scholarly journals Reimagining Corporate Social Responsibility in the Era of COVID-19: Embedding Resilience and Promoting Corporate Social Competence

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6548
Author(s):  
Jingchen Zhao

The debate over corporate objectives and how companies deal with amplified existing societal inequalities and vulnerabilities has received increasing attention in recent years, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic encouraged companies and policy makers to consider ways to develop a more enabling institutional environment, not only to tackle the ongoing crisis but also to prepare for similar future tests. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the significance and effectiveness of ex ante corporate social responsibility (CSR) law approaches in tackling the challenges brought by the pandemic. We investigate the uniqueness of the sustainable development challenges in the era of the pandemic, and introduce “corporate social competence” as a compliance principle in response to the need for forward-looking approaches to risk management and strategic planning. We use two ex ante legislative approaches in company law, namely mandatory CSR policy and legally recognised inclusive business models, as examples to illuminate the contribution of company law to navigate the pandemic beyond philanthropic CSR actions.

Author(s):  
Xuetong Wang ◽  
Wenyong Lai ◽  
Xiangnan Song ◽  
Chen Lu

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), as companies’ commitment to the sustainable development of the whole society, is an important approach for construction companies to respond to the emerging social and environmental issues. As the improvement of CSR efficiency leads to the reduction of CSR cost, CSR efficiency is becoming increasingly prominent for construction companies. In this research, the three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is adopted to analyze the CSR efficiency of Chinese construction companies in the period of 2012–2016. The findings of this research are as follows: (1) the efficiency of the Chinese construction companies in fulfilling CSR has not yet reached an optimal level; (2) the effect of institutional factors on CSR efficiency is complex and non-linear; and (3) the improvement of the CSR efficiency in the Chinese construction industry relies on both optimizing the institutional environment and enhancing the management capacity of CSR efficiency. These findings can not only provide empirical evidence for the government to formulate targeted policy-making regarding marketization to promote construction companies’ efficient commitment of CSR, but also provide construction company managers a valuable reference to benchmarking the CSR efficiency to help them find self-improvement ways to improve CSR efficiency performance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 413-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hortensia Gorski ◽  
Mircea Fuciu ◽  
Luigi Dumitrescu

Abstract The current changes and challenges of the economic and financial environments have created a need for further development in the way higher education, organizations and management systems view the sustainable development and business education. The purpose of this paper is to examine different aspects and approaches regarding sustainability, sustainable development, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the context of business education. The research is based on a literature review, on the experience gained as a result of our participation in various projects and international activities regarding the above-mentioned concepts, and on the results of several qualitative and quantitative marketing researches developed by the authors. Based on these findings we are underlining the fact that the concepts related to CSR and its components are not well known by managers of companies and public institutions and we also point out the fact that the respondents that have knowledge and skills in this field, have acquired most of them outside the formal education system. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the discussion needed to take place in order to understand that universities should make important steps not only for reorienting curriculum, developing programs, and modules, but also in implementing innovative teaching methods in order to integrate such topics in their educational programs.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Constâncio A. Machanguana ◽  
Idalina Dias Sardinha

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the scientific and societal debates about the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and particularly on the resettlements’ processes as part of extractive multinational companies (MNCs)’s commitments where the host country is an emerging extractive economy. Design/methodology/approach It is an exploratory study based on the analysis of secondary data, few interviews and on-site observation and deals with the description of the assessment of VALE, SA resettlement processes and assumed CSR practices of VALE, SA, an MNC operating in the Moatize district, Tete province in Mozambique. Findings The MNC assumes resettlement processes to be part of the CSR arena and reveals that VALE, SA follows a reactive poor approach as to CSR. The weak institutional context in Mozambique is like others described in the literature. The empirical data together with the sense of an ethical responsibility approach associated with resettlement processes and the paradigm shift in aid for trade as to development supported by the MNC’s CSR leads to the conclusion that resettlement can be considered part of the CSR of a mining MNC. Research limitations/implications The difficult access to key informants of the resettled communities, local government and little interest in interview participation by VALE, SA, showed a current lack of confidence and communication limitations by the company as to this issue. Practical implications The failure of VALE, SA and other mining companies to meet their resettlement responsibilities and the inability of government supervision, requires local and national, as well as social and scientific communication processes and debate on this issue to be maintained on an ongoing basis during the mining life cycle to guaranty accomplishments of CSR. Social implications The controversy over whether mining MNCs will benefit Africa’s emerging economies as to their socio-economic development will continue until MNCs commit themselves and act to be economically, legally and ethically responsible for contributing to the sustainable development of the countries where they operate. Originality/value This paper contributes to the debate on whether CSR frames the resettlement process based on literature review and key stakeholder views.


Author(s):  
Naglaa Fathy El Dessouky

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a significant field of studies to stress the importance of the new role of organizations towards the society for sustainable development. Nowadays, an enormous number of authors have been participating in this field to highlight the responsibility of organizations towards the community, society and the natural environment where they are operating. Despite the growing number of researches related to CSR in the developed countries little empirical studies have been devoted to examine CSR concept and practice in the African countries, the MENA region (Middle-East and North Africa), as well as in the Golf countries. This chapter seeks to study CSR concept and practice in the emerging market economies (EMEs). It will mainly focus on the implementations of CSR by the public banking sector. We will investigate the role of the public banking sector existing in an Arab country in comparison to an Asian country to explain and analyze the similarities and differences of CSR activities in both experiences. In this comparative study we will primarily examine Banque Misr, as one of the oldest and largest public bank in Egypt and the Malayan Banking Berhad (trading as Maybank) as the largest public bank in Malaysia. After a meticulous review of literature, we propose a systemic framework to study CSR practices and policy implementations. We illustrated the CSR as a constant process where all variables are interrelated and are affecting each other in a mutual approach. In this systemic framework we advocated to study all significant variables related to CSR practice as: the history/philosophy development, core-values, CSR adopted definition, motives, key players, approaches, stakeholders focus, sectors of intervention and mechanisms of policy implementations. The chapter concludes that common CSR policies exist between the Malaysian and the Egyptian experience. Nevertheless the Malaysian model has formulated an elaborated and further sophisticated CSR public banking program. Meanwhile, the Egyptian model needs to adopt more global oriented CSR public banking policies, in particular to assure the sustainable development requirements.


Author(s):  
Eva Asensio ◽  
Jesús Perán ◽  
Yolanda Rodríguez

Corporate Social Responsibility has become more significant among companies and other institutions. Nevertheless, the traditional approach of corporate social responsibility, based on preventing the possible negative impact of irresponsible and unethical practices, is no longer enough. The profound socio-economic changes, accelerated as a result of the global economic crisis, demand a further step respect to corporate social responsibility paradigm linking to the so-called social entrepreneurship, understood here as the incorporation of new social demands to business models. This chapter aims to redefine the concept of social entrepreneurship from an eclectic point of view and present a methodological approach for their measurement as a tool for business strategic planning. The theoretical proposal of social entrepreneurship tries to link creating shared value concept with the stakeholder theory, paying special attention to the Social Return on Investment (SROI) method, together with neuroscientific approach, as tools for the measurement of social value.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document