DISSERTATION
A critical evaluation on how organisations use CSR
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Executive Summary
The research project has been started to elaborate on the concept of CSR and its different aspects. It is containing three chapters as introduction, literature review and research methodology. The introduction chapter has contained information regarding the concept of corporate social responsibilities and defined the topic with its benefits’, aims, purpose, objective, questions and structure. Next in the Literature review chapter, the concept of CSR, different factors, two theories, associated challenges with it and suitable strategies are elaborated along with literature gap and a conceptual framework. Moreover, the significance of CSR is extremely high for the organisations to manage the quality of the employee and stakeholder participation to improve the efficiency of the operations. The following study has been developed to ensure a proper view of the essential factors associated with CSR in the form of the challenges and strategies. In light of that, the literature review section has been done with the identification of the literature gap to have a better outcome. On the other hand, chapter 3 has been given to provide every possible detail on the research methodology to have a perfect view of the outcome, which is necessary.
Based on the findings it can be said that CSR has a greater impact on the company as it enables them to manage their impact on the environment and the wider society. Different organisations of the UK like Boeing and Asda used to manage CSR activities like reducing the impact on environment by controlling the carbon emission.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Background of CSR
CSR stands for corporate social responsibility which leads business organisations to be socially, economically and environmentally responsible through their activities and priorities. It encourages organisations to involve their stakeholders to be flexible towards their responsibilities for the ensuring wellbeing of the environment, society and economy. CSR refers to some set of policies and practices that involves corporations or businesses to leave a positive impact on the surrounding (Lu et al., 2019). It drives business corporations to peruse social activities that enhance brand image along with maximising profits for them. Through social and environmental concerns business organisations ensure high valued and efficient interactions with stakeholders ad ensure the achievement of balance between social, environmental and economical practices (Unido.org, 2022). The UK organisations consider CSR activities as one of their major priorities to conduct for building a high-value image along with supporting environment and social wellbeing. CSR helps to implement sustainable development in the society by corporations through core values, principles and responsibilities. Human resource management of corporations design strategies and adopt ideas for fulfilling their responsibilities towards the environment and society.
CSR activities ensure the benefits of controlling risk through saving costs and expenses of companies. As recycling, waste management, energy-efficient activities are integrated part of CSR activities it supports organisations to save the cost of operations and services and strengthen the financial base for them. In the area of environment, CSR practices include activities such as recycling, waste management, sufficient and right water and energy usage, emissions of harmful gases, running eco-friendly business operations at the workplace and so on. CSR practices ensure a high advantage for organisations by saving costs and reducing wastage of resources. It helps to enhance brand image and increase competitive advantage in the market by increasing profits and revenue (Nibusinessinfo, 2022). It is one of the major activities of business organisations in the UK for achieving the wellbeing of the planet and trust from customers.
As buyers, these days are hugely concerned for the wellbeing of the planet they prefer to buy products and services from organisations that practice ethical CSR activities (Bartok, 2018). Therefore, organisations that practice ethical CSR activities gain customers faith and follow eventually that reflects from their sales and profits. Additionally, proper contribution to the economy by paying taxes to the government, contributing to society by supporting underprivileged areas, ethical business practices with stakeholders are also parts of CSR activities. Sustainability is a major priority in current days for every country and the main purpose of this is to address global challenges faced by the planet, humanity, society and economy.
CSR aims to create balance and by providing general guidance to the wellbeing of the environment and society sustainability or CSR practices ensured fair practices from all organisations' end (Statista, 2021). However, in case of not complying with CSR regulations organisations face different consequences in their business procedures and stakeholders relation effectively. The Environment Act is one of the major parts and areas of compliance in the UK that includes the activities of the government to bind targets for air pollution, biodiversity, water management, water and energy-saving and climate change (Clientearth.org, 2020). These mandatory areas are governed by the UK government and leading business corporations to a company with these. Along with this other legislation regarding human rights, employee rights, social living and others are also involved in Corporate Social Responsibilities of business organisations. CSR helps to satisfy employees and customers both at the same time. By saving costs it strengthens the organisational financial base. Enhanced brand value helps to gain more business opportunities and support long term future goals that help to achieve growth and sustainability in relevant sectors of all businesses.
Significance of the problem
CSR activities help business farms to attain growth and sustainability by contributing to environmental, social and economical areas of the country. It helps to achieve high brand value and cost achieving operational tactics for long term business run and competitive advantage in relevant sectors. However, the problem occurs when any organisation fail to conduct Corporate Social Responsibility practices ethically or responsibly. It highly influences such organisations market image. Non-compliance with corporate social responsibilities leads organisations to face reduced brand value ad decreased faith from customers. There is a three-fold impact of not practising CSR such as bad reputation, customer cynicism and lower profit (Linkedin, 2015). When companies are not engaged in CSR practices they are considered irresponsible brands and get rejected by customers and other stakeholders that create a severe lack in financial earning which decreases competitive advantage for such corporations.
