore, CSR is one of the most adopted practices of the global companies because it brings good reputation and sales to the company. CSR helps in social and economic development of the society. CSR has the aim of providing a better standard of living, ethical values and environmental protection of the society. CSR is a practice that can also help the company to gain a competitive edge over the competitors. Hence, CSR is a wider concept that does not only cover the significant practices of the companies, but also very advantageous for all companies around the globe[Hop04]. 3. Importance of different aspects of CSR CSR covers many different aspects like sustainable development, globalization, communication, risk management, finance, ethics, consistency, leadership, innovation and business strategy[Pau07]. Ethics are provided by the different companies that improves transparency, accountability and ethical standards of the company. CSR is a benchmark for the investors and the financial institutions of measuring the financial position of the company. Most of the time, investors also want detailed analysis of corporate social responsibility practices before granting loans to the company. If a company has effective corporate social responsibility practices than it can easily lower the cost of capital and yield more profits. The opportunities that are brought by the company are useful or the company in managing risk in the future. A firm can improve its financial efficiencies through an effective corporate social responsibility campaign in this way CSR covers the financial aspect of the company. At the same time, the other most important aspects of CSR are leadership and innovation. Therefore, CSR is a recognized business tool that is used to implement changes in the company like traditional companies treated their employees as the machines, but now because of CSR, the humanistic approach has been adopted, in which the idea of considering employees the machine has totally negated. Now, employees and their satisfaction are a dynamic part of the corporate social responsibility. Moreover, CSR does not only cover the domestic level, but also the international level. Sustainable development is another aspect of CSR on which the whole idea of CSR has been based. Sustainability highlights the facts that the resources of the world are scared and there is a need to utilize and exploit each and every resource of the world with responsibility. The concept of sustainability management is related to resource management. Thus, all the aspects of the CSR are significant and have many benefits for the companies. There are many companies, who are using CSR campaigns and practices as a business tool for increasing brand value and their overall financial performance. The three companies are ranked at the top in CSR practices that are Walt Disney, Google and BMW[For15]. All the three are famous for their effective CSR campaigns. Thus, in these three top companies, I have chosen Google to understand the CSR practices of the company. Moreover, I have also discussed CSR model of the Google and the benefits and disadvantages of its CSR practices for the company. 4. Google Inc and CSR Google Inc. is a popular company of the world. The main aim of the company is to provide value to its customers through its various products and services. Google is a prominent player of IT industry of the globe. It offers several products and services in all the services, the search engine google.com is one of the successful services of the company. Moreover, Google search engine has also launched other various initiatives to make its service better. The other important services of Google Inc. are Gmail, google earth, google scholar and many others. Google Inc. was founded by the Larry Page and Serge Brin. Google is a successful company because not only it provides value through its amazing products and services, but it also successfully manages its external and internal affairs of the company. Google Inc. is also successfully managing the reputation of the company through its effective corporate social responsibility campaigns and practices. CSR of Google Inc. is not only covers the external world, but it also launched various initiatives of CSR internally for the welfare of its employees. The unofficial slogan of google Inc. is “don’t be devil” which reflects its emphasis on CSR as it always tries to provide ease and convince its customers. Therefore, Google Inc. has a very good reputation in the global business market because of its effective CSR campaigns[ANN12]. 5. CSR model and Google There are three types of models that are generally used by the companies. The models are Pyramid, intersecting circles and concentric circles. All of the models are based on four elements that are economic, legal, and ethical and philanthropy[Eli05]. The pyramid model of corporate social responsibility is based on the hierarchy. The first level of pyramid model is economic second is legal, third is ethical and forth one is philanthropy. The companies that are using pyramid model try to achieve all the elements of the CSR but one by one. The first target of those companies is to cover economic and legal aspect, then after achieving the first two levels, they move forward towards the ethical and philanthropy. The philanthropy factor is like an icing on the cake. In addition, the second model of CSR is intersecting circles model. The elements are the same as pyramid model. The distinct characteristics of intersecting circle models are; it covers all the four elements at one time. Moreover, the management of staff of all the CSR campaigns have interactions with each other and all the campaigns are intersecting each other in many aspects. The companies that are using intersecting circle model always recognize the need of interrelationships among the different CSR campaigns. If it’s an economic domain, then in intersecting circle it must also consider the domains of legal, ethical and philanthropy. Similarly, the third model which is concentric circle also based on the four similar factors i.e. economic, political, legal and philanthropy. The concentric circle model of CSR is also an important model. Some of the characteristics of concentric circle models are similar to intersecting circle model[AVI08]. Both intersecting and concentric consider all the elements of CSR but the difference is a concentric circle separately deals with different domains of the CSR elements. Like, the management of all the CSR domains is different. None of the domain intersecting any activity of the other domain. In all three of the models of CSR, Google Inc. has adopted the intersecting circle model of CSR. All the domains of the CSR are managed by the one management team. Moreover, one domain is always depends on the other domains as well. Like Google Inc. is working enthusiastically in economic, legal, ethical and philanthropy domain. In this regard, the CSR campaign of economic domains must depend on the other three. In such a way, Google Inc. is exploiting high profits through intersecting CSR model[Ron13]. 