WEEK 8 :  Corporate Social Responsibility

 

Main Ideas and Topics of the Week:

Modern consumers are interested in for-profit businesses avoid making negative impacts on the world and create positive change through their operations. As such many corporations are changing to meet that demand through CSR efforts.

This week we learned about CSR subsets and discovered that nearly all businesses support some kind of CSR. We also evaluated which type of CSR is best for an organization given the impact it wants to create. We also saw the part we play as a customer, an employee, and an administrator to CSR in for profit businesses.

Reflection:

The video that I want to reflect upon is “Why We Need to Re-Think Capitalism.” https://youtu.be/dvJSK4viVMs The reason why this one resonated with me is I have always thought that in order to do the best for the world and those in need you should do it through service and not earn a profit from the endeavor.  This video opened my ideas to why this type of thinking is actually hindering the progress of companies wanting to help the underserved. Paul Tudor Jones II, the TED talk presenter, loves capitalism. It's a system that has done him very well over the last few decades. But despite that the hedge fund manager and philanthropist is concerned that a laser focus on profits is, as he puts it, "threatening the very underpinnings of society." In this talk, he outlines his planned counter-offensive, which centers on the concept of "justness" or change in overall behavior. First, companies need to realize how little they are actually contributing to charity. Second, by trusting the system that got them here in the first place which is the free market system.  Third, by reaching out to the consumer to see what the most important thing for the public is- he used the example of a livable wage.

 

Writing Prompt:

Why do you think CSR has become more popular in recent years?

 

I think CSR has become more popular because companies have realized just how invested their consumers are in this area of focus.  Not only will consumers buy more of whatever product you are selling, but they will contribute to efforts you make to help others which gives the company even more buy in from the consumer. 

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