Non-compliance with CSR often causes penalties and deeper punishments for corporations (Asad et al., 2018). It includes severe image reduction of brands that leads customers and employees to be less engaged with them and helps to reduce sales and production. Additionally, when companies do not comply with CSR responsibilities it faces weakness in their cost-saving. CSR practices help to save the cost of organisational work operation and when corporations refuse to conduct corporate social responsibilities it fails to save operational costs.
Statement of purpose
The main purpose of the research project is to identify the importance of corporate social responsibilities for organisations. The purpose of conducting CSR practices is to give back to the environment and the community to create a positive social value (Choi et al., 2018). As CSR comes under major responsibilities of corporate farms it leads organisations to maintain their ethical actions towards the environment, society and economy. It is a major practices area of business farms that will enable the researcher to gain knowledge regarding the ways companies practice their corporate social responsibilities. It continues to enhance knowledge and understanding of environmental needs to ensure the wellbeing of the planet. Additionally, such a topic can help the researcher to identify different aspects of CSR such as factors influencing organisations to conduct CSR, associated challenges with it and so on. Through this research project, the knowledge and understating of corporate social responsibilities will be clear and enhanced throughout the project. Additionally, the purpose of identifying strategies to mitigate issues faced by organisations to conduct CSR can be effectively done by the research.
Statement of the problem
While conducting CSR practice it is mandatory to practice all activities ethically or else major problems occur in case of any non-compliance. One of the major problems is less participation from the community. Organisational staffs as its community if conducts any unethical practice, it directly impacts as a problem for CSR practices. CSR responsibilities are meant to be executed ethically. A lack of interest from the staffs' end creates the problem of compliance that creates obstacles in conducting CSR activities. Additionally, it requires huge resource allocation or availability to conduct environment supportive activities. Problems occur through a lack of knowledge regarding ways of practising CSR activities. For executing CSR responsibilities well, management of organisations gains knowledge and information regarding environmental aspects to contribute well in it. In case of a lack of sufficient knowledge problems in complying with CSR guidelines and ethics are disrupted.
Research Aim objective
The main aim behind the research project is to identify factors to compel corporate social responsibilities and the different challenges associated with them. It also aims to recommend suitable strategies to mitigate issues or challenges that organisations face to conduct Corporate Social Responsibilities.
Objective
To understand the concept of corporate social responsibilities in managing the environmental aspects
To determine the different factors for implementing CSR within the organisations
To evaluate different challenges faced by organisations in managing corporate social responsibilities activities
To recommend strategies to overcome the issues related to corporate social responsibilities management
Research question
What is the concept of corporate social responsibilities in managing environmental aspects?
What are different factors that influence organisations in managing corporate social responsibilities?
What are the challenges that organisations face in conducting and managing CSR practices?
What are the strategies that can help to overcome challenges faced by organisations regarding corporate social responsibilities?
Dissertation structure
The research project contains a total of three chapters such as introduction, a literature review and a research methodology. In the introduction chapter, the background or overview of the co0ncept of Corporate Social Responsibilities, its different benefits of it, associated problems of non-compliance is elaborated. The purpose of the research projects, statements of problem and purpose are also described. The literature review chapter will contain different points such as the concept of CSR, compelling factors and associated challenges along with two theories that will be discussed. The methodology portion will hold different methods such as research design, philosophy, approach, strategy, data collection method, instruments, sampling, reliability, validity and ethics will be elaborated.
Chapter 2: Literature review
Conceptual framework
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
(Created by the learner)
Overview of CSR within the organisation
The concept of Corporate Social responsibility is based on its purpose of contributing well to the environment, society and economy. This responsibility is fulfilled by business corporations for ensuring the well-being of the environment. As per Kabirifar et al. (2020), sustainability of the environment is one of the major parts of Corporate Social Responsibilities that influence business farms to conduct different activities such as recycling. Waste management, energy-saving features at the workplace, deforestation, climate-changing practices, biodiversity and many others are components of Corporate Social Responsibilities in environmental aspects. Organisations take these activities into their consideration and practice most of these to fulfil their CSR responsibilities to create sustainability in the environment. According to ?elazna et al. (2020), business organisations lead their staff to maintain strict compliance with their adopted practices for CSR. As per the reports of Ons.gov.uk (2022), sustainability as an environmental aspect holds an essential position and the rate of sustainable operations and activities is at the level of 81% in 2020. This rate reflects the UK organisations and Governments’ seriousness in enduring environmental benefits and wellbeing.
