The Corporate Social Responsibility Reader

Jon Burchell, Jon Burchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000158298
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

In the age of global capitalism, shareholders, and profits are not the only concerns of modern business corporations. Debates surrounding economic and environmental sustainability, and increasing intense media scrutiny, mean that businesses have to show ethical responsibility to stakeholders beyond the boardroom. A commitment to corporate social responsibility may help the wider community. It could also protect an organization's brand and reputation.

Including key articles and original perspectives from academics, NGOs and companies themselves, The Corporate Social Responsibility Reader is a welcome and insightful introduction to the important issues and themes of this growing field of study. This book addresses:

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• the changing relationships between business, state and civil society
• the challenges to business practice
• what businesses should be responsible for, and why
• issues of engagement, transparency and honesty
• the boundaries of CSR – can businesses ever be responsible?

While case studies examine major international corporations like Coca Cola and Starbucks, broader articles discuss thematic trends and issues within the field. This comprehensive but eclectic collection provides a wonderful overview of CSR and its place within the contemporary social and economic landscape. It is essential reading for anyone studying business and management, and its ethical dimensions.

CHAPTER ONE
Globalization, sustainable development and the changing business environment

IN UNDERSTANDING THE nature and growth of the concept of CSR it is first necessary to consider what changes and pressures have emerged that have influenced the ways in which business functions or at least is perceived to function. The suggestion here is that certain pressures are emerging which are shifting the interaction and balance of power between the state, business and civil society, and it is this shift in roles and responsibilities that is raising new questions regarding what roles and responsibilities business is undertaking within this new set-up. In particular, this chapter focuses on two key concepts which appear to be at the heart of this process of change: namely the evolution of globalization and the environmental push towards sustainable development.

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH GLOBALIZATION

Both terms, ‘globalization’ and ‘sustainable development’, represent a wide-ranging disparate set of ideas when examined closely. In both cases the exact nature of the process and the potential impact are open to a vast array of differing interpretations. In the case of globalization the impact is viewed in both positive and negative terms. In general globalization may be seen to reflect the underlying processes in modern society which have seen a strengthening of social interaction and connections that stretch beyond the traditional confines of the nation state. While the concept has a relatively long history, the increasing impact of globalization largely coincided with the period since the early 1970s which has witnessed a growing connection, both political and economic, across nations especially within the developed West. As Held and McGrew (2000) note in their discussion of globalization, the impact of this process has been felt in terms of economic, political and social implications.

In seeking to provide evidence of the increased globalized nature of contemporary society, theorists point to a broad range of different phenomena which have combined to create closer interaction across national boundaries. First, we have seen in recent years a dramatic change in the nature of global communications and media networks. The dramatic evolution of information technology and the growth and reach of communication tools such as the internet have without doubt changed the manner in which we communicate whether in business or in social terms. On a personal level, we are now able to interact with people across the globe through real-time conversations, e-mail interactions, the emergence of mobile phone technology and so on. Distance is no longer a severe restraint on the types of relationships we can develop and the level of information to which we have access. Increasingly, virtual interactions through cyber space are superseding actual physical encounters.

For the business community, obviously, the evolution of modern communications technology has had a significant impact on the nature of business activity in contemporary society. Recent years have witnessed a dramatic expansion of the global financial system in which financial transactions can be undertaken on a global scale within a few brief seconds. The fluctuating fortunes of the major international money markets are today closely tied to one another, with global economic consequences. The collapse of a number of South East Asian economies during the 1990s gave a dramatic example of this process with repercussions felt across the globe. In addition, the reduction in the importance of physical location has been a vital factor in the increased role, power and influence of large-scale multinational companies (MNCs) which now command a broad level of international global trade. Companies are no longer forced to locate production and management together. Within the global marketplace, companies now have greater flexibility to relocate production to more advantageous locations with the promise of broader international markets.

The shift towards a more global level of interaction and a global business community has also resulted in the increasing influence of a number of international institutions functioning beyond the level of the individual nation state. Most notable of these developments have been the emergence of the European Union as a key economic actor and the growth in influence of the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Bank.

All these developments have had a significant impact on the way in which business activity is conducted in modern society. Greater networking of global economies has provided significant opportunities for financial investment. The growth in MNCs has been accompanied by a global distribution of products and brands with many companies such as Nike, McDonald’s and Walt Disney becoming globally recognized. Clearly the process of globalization has undoubtedly opened up a broad range of challenges and opportunities for the business community.

