Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practices

Toward Economic, Environmental, and Social Balance

Nilanjan Ray, Abhijeet Bag

• Publisher: Apple Academic Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000345681
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Personalmanagement

This volume explores the management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interactions with their stakeholders. This practice also benefits the company and helps it to reach its strategic goals. This volume takes interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives to exploring a multitude of themes in CSR, including corporate social responsibility in conjunction with employee quality of life, globalization, industry sustainability, environmental accountability, academic spin-off, education, empowerment of women, corporate reputation, expenditures for CSR purposes, and more.

The chapter authors consider the impacts and outcomes along with the emerging challenges of incorporating CSR in an organization's business strategy. This volume is an important academic journey into some of the most relevant yet understudied issues of today.

This volume will be a valuable resource for faculty and students in business as well as for industry professionals, researchers, and others.

CHAPTER 1 Corporate Social Responsibility, Labor Development, and Quality of Life of Workers

JOSÉ G. VARGAS-HERNÁNDEZ¹* and L.G.E.A. JOSÉ LUIS SORIANO SANDOVAL²

¹Department de Administration, University Center for Economic and Managerial Sciences, University of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

²Maestría en Negociosy Estudios Económicos, Universidad de Guadalajara, C.P. 45100, Jalisco, Mexico

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

In recent years in Mexico, private and public institutions have implemented mechanisms to encourage companies to adopt practices focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); however, there has been a certain level of disbelief in society about the benefits generated based on the practices of social responsibility implemented by the companies and especially on the quality of life of the collaborators, so that the analysis is performed, through a descriptive analytical method that can better describe the phenomenon and detect if in reality the strategies implemented, on the practices of CSR in Mexico.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to identify and analyze the application of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices and establish the relationship with labor development and the quality of life of workers, within their working environment, in Mexican territory. The above is established based on the following lines of research: (1) Quality of life and sustainable development, (2) Sustainable social and local development, (3) Strategies, quality and sustainable development, and (4) Economics, strategy, and sustainable development of organizations.

It identifies a complex problem regarding the effectiveness of social responsibility practices and their positive impact on the quality of life of workers. Various factors can be involved in the process, such as corruption, incompatible models, disinterest, or simply by ignorance of the factors that generate a misinterpretation and/or application of CSR. Although it is known, the verification of the effectiveness of these practices, as marketing tool (Fernández, 2005).

Efficacy to improve the quality of life of workers is put to trial, although there are no indicators of development evaluation for workers working in companies that adopt social responsibility practices, one of the objectives of this work, is common to listen, the company bought the certification! Walmart is certified as Socially Responsible Enterprise (ESR) and pay very little! My company is said to be socially responsible and treat employees very badly! What is happening? Various news in Mexico circulate, signaled to companies certified in Social Corporative Responsibility (SCR) with acts of contamination, discrimination, and corruption. Contrary to the practices established by the SCR, an example is the news published by Excelsior in 2013 in the state of Jalisco, where a company certified with SCR practices, abused of labor abuse of workers (Excelsior, 2013).

In terms of the environment, it is not the meaning of the company Cloralex that implements SCR practices. The organization Womens Voice for earth has verified how some gases that contain chlorine, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and HCFCs, destroy stratospheric ozone. It has also stated that the chloroform contained in Clorox can cause cancer (Womens Voices, 2011). These questionings are not exclusive to Mexico. In the documentary The Hidden Side of Google can visualize the discontent of workers within a leading company in social responsibility practices (Roland, 2015).

Therefore, the purpose of the study is to serve the design of strategies for the improvement and/or solution of the development of the quality of life of workers with respect to companies that implement social responsibility practices, since there are no studies that analyze the impact on workers’ quality of life, if not only the economic viability of the company (Öberseder, 2011).

1.2 BACKGROUND

The CSR is understood as the active and voluntary contribution to social, economic, and environmental improvement by companies, with the objective of improving their competitiveness, and its added value, according to the Ministry of Economy (SE, 2016). For the International Labor Organi-zation, the social responsibility of the company is the set of actions that companies take into account so that their activities have positive repercussions on society and affirm the principles and values by which they are governed, both in their own internal methods and processes as well as in their relationship with other actors (ILO, 2007, p. 53).

The origin and evolution of the concept has six phases (Bhaduri, 2016):

1950-1960—Period of introduction of CSR in the academic field and corporate philanthropy as CSR

1970s—Period of rapid growth in the concept of CSR

1980s—Period of stakeholder theory and business ethics

CSR of the 1990s

2000 onwards—Empirical work period to investigate determinants and Consequences of CSR in corporate strategy

The concept of CSR has been studied from the economic, social, and environmental point of view. Within an economic approach, there are two main aspects of study, first is the productivity in relation to the CSR model based on indicators of productivity in workers and the second is the profitability as marketing techniques for consumers. This point is studied in depth and validated. In this approach, the economic benefit is taken as the most important variable of study.

Social responsibility takes sustainability into consideration. Several authors agree, such as Haneke et al. (1998) in a definition ad literam “development that satisfies the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Within the social perspective, studies are justified by productivity indicators tending to economic issues. However, there are no studies that verify the truthfulness of improving the quality of life of workers in relation to the establishment of CSR practices in the company that they work, which in turn, can influence the productivity of the workers and therefore in a decrease welfare in the society that ends in economic repercussions for the Mexican economic environment. From an environmental point of view, there are economic, environmental, and an example, the Kuznets environmental curve (Correa et al., 2005) that directly affect the company as a structure, the viability of legal framework in Mexico and its incentives toward the company, which also tends to be conditioned by economic factors.