Business corporations are socially responsible entities that contribute towards ecological areas to ensure good impacts on the planet and thereby increase profitability by saving operational costs. CSR practices. As opined by García-Sánchez et al. (2021), corporate social responsibilities ensure business farms' consideration regarding their contribution towards the planet and for doing this they focus on using eco-friendly material, work processes and features to make sure they are contributing well to the environment. As stated by Spanne (2021), for supporting the planet wellbeing, business farms commit to reducing their environmental impact from their operations. Corporate Social Responsibilities ensures the performance of organisations in the areas of their environmental and social contribution. The performance of business farms is not only based on their profits and sales but also their responsibility fulfilment towards the environment and society. It helps organisations to become highly responsible towards gaining knowledge regarding environmental wellbeing and supporting the planet and society. It comes with several benefits for organisations. According to Statista (2022), in terms of recycling and waste management, the UK does 45/.5% in the year 2019. It shows UK organisations effort in conducting sustainable operations.
Corporate social responsibility helps organisations to retain and engage employees through providing staff with a certain purpose and positive role towards the environment along with fulfilling their central need and adding value to their roles. According to Yoon and Chung, (2018), CSR activities help to improve bottom-line finances by saving the cost of operations. For example, by using waste management and recycling strategies, organisations ensure the reuse of products and services that helps them to save costs of raw material to a much extent. This is one of the ways CSR helps to save operational costs. As Shabbir et al. (2018) have said, CSR practices help organisations to create a higher value image as an environment-friendly brand in the relevant business sector and support the global and local community effectively. By saving operational costs it helps companies with increased investment opportunities. People in current days are more aware of environmental wellbeing makes them buy products and services from eco-friendly companies. As per Packer et al. (2019), organisations who conduct CSR practices efficiently become highly preferable for customers and that enable brands to achieve sales growth. Through customers’ satisfaction, it helps brands to ensure buyers engagement.
CSR helps immensely in company branding when marketers promote all corporate social responsibilities of their company in the market. It helps to retain the brand image and increase brand awareness highly by creating value of responsibility and care for the environment. Organisational marketers through advertising or promoting their CSR practices present the brand as a socially responsible company. It helps brands to create a positive image in their mind regarding products and services and they feel it safe and sound to purchase services or products from such companies. As per Zhang and Yang (2021), through customers’ positive perception brand reputations gets highly increased and it protects businesses to overcome the issue of reputation crisis. It increases competitive advantage for brands by increasing brand awareness and helps to gain enhanced image in front of rival brands. CSR practices come with the benefit of creating a value image that makes it highly sustainable in the business market and gain customers reliability and trust in long term.
Additionally, Corporate Social Responsibilities ensures benefits in growing staff professionally. Staffs after becoming aware of environment sustainability, feel encouraged towards contributing to the positive activities. It helps organisations to make their employees highly aware of environmental needs and the organisational purpose of being involved in Corporate Social Responsibilities. CSR practices involve ethical practices as well that leads organisations to a company with fair business legislation. Ethical practices include proper compliance with the code of conduct, justified pay, benefits and fair relation with stakeholders. As stated by Tamvada (2020), philanthropic responsibilities are another part of CSR that encourage business corporations to contribute in social areas and ensure social wellness. Economic responsibilities include proper contributing to tax and other financial areas of the national government. These are essential areas of corporate social responsibilities apart from environmental practices which collaboratively work to build organisational value, profitability and sustainability.
Factors affecting the concept of CSR implementation within the organisation
Different factors affect CSR activities of organisations that create obstacles in conducting actions for the environment, social, ethical and economic responsibilities.
As per Lerro et al. (2018), awareness is a major factor that affects Corporate Social responsibilities and it is highly influencing for creating obstacles in staff in practising CSR activities. CSR is a collaborative effort for any organisation that requires actions from individuals as a team. In case of a lack of knowledge and awareness of employees regarding the importance of practising CSR works as an influence of CSR. When staff are educated ad knowledgeable enough to understand the need of conducting environmental, social and ethical responsibilities it fuels organisational management to adopt strategies to implement different activities.
