Supporting Reading Material 1
Supporting Reading Material 1
Supporting Reading Material 1
Talking in a Nutshell
Corporate Social Responsibility is not only a concern of multinational companies
and giant firms. All businesses, big and small, have responsibilities toward the
society.
The stockholder model of a corporation attributed to Milton Friedman views the
responsibilities of business as being threefold – economic, legal, and ethical
responsibilities.
The stakeholder model of a corporation attributed with R. Edward Freeman
maintains that the firm must also consider the claims of other primary and
secondary stakeholders. It is mainly because the business organization does not
only relate with and affect its owners, it also has operational consequences to
the natural environment, the community where it operates, the employees, the
customers, and many other interest groups.
The concept and practice of CSR basically disagrees with the stockholder model
while it agrees with the stakeholder model.
The triple bottom line, which is an attractive phrase in CSR literature, pertains to
people, planet, and profit – the social, environmental, and economic concerns of
any business establishments.
The CSR perspective stresses that the business institution’s responsibility does
not only consist in not doing the wrong thing but also in doing something right
for the community and the environment. From the CSR perspective, doing
something right must not just be born out of benevolence but out of a deep
sense of responsibility toward the other stakeholders of the business institution.
As a form of criticism against CSR, it is deemed that it is full of promise;
however, in practice, CSR is reduced to a business strategy which makes the firm
more powerful and influential while justifying its questionable practices.