Assignment 2

What is the 4 responsibilities of Corporate Social Responsibilities?

Corporate social responsibilty is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.Carroll regards corporate social responsibility as consecutive layers within a pyramid encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and philantrophic expectation placed on organization by society at a given point in time.

Economic responsibility can be defined as companies have shareholders who demand a reasonable return on investments, they have employees who want safe and fairly paid jobs, they have customers who demand good quality products at a fair price. This is by definition the reason why businesses are set up in society and so the first responsibility of business is to be a properly functioning economic unit and to stay in business. This first layer of corporate social responsibility is the basis for all the subsequent responsibilities, which rest on this solid basis. According to Carroll, the satisfaction of economic responsibilities is thus required of all corporation.

The legal responsibility of corporations demands that businesses abide by the law. Laws, are the codification of society’s moral views, and therefore abiding by these standards is a necessary prerequisite for any further reasoning about social responsibilities. For example, in the last few years a number of high profile firms have been convicted of anti-competitive behaviour as a result of illegal strategies aimed at maintaning market share and profitability. For example, the US software giant Microsoft has faced a long running antitrust cse in Europe for abusing its monopolistic position to disadvantage competitors, resulting tough settlement against the company. As with economic responsibility, Carroll sugests that the satisfaction of legal responsibilitiesb is required of all corporations seeking to be socially responsible.

Ethical responsibility oblige corporations to do what is right, just and fair even when they are not to do so by the legal framework. For example, when Shell sought to dispose of the Brent Spar oil platform at sea in 1995, it had the full agreement of the law and the British goverment to do so, yet still fell victim to a vigorous campaign against the acton by Greenpeace as well as a consumer boycott. As a result, the legal decision to dispose of the platform at sea was eventually reversed since the firm had failed to take account of society’s wider ethical expectations. Carroll argues that ethical responsibilities therefore consist of what is generally expected by society over and above economic and legal expectations.

Philantrophic responsibility is the fourth level of corporate social responsibility. By using this idea in a business context, the model incorporates activities that are within the corporation’s discretion to improve the quality of life of employees, local communities, and ultimately society in general. This aspects of corporate social responsibility addresses a great issues including things such families, support for local schools, or sponsoring of art and sports events. According to Carroll, philantrophic responsibilities are therefore merely desired of corporations without being expected or required.