For example, when staffs are aware of the significance of recycling or waste management, they feel encouraged towards being a part of sustainable practices. According to Naqvi (2019), when organisations practise CSR responsibilities, it helps the brand to promote their activities and increase social awareness regarding Corporate Social responsibilities. It is a significant factor of CSR practices that fuels brand to adopt and execute practices for ensuring environmental wellbeing. In case an amount of audience or individuals is not aware of environmental sustainability, through promoting CSR practices organisations attempt to educate people about this global concern. It also increases organisational and surrounded community to increase participation and gain cooperation from others in CSR activities.
The financial aspect is another factor that influences CSR practices within organisations. According to Ortiz-Avram et al. (2018), CSR practices for environmental area contains practices such as waste management, recycling, energy-saving and many others that help the brand to save operational costs. Waste management and recycling are mostly adopted and executed sustainable practices that help brands highly to save operational and production expenses by making reusable materials available. It ensures organisational strength of funds and finances by cost-saving that increases the chance of gaining larger profit. By using finances organisations become more efficient in innovating products and services and that helps to attract customers and gain increased sales and profits for the company. Eventually, it helps organisations to increase their competitive advantage in the business sector.
Environmental issues of reduced sustainability and decreased wellbeing of the planet is another major factor that compels companies to conduct CSR practices. As opined by Coluccia et al. (2018), for reducing the damaging effect of the environment CSR practices are adopted and practices by business organisations. It compels organisations to adopt different strategies for CSR and leads management to execute these for gaining positive of it. Adopting activities such as recycling, waste management, climate change, carbon emission, practices for solving deforestations issues and many others are included in CSR practices for environmental sustainability. Such issues work as essential factors affecting CSR practices for organisations.
Issues of transparency and trust is another significant factor that leads organisations to conduct different types of sustainable and ethical practices to create trust and value image in the eyes of stakeholders for brands. The creation of a market image with value and good reputations is another fuelling factor for CSR practices from organisations' end. As per Iglesias et al. (2020), it works as building transparency of products and services regarding its production elements and strategies. When customers come to know about some sustainable products and services, it creates trust and transparency among them for the brand that fuels brand image highly. The desire of achieving customers trust and faith in brand work is another factor affecting CSR practices.
Concentrated efforts work as another factor for affecting CSR practices for organisations. This factor works as fuelling team working and collaborations among staff. It achieves high efficiency in complying with ethical practices and associated regulations and policies relevant to it. Additionally, with concentrated effort brands become able to execute strategies of CSR.
Ethics works as an essential factor for affecting CSR practices within organisations. CSR activities include ethical practices such as code of conduct, maintaining human rights regulations, social ethics and other legal aspects to ensure proper compliance of CSR. This works as an important factor of CSR and in the case of non-compliance, it reduces the brand image. As stated by Carlini et al. (2019), through ethical beliefs and values organisations become encouraged towards practising CSR and proceed towards implementing different processes.
The factor of impacting social strength and increasing it highly is another aspect of affecting CSR practices. Awareness and practice of environmental activities help to ensure enhancement of social impact through improving living styles of people. When organisations provide sustainable services and products it enables the society to develop their living style and support the wellbeing of the planet through ethical actions. It eventually works as a fuelling factor for Corporate Social Responsibility and motivates organisations to create a sustainable living system and lifestyle to maintain environmental, philanthropic, ethical and other areas of the society.
Theoretical Models
Carroll’s Pyramids
According to Meynhardt and Gomez (2019), Carroll’s pyramid is about different layers of Corporate Social responsibilities that contains various aspects such as economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. The pyramid works beneficially for business organisations to make their strategies clear in all these areas to ensure proper compliance of corporate social responsibilities. Economic responsibilities stand for organisational contribution in the area of taxes and other financial areas of the government. Additionally, this responsibility includes fair practices of share, profits, sales and other financial transactions with other stakeholders. This responsibility also includes actions to gain fair profits of investments. The main area of economic responsibility is to stay financially responsible and profitable and contribute to all required areas.
Legal responsibilities contain organisational compliance of all relevant legislation to maintain a legally authentic brand image. As per Lee et al. (2019), it includes the practice of complying with all governmental requirements constantly along with other mandatory local and national regulations. Additionally, behaving loyally and legally authentically to all other stakeholders helps to increase brand image as a legally sorted and authentic organisation. Meeting legal challenges, obligations and liabilities properly is another area of legal responsibilities that business farms fulfil to be a legally authentic brand. Delivering ad importing goods, materials and providing products and services legally to customers and other stakeholders Are other legal requirements that organisations conduct to fulfil their legal practices.
