CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AT MNCS

Corporate Social Responsibility at MNCs

Table of Content

Introduction5

Objective of the Study6

Stakeholder Salience Model6

MOCs CSR Initiatives in the Niger Delta17

Trust and Discontent Issue19

Conclusion21

References22

Executive Summary

Corporate social responsiveness refers to how business organizations and their agents actively interact with and manage their environments. In contrast, corporate social responsibility accentuates the moral obligations that business has to society. Responsiveness and responsibility can be viewed on a means-end continuum in that responsiveness can be shaped or triggered by public expectations of business responsibilities. Generally speaking, these responsibilities are implied by the terms of the social contract, which legitimizes business as an institution with the expectation that it serve the greater good by generating commerce while adhering to society's laws and ethical norms. From this perspective, corporations are in a dynamic relationship with society of which responsiveness is key.

Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has been adopted as a formal policy goal by many advanced society governments and businesses. A flavor of its meaning can be gained by looking, especially at some of the governmental Web sites. For instance, CSR has been defined formally by the British government in the following general terms: It is the business contribution to collective sustainable development goals, concerning how business takes account of its economic, social, and environmental impacts in the way it operates—maximizing the benefits and minimizing the downsides. More broadly, there is the issue of why business should bother. After all, as neoclassical economists have long argued, business owes abstractions such as “society” nothing—shareholders are the owners of business and it is the organization's obligation to do everything legal and legitimate to advance shareholder value, not to squander it on well-meaning but irrelevant CSR projects. On the other hand, the stakeholder model of the firm would insist that shareholders are but one set of stakeholders; that there are plenty of other significant stakeholders, including customers; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); communities and civil society more generally; as well as activist groups claiming to articulate the interests of the environment, animals, or other mute stakeholders. Looked at in this broader way, the question becomes one of temporality: If businesses serve only shareholder value interests in the short term and do so in such a way as to jeopardize other interests that might claim representation or be represented, and these then boomerang back onto the business by attacking its legitimacy or reputation, then it becomes a matter of shareholder value to attend to broader stakeholder interests. As David Vogel suggested in 2005, it may well be the standard business case that the primary responsibility of companies is to create wealth for their shareholders. But the emergence of CSR and activists associated with it adds a twist: In order for companies to do well financially, they must also be good, ethically, by acting virtuously.

Civil society organizations have increased the energy they devote to directly lobbying and exposing the malpractice of corporations, which has helped to change consumer preferences and citizen's attitudes toward human rights, the environment, and exploitative relationships, as ...