Lecture 6 - Corporate Social Responsibility

Our most recent lecture was on CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility and it got me thinking on the idea of CSR as a gimmick.

I mean, I think, that CSR is in itself a PR activity. It helps corporate image and strengthens the corporate brand. CSR programs does this by presenting corporations to be caring, socially responsible and ethical organizations rather than huge, powerful and elite conglomerates. CSR programs are meant to communicate to the public that corporations are doing their part for the world and are genuinely concerned enough about societal issues to dedicate their time and resources to addressing and correcting these issues.

And I'm sure in some cases corporations are genuine in their concern.

But the lecture was really interesting in getting me to think about whether the public or consumers actually still buy into the vadility of CSR programs or whether they are becoming wary to the idea of CSR as corporate PR.

Whilst researching the topic of corporate social responsibility online, I found (to my surprise, quite frankly) that the Gaurdian's website has an entire section dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility.

Or rather on examining whether corporations are really practicing ethical business and whether corporate social responsibility programs are really what they claim to be.

The site is very interesting with articles on how CSR programs often do not live up to their hype. A really great article covers how Disney's claims to be have created a CSR program aimed at being environmentally friendly are just part of a bid to spruce up their image.

The article states Disney CEO Robert Iger's opinions about Disney's bid to be more environmentally firendly.

"In case anyone thought this do-goodery would damage the bottom line, CEO Robert Iger promised that the wider purpose was to "make our brands and products more attractive, strengthen our bonds with consumers, make the company a more desirable place to work, and build goodwill in the communities we operate. All of this contributes to shareholder value.""

This is just an example of the types of artciles the site features.

What struck me is that, if a large print publication's website can have a entire section of their highly popular website dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility or rather the vadility of Corporate Social Responsibility, then isn't there a widespread skepticism about the genuineness of CSR programs and more broadly how successful can CSR programs be in convincing the public that corporations are genuinely doing good?

Haven't CSR programs then become transparent to the public as PR activities or as bids to help corporate image?

I think so. I think the public are increasingly seeing CSR as gimmickry and I beleive the PR people of corporations need to seriously consider the immplications of this for their CSR programs.

Here is a link to the website;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/corporatesocialresponsibility