Dr. Muhammad Abdul Mazid :
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) synonymous to corporate conscience or responsible business, also promoting philanthropy for social development, is a form of corporate self – regulation integrated into a social business model. CSR reflects the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society, the environment and its own prosperity, known as the ” trip;le bottom line” of people, planet, and profit.
CSR often focused on philanthropy as a driver of CSR. That notion has been supplanted by a broad commitment to protecting and improving the lives of workers and the communities in which companies do business. It is a common perception that people see this work as charity, philanthropy, or an allocation of resources for social development that could better be donated by shareowners themselves.
Participation in the social development: The historical perspectives : Emphasis on social, environmental and economic sustainability has become a focus of many CSR efforts. Socially responsible investors have now been a key catalyst asking companies to develop a CSR agenda like in the last decades, especially in our part of the world, which was under colonial administration for several hundred years. In British India, the colonial governments could not consider it obligatory for providing adequate social services to the native general public, their welfare were compartmentalized to a limited locality , few sections of the society and only in the selected sectors. In that event the social development goals were marginally meet up by local moneyed man through voluntary contributions . Subsequent governments either in pre or post 1971 remain indifferent due to paucity of resources and adequacy of supply to growing demand, therefore, CSR has had to be an impending source and hope for the social development . It is encouraging that in recent years, mainstream financial institutions and the even the regulators, like Bangladesh Bank, have also come to value CSR. A recent survey of CSR investment by Banking institutions found that 53% of predicted socially responsible investment indicators will become commonplace in mainstream investing within 10 years. However, one weakness of CSR and sustainability reports, however, is lack of common measures of performance which can lead to hyperbole and green washing. Despite progress made by many companies, reporting are still in its early stages at most corporations. The state policy should encourage CSR rather discouraging by making tight provisions for incentives like tax exemption or rebate etc. CSR is important to remain sustainable. Strong communities support strong organizations; the reverse is also true.
There is none to deny the importance for an entity or person to take social responsibility for its actions must be fully accountable. Social Accounting, a sequel to Social Business ,a concept describing the communication of social, ethical and environmental effects of any economic actions to particular interest groups within society and to society at large, is thus an important element of CSR. Social accounting emphasizes the notion of corporate accountability.
Few potential areas of CSR leading to Social Development
Human Resource Development : CSR program can be an aid to recruitment and retention, particularly within the competitive graduate student market. Establishing vocational institutes like nursing training institutes may create a congenial environment for the economic emancipation of this manpower surplus society.
Risk management: Managing procedural, natural or environmental risks has been a crucial concern of the society . Reputations that take decades to build up can be ruined in hours through incidents such as corruption scandals or environmental accidents. These can also draw unwanted attention from regulators, courts, governments and media. Through awareness campaigns building a genuine culture of ‘doing the right thing at the right moment’ and ‘ continuation of the developmental activities despite the change of policy makers’ within a society can help prevent control or even offsetting these risks.
Helping the Disabled: In recent years CSR is noticeable in the most of the social welfare activities to the welfare of able bodied people but do not take into account the disabled people who are also a part of the society in which the company exists and who amount to at least 10% of the population. There should be non-discrimination or diversity management awareness-raising, there should be included the disability factor in employment/HR indicators so that the situation of people with disabilities can be compared with that of able.
Criticisms and concerns: Critics of CSR as well as proponents debate a number of concerns related to it. These include CSR’s relationship to the fundamental purpose and nature of business and questionable motives for engaging in CSR, including concerns about insincerity and hypocrisy. Regulations and restrictions which are imposed to avail CSR incentives may also be seen as discouraging if these are not framed or enforced from an encouraging standpoint.
Sense of obligation: A particular school of thought have argued that a corporation’s purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders, and that since only people can have social responsibilities, corporations are only responsible to their shareholders and not to society as a whole. Although they accept that corporations should obey the laws of the countries within which they work, they assert that corporations have no other obligation to society. Critics of this argument perceive the free market as opposed to the well-being of society and a hindrance to human freedom. They claim that the type of capitalism practiced in many developing countries is a form of economic and cultural imperialism , noting that these countries usually have fewer labor protections, and thus their citizens are at a higher risk of exploitation by multinational corporations.
Motives and Mindsets: Some critics believe that CSR programs are undertaken by companies such as British American Tobacco (BAT), the cellular phone providers (well known for its high-profile advertising campaigns ), and booming Real State sector might be to distract the public from socio- economic and ethical questions posed by their core operations. They argue that some corporations start CSR programs for the commercial benefit they enjoy through raising their reputation with the public or with government. Corporations which exist solely to maximize profits are unable to advance the interests of society as a whole. In this context critics concerned with corporate hypocrisy and insincerity generally suggest that better governmental and international regulation and enforcement, rather than voluntary measures, might be necessary to ensure that companies behave in a socially responsible manner. For a commonly overlooked motives and mindset of the regulators’ for CSR, whereby CSR can also be driven by personal values, in addition to the more obvious financial and governmental drivers.
Crucial consumerism: The rise in popularity of consumerism over the last two decades can be linked to the rise of CSR in Bangladesh. As national population and economic activities increases, so does the pressure on limited natural resources required to meet rising consumer demand. Industrialization, however, is booming as a result of both technology and globalization. At the same time, increasingly corporations are motivated to become more socially responsible because their most important stakeholders expect them to understand and address the social and community issues that are relevant to them. NGOs have a better role to play in creating awareness and fixing priorities.
Social development awareness : Role of dialogue and education: The role among corporate stakeholders is to work collectively to pressure corporations that are changing.. NGOs are also taking an increasing role, leveraging the power of the media and the Internet to increase their scrutiny and collective activism around corporate behavior. Through education and dialogue, the development of community awareness in holding businesses responsible for their actions is growing.
Ethics training: The rise of ethics training inside corporations, some of it required by government regulation, is another driver credited with changing the behavior and culture of corporations. The aim of such training is to help employees make ethical decisions when the answers are unclear.
Laws and regulation: Another driver of CSR is the role of independent mediators, particularly the government, in ensuring that corporations are prevented from harming the broader social good, including people and the environment. The issues surrounding government regulation may also pose problems. Regulation in itself is unable to cover every aspect in detail of a corporation’s operations. This leads to burdensome legal processes bogged down in interpretations of the law and debatable grey areas. Again it is also true that organisations pay taxes to government to ensure that society should get benefit out of this transferred payment
(Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid, formerly Secretary to the Government of Bangladesh and Chairman, National Board of Revenue , presently Chief Coordinator, Diabetic Association of Bangladesh. [email protected])
