What Does Corporate Social Responsibility (csr) Mean to You Personally

1. What does Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mean to you personally? Do you think business organizations should be socially responsible? Explain.

 CSR for me means that corporations operate in an ethical and socially responsible manner and are answerable to not only to their shareholders, but also society at large. As mentioned in the textbook, society at large passed laws for these corporations to be formed, (Robbins et al.,2009). Then we (society) support these corporations by purchasing their goods and services and thus contributing to their profits. Thus, in turn corporations should operate their business in a manner that not only adheres to corporate laws, but also respects the environment they operate in whether that is local or overseas.

 CSR should be practiced by these large corporations not only in North America and Europe, but also in nations that don’t have sound governments and laws. For example: Shell and other petroleum companies work under strict environmental laws in North America. Oil spills are cleaned up in a timely manner and any environment damage is met with harsh fines. However, these same corporations operating in Nigeria follow none of these environmental laws as the local governments are corrupt. Petroleum companies like Shell, are not answerable to the government or the locals when an oil spill occurs, they don’t take any remedial action to contain these spills, they are allowed to pollute the locals drinking water, destroy their landscape and livelihood.

 Yes, I strongly feel that corporations need to be held socially responsible for their operations world-wide as they affect society and our environment at large. If corporations are allowed to operate without strict CSR laws, I feel most will do as little as possible from a social responsibility standpoint and try to only maximize their profits. I thus, feel that strict laws and regulations