As pollution vs. economic growth is a debate within the environmental sciences and economics. In addition to the above, the concept has also been studied from the biological point of view, which focuses on minimizing pollution regardless of economic costs or viability within the current economic system, tends to be more utopian (Gudynas, 2009).

Sustainable development has become more a discourse than a resource, a way and a method of reconfiguring society and preserving nature and life itself (Salinas, 2007). The technical problem of this is to obtain an acceptable estimate of the social cost and externalities to bring the tax (or subsidy) in line, which raised the need to carry out, in collaboration with other specialists, environmental impact assessments that would serve as a basis for the desired pecuniary estimates. Even though the obligatory partiality and arbitrariness of such assessments has served most often to provide benign estimates of the social costs that justify state authorization of damages (Cruz, 2006).

Although the issue of CSR is not new, the line that investigates the impact of the application of CSR practices on workers has little depth of theoretical and methodological research, since research on the subject focuses more, the profitability of the company and its effectiveness as a marketing theme.

Certified models known in Mexico, Family Responsible Enterprise (EFR), ESR, Including Company (DEI), the three above, are programs operated by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Prevention (STPS) (PROFEPA) and at the state level, exclusive of the state of Jalisco, the Voluntary Environmental Compliance Program (PCAV), in addition to ISO 26000 in Social Responsibility and ISO 14000 focused on the environment, and lastly the A8000 certificate focused on the practices of corporate social development.

Do these certifications actually work? What do they work for? An example is the Family Responsible Company model, 5 years after its implementation, what benefits have been achieved? Does the quality of life of the workers actually increase?

An example more attached, is the Family Business model, which was replicated in Mexico through the program of distinctions awarded by the Secretary of Labor and Social Prevention (STPS). This program was developed by the business school of the University of Navarra, Spain, where through assumptions and theories of competitiveness and productivity in workers, justify the importance and feasibility of its implementation.

However, there are no studies that demonstrate the evaluation of the model, once it has been implemented. The most attached to this is the IESE Family Responsible Employer Index developed by the same University of Navarra and analyzes the level of implementation of the Responsibility Familiar Corporate and its impact on people and organization. However, their studies do not take into account Mexico, so there is a lack of information regarding the feasibility of implementing these practices in Mexico and creates doubts, whether or not true these practices work as they say on their website.

The objectives of this analysis are to identify the variations that exist between the application of CSR practices within the company and the quality of life and development of workers. Hierarchize the importance of the most relevant factors within the application of the CSR. Provide information that serves to design strategies for the improvement and/or solution of the development of the quality of life of workers with respect to companies that implement social responsibility practices. Establish links between CSR and the welfare of society.

1.3 JUSTIFICATION

The phenomenon of social responsibility is essential within the strategic planning of a company. However, in Mexico, this phenomenon is little studied and it is assumed that the implementation of social responsibility practices, will obtain positive results, but these results, few times are analyzed and evaluated. Therefore, some degree of disbelief in Mexican society is perceived on the benefits of these practices. In addition to the above, some news and the null results of the evaluations related to the CSR models to reinforce the hypothesis that the implementation of these models are not working for the companies, from the point of view, of the improvement in the quality of life of the workers.

1.4 THEORETICAL-CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

The problem lies in the following way: To what extent do employees who work in companies with CSR practices improve their quality of life? Is there a relationship between the development and improvement of the quality of life of employees and the model of CSR? What factors intervene? Do SCR practices actually work to improve social welfare?

The political factor is an important variable, since it can influence directly or indirectly the way in which companies adopt the SCR practices. The theoretical limits of the problem are based on the assumptions in which companies adopting SCR practices have external certification issued by third parties, whether governmental or non-profit institutions.

The Geographic delimitation is Mexico, since it is where the problematic is identified and it is viable in questions of resources for the analysis. In addition, it can be a unit of comparison, with respect to the other countries, since they share characteristics (at country level) that can influence the study, such as culture, legal structure, and applicable models.

The object of study and/or observation units, will focus on individuals working in certified comp...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About the Editors
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Editorial Board
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1. Corporate Social Responsibility, Labor Development, and Quality of Life of Workers
• 2. A Study on the Relationship Between CSR Spending and the Firms’ Profitability of Select Indian FMCG Companies
• 3. Globalization and Corporate Social Responsibility
• 4. The Extent of CSR and Sustainability in the Ghanaian Mining Sector
• 5. Environmental Accounting—A New Dimension of Sustainable Development
• 6. Corporate Social Responsibility in Academic Spin-Offs
• 7. Role of Integrated Marketing Communication for Promoting Indian Women’s Health and Wellbeing: With Reference of CSR Perspective
• 8. Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on Education in India: An Analysis of Post Companies Act, 2013 Era
• 9. Role of Indian Post Offices on Women Empowerment: A Study on Social Responsibility Perspective
• 10. Corporate Social Responsibility, Firm Reputation, and Reputational Risks: A Case of the Banking Sector in Ghana
• 11. An Empirical Study on Perception Variation Regarding CSR Expenditures and Different Purposes for Spending Among Selected Companies
• 12. Corporate Social Responsibility: Impact and Outcome Approach, Emerging Challenges
• Index