6. CSR Techniques of Google Google Inc. is using different CSR campaigns and techniques to promote the welfare of the society and its customers. In the economic domain, Google Inc. provides cost free services to its customer. Through Google’s search engine, the customers all over the world can easily find a variety of information with the help of a single click. The provision of ease and convenience to the user through cost effective way is one of the important factors of Google’s corporate social responsibility[Sha14]. Moreover, Google is successfully excelling in technology and innovation, but at the same time it tries to create relevancy and ease in its services. Its user friendly technology always reflects the effectiveness of its corporate social responsibility practices. Google Inc. also promotes environmental protection through “Google Green”[Ron13]. It not only invest millions of dollars for the sake of protecting the environment, but also added a feature in google earth, through which countries can easily monitor its forestation and deforestation in different parts of the country. Such a campaign and feature also shows that Google Inc. is considering environment protection as a major component of its CSR campaign. Similarly, in the domain of Philanthropy, Google is also launching various initiatives and invest a lot in different causes. The example of philanthropy related CSR campaign of Google is “Google Flu”. Google Flu is an initiative that was launched by the Google Inc.[Goo09], in which Google introduced Flu Vaccine Finder. It was the joint collaboration of the US government and Google Inc. to protect the society from the flu. The flu vaccine finder locates a person that wants flu vaccine and informs the government to provide vaccine to that person. The other example of corporate social responsibility of Google Inc. is Google translator. In which Google Inc. invest hundreds of dollars just to provide its customers with the world’s best translator. Likewise, Google Inc. also donates millions of dollars in the under developing regions of Africa for the treatment of cancer patients. On the other hand, Google Inc. is also empowering its users through its effective services. It is also a part of their corporate social responsibility practices. The slogan “don’t be devil” shows the perception of the company about its users. Google wants to empower its users because they want that the society would become a signature of Google[Gol08]. Similarly, Google Inc. also covers the ethical domain of CSR. The ethical domain generally covers the internal structure of the organization through CSR. Google Inc. provides various benefits to its employees as well. Employee satisfaction is the most important component of CSR policy of Google because it is transnational company. Google Inc. offers free food, on-site child care, free health care services, transportation services and sports facilities to its employees[Ron13]. Moreover, pets are also allowed in the Google Inc. Thus, Google successfully provides satisfaction to users, employee and society through its effective CSR techniques and practices. 7. Advantages Google Inc. has effective CSR campaigns and techniques. Google is using CSR as a corporate strategy and generating various benefits through CSR. Some of the advantages are discussed below: Google Inc. is successfully providing value to its customer through CSR. The corporate culture of Google is transnational. Different employees came from different countries. They have different ethics, background and cultures. Nevertheless, Google effectively manages its employees because of its socially responsible perception. Google Inc. has become one of the popular company because it offers cost effective services to its users to empower them through Google. The financial position is improving[Goo09]. The public relation of Google Inc. is also increasing day by day due to its Effective CSR practices. 8. Disadvantages Google is also facing many challenges due to its CSR but they are very few. Some of them are discussed below: CSR is increasing the overall budget of the Google Inc. It is difficult to manage a transnational culture of the Google company. Therefore, experienced management team is required to manage the complex affairs of the organization As, Google is using an intersecting circle model of CSR, which is very complex in nature and difficult to manage. CSR can be also proved risky for the Google because it needs proper planning of the experienced team. A small mistake can prove a big disaster for the company. Thus, it should be managed with care and proper planning[Sha14]. 9. Recommendations and Suggestions Undoubtedly, Google Inc. is managing its CSR successfully, but there is always room for improvement. Therefore, there are some suggestions and recommendations for Google are discussed below: There is a need for Continual improvement in which Google has to review its objectives, aims and targets of CSR because a complex nature of Google Inc. CSR practices needs proper monitoring and corrective actions on time. There is a need of expert audit and the management team that control and balance the budget of CSR practices. Furthermore, Google can also adopt the concentric circle model of CSR because it covers all domains separately. Hence it is more suitable for Google Inc. The transnational culture of Google can be easily controlled and managed if Google allows its non-management personnel to choose their own representative to facilitate effective communication in the organization[DrP09]. 10. Conclusion To sum up, it can be concluded that Google has built the strong foundation of social responsibility. It covers all the domains effectively like economic, legal, ethical and philanthropy. It has adopted intersecting circles model of CSR that is the reason their all activities are related to its products and services. It is one of the popular Company of the world and CSR contributes a lot in its popularity and success. Furthermore, Google is not only gaining financial profit through its effective CSR campaigns, but also gaining brand image and positive reputation throughout the globe. 11. References Sim04: , (Zadek, 2004), Kas12: , (Rangan & Karim, 2012 ), Hop04: , (Hopkins, 2004), Pau07: , (Hohnen, 2007), For15: , (Forbes, 2015), ANN12: , (MARGRETHE, 2012), Eli05: , (Redman, 2005), AVI08: , (GEVA, 2008), Ron13: , (Kuntze & Matulich, 2013), Sha14: , (Kendrick & Saakova, 2014), Goo09: , (Google Inc, 2009), Gol08: , (Goldsmith & Wu, 2008), DrP09: , (Castka & Bamber, 2009), Read More