Corporate Social Responsibility - A pre requisite

CSR – A Pre requisite

Karl Marks once said that, ‘business is all green, only philosophy is grey”. It tended to illustrate that business is concerned with profit & not with its impact on society & repercussions thereafter.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planed a tree a long time back. CSR as a theme of business world got a push in the 80s & 90s. Bowen is referred as modern father of Corporate Social responsibilities. Kautilya however put forth all possible fundamentals of modern CSR 2300 years back in Arthshastra. He mentioned four functions of the king:  i. to acquire what is not gained, ii. To protect what is gained, iii. To increase what is protected, IV. To bestow the surplus upon the deserving.

 As a recent special report in The Economist notes, “doing well by doing good” has become a popular business mantra – the idea that firms can be successful by acting in the broader interests of society as a whole even while they satisfy the narrow interests of shareholders.  Although virtually all big companies today have to come to terms with Corporate Social Responsibility, the concept of CSR at the core of their strategies, few seem to have figured out how an integrated business strategy incorporating the social agenda might be fashioned. Taking clue, from Darwin theory – Survival of the fittest, today business scenario also invents, develops or re emphasize on one or the other dimensions while strategizing the business processes. It is to be understood that CSR has both internal & external dimensions:

a.                Internal dimension deals with socially responsible practices involving employees and environmentally responsible practices involving management of natural resources.

b.             External dimension of CSR extends beyond the doors of the corporate to the middle of the local community and multifarious stakeholders.

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