Globalization has also, however, brought with it a number of problems and negative impacts. Critics of the nature of contemporary global trade argue that while, for some, globalization has brought significant benefits, for others it has led to a vast power and wealth imbalance which has left many in poverty and exclusion from the supposed global society. Vandana Shiva, for example, suggests that economic insecurity and exclusion for many within the global economy has been a significant factor in the increased levels of terrorism witnessed within modern society. Others, such as Klein (2000), focus upon the increasingly homogenized nature of modern society brought about through the mass branding of all aspects of contemporary life. Authors such as these, as will be discussed further in the next chapter, pushed these inequalities to the fore by highlighting the poor working conditions within which many of the products for companies such as Nike, The Gap and Walt Disney were being made.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Another key aspect of the evolution of globalization has been the impact that these processes have had upon the natural environment. Since the 1960s we have witnessed a growing popular concern regarding the damage human activities may be having to the natural environment, precipitated by a never-ending stream of environmental disasters. In the late 1950s local inhabitants of Minimata in Japan developed lead poisoning from eating fish caught in the bay. Investigations found the cause of this disaster to be pollution leaked into the bay from a chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation. The corporation denied any links between the illnesses and its factory and continued to leak mercury into the bay until the late 1960s when public pressure finally brought about government action. In 1967 the Torrey Canyon oil-tanker ran aground, spilling its cargo of crude oil, creating a 270-square-mile oil-slick and contaminating 120 miles of Cornish coastline. The company and the British government both found themselves relatively powerless in their efforts to clear up the oil-slick, and millions watched on television as the oil devastated large areas of pristine coastline and killed swathes of wild animals. In 1984, in Bhopal, India, 3000 local residents died and many more became subsequently ill when an explosion at the Union Carbide pesticide plant sent a plume of toxic gas into the air. The Bhopal Medical Appeal estimates that approximately 20,000 people have since died as a result of the accident.

While these events in many ways reflected localized environmental problems, other events highlighted the growing global nature of the environmental challenge. In the Ukraine the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in April 1986 released a radioactive cloud which spread radiation across a vast area of Northern Europe, devastating the livelihoods of farmers throughout the area. Furthermore, during the 1980s and 1990s scientists began to identify evidence of an increasing hole in the earth’s ozone layer, and a pattern of global warming, brought on, they argued, by the increasing societal emission of greenhouse gases. It appeared increasingly that society’s growing reliance on industrialization and economic growth was having a severely detrimental impact on the natural environment. Stead and Stead (2004: 26), for example, summarize the current pressures on the natural world as follows:

Some 2.4 billion people currently live in water-stressed nations, and that figure will likely increase by about 50 per cent over the next twenty-five years. Somewhere between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the world’s cropland is degraded because of soil erosion, salinization and so forth. There are between 300 million and 500 million tons of hazardous wastes generated and disposed of each year worldwide. Global carbon emissions increased approximately 9 per cent in the 1990s, reaching 68 billion tons per year by 2000. These are just a few of the patterns indicating that current human activity is ecologically unsustainable.

Understandably, at the heart of much of the concern over the potential environmental crisis lay a questioning of the role of business in creating these problems. Environmental campaigners argued that the nature of modern industrial society had inevitably led to a process of destruction of the natural world, arguing that the constant pursuit of economic growth, increased consumption and high-risk technological developments could not be maintained within a planet containing finite resources. The environment, it was argued, could not merely be regarded as a business externality. Under increasing pressure from civil society campaign groups, environmental researchers and local populations, governments began to respond to the environmental agenda, seeking to create a level of international agreement regarding the future protection of the natural world and to find a way to balance economic growth with environmental protection. The central concept to emerge from this process has been that of sustainable development, defined by the Brundtland Commission as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987: 43).

At the heart of this concept lies an awareness that society must identify a new course which can balance the demands of society, the economy and the environment more effectively than has been witnessed in the past. While there has been growing acceptance for the idea of a more sustainable society, the precise processes through which we are to get there have been far more contentious. Sustainable development remains a relatively open and contested concept with many varying definitions. For some theorists such as Arne Naess (1989) and Edward Goldsmith (1972), for example, sustainable development can only be achieved through significant structural changes within contemporary society. The change in attitude required to meet the sustainability target, it is argued, requires a radical rethinking of both economic and political structures and a fundamental shift in the nature of industrialization and capitalist production processes in which the driving force of economic growth is replaced. At the other end of the spectrum, by contrast, theorists such as David Pearce et al. (1989) argue that it is possible to integrate growth and environmental protection into one economic system. While economic growth, he argues, is necessary as the driving force of modern society, it is possible to use economic tools to protect the environment by utilizing them to introduce economic costs into the overall costs of production. Clearly, therefore, sustainable development, and in particular the process of achieving a sustainable system, remains a contestable process. Without doubt the direction in which sustainable development strategy evolves will strongly influence the type of environment within which future businesses will have to function. Therefore, it is no surprise to see the business community responding with its own interpretation and approach to the environmental issue.

ADAPTING TO THE CHALLENGES

Clearly, therefore, the modern globalized world has brought with it a range of new relationships and opportunities but also problems and challenges. For many analysts it appeared that the supposed global marketplace was creating significant opportunities for some while sustaining increasingly poor conditions for the majority. These concerns over the environment and the ethical actions of modern multinationals have produced increased public criticism and resulted during the 1990s in a succession of high-profile large-scale ‘anti-corporate’ and ‘anti-capitalist’ protests outside meetings of the WTO, the World Bank and the G8 in locations across the globe from Seattle to Genoa.

At the heart of most of these campaigns has been a concern regarding the increasing levels of power being leveraged by multinational corporations and the unethical practices being highlighted from within the international business community. In particular, there is a questioning of the power relationship between business and governments and concern that the balance of power is ...