Discussion on Purpose of Corporate Social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility has been define as that: "the view that organizations should act ethically, in ways that contribute to economic development, the environment, quality of working life, local communities, and the wider society" (Huczynski and Buchanan (2013). The purpose of this essay is to discuss whether corporate social responsibility activities are a genuine effort made by companies to show their wider societal responsibilities or they are just a cynical marketing ploy. Different opinions are given on this topic. This essay agrees that the original intention of the corporate social responsibility is to show more care to the environment and people who are involved in the business activities, however it is also true that some of the companies are carrying out corporate social responsibilities just because they would like to use it as a marketing tool to improve the brand image and to attract more customers to buy the products or service.
This essay will firstly discuss the reasons why companies engage in corporate social responsibility genuinely as well as to analyse the benefits and costs that CSR activities brought to companies. As the other opinion given is that CSR activities are carried out because companies would to enhance the corporate image and to reach its objectives on marketing. This essay will firstly present and discuss the opinions on this view and then analyse the reasons why companies merely choose CSR activities as marketing tools and what benefits and costs that companies need to take.
According to Bhattacharya, Sen and Korschun (2011), corporate social responsibility is a form for corporate to self regulate and to go beyond the policies and regulation made by the government and related association. The original purpose of CSR is to encourage companies to have positive impacts on the...