According to Lee et al. (2019), Ethical responsibilities are about embracing actions practices and policies that help organisations to manage and run a business ethically in the sector. There is a difference between legal and ethical responsibilities. Legal actions are based on policies and regulations and ethical practices are mostly based on beliefs and values. This responsibility area includes proper maintenance of code of conduct, integrated behaviour and meeting social expectations. Fair practice with stakeholders is some essential ethical responsibility that organisations practice to maintain CSR responsibilities.
As stated by HAYAT et al. (2020), philanthropic responsibility is about being a good corporate citizen by giving back to the community. It is completely based on taking initiatives for society and ensuring wellbeing for the community. By contributing to society through donations, charity and other resource support organisations ensure fulfilment for philanthropic responsibilities.
Figure 2: Carroll's Pyramid
(Source: Meynhardt and Gomez, 2019)
Triple Bottom line theory of CSR
Triple Bottom Line theory is based on three different aspects of organisational practices that ensure ethical and positive practices for the company's end. It contains a total of three components such as people, planet and profit. These three aspects of bottom line theory cover all required areas of organisational need. As per Lock and Araujo (2020), the component of people in the area of looking after employees ensuring fair practices with them and caring about their wellbeing at the workplace. This component covers a number of organisational employees, fair practices with them, their payment, benefits and other areas of staff wellbeing. It makes organisations conduct ethical practices with their internal stakeholders. This aspect ensures the organisational responsibility of being a socially efficient professional entity. By looking after employees need and requirement organisations become able to gain staff engagement and it enables farms to ensure higher production and product availability through ethical practices. Such aspect increases brand value and employee trust highly that directly contributes towards staff retention, competitive advantage. It creates as brand image where employees are respected and valued that enhance its competitive advantage.
The planet is about looking after the wellbeing of the environment and adopting different strategies and ideas to implement for reducing damage from the planet. According to Kappo-Abidemi and Kanayo (2020), it shows how much an organisation is environmentally responsible. In this case, organisations adopt different practices such as climate-changing actions, recycling, waste management, green initiatives, energy-efficient practices and features and so on. Such activities lead organisations to educate their workforce regarding the need for these initiatives and involve them in those practices for collaborative efforts. Such initiatives enhance brand image highly in the business market and create an organisational identity of a sustainable brand. This component directly contributes towards organisational value image in the eyes of customers. People in current days are attracted towards sustainability that fuels them to purchase eco-friendly organic products. Companies through focusing on CSR practices ensure customers faith and reliability along with ensuring wellbeing for the environment and community support.
Profit is another significant component of the triple bottom line theory that shows organisational efficiency and responsibility regarding attaining profits as a return of investment. According to Isaksson (2018), it ensures organisational effort of innovating products, conducting efficient and ethical marketing and promotions and ensuring customers flow to brands. Eventually, it works for increasing sales and profits for brands. Additionally, sustainable practices help companies to save operational costs that eventually work for increasing profits for them. Through increased profit organisations become able to invest in other products and services that help it to attain even more customers flow. This aspect works highly beneficial for brands as it enable organisations to strengths its financial base and adds value to its operations process along with conducting ethical practices. Through attain profits organisational become able to invest in further sustainable activities and attain a high brand image in the business sector with enhanced competitive advantage.
Figure 3: Triple Bottom Line Theory
(Source: Kanayo, 2020)
Benefits of managing the CSR properly
There have been different types of benefits, which are linked to the proper use of CSR within the organisations and it can be achievable with the consideration of all the factors. Following this, the benefits of managing CSR perfectly in the organisations are,
Satisfaction of the employees: It is the responsibility of the organisations to manage the employees properly by providing them with a suitable and flexible environment of work to improve their participation. In the opinion of Hu et al., (2019), if the employees are feeling proud in working for the organisation, then the CSR within the organisation will be improved. Therefore, having proper functions of CSR will be ensuring appropriate profits by satisfying the employees properly.
More opportunities for growth: There have been many opportunities for growth and using the services of CSR will be improving the organisational reputation in the market (Feng and Ngai, 2020). Therefore, with the proper management of the CSR functions, the organisations will have the opportunity to improve their recognition to their clients and customers for having facilities that are more effective.
Sustainable practices: Using the proper concept of CSR and by paying effective attention to the related stakeholders, the organisation will be more effective in developing sustainable practices perfectly (Xia et al., 2018). In support of this, the organisations will have the opportunity to improve their strategies of managing the business process as well as the employees by focusing on sustainability.
Impact of the CSR on the stakeholders
Managing the stakeholders is one of the major factors for the organisations to improve their contribution towards developing organisational profitability in the respective market. In the opinion of Vishwanathan et al., (2020), reciprocation of the stakeholders is essential in organisations with the focus on endorsing the firms, developing a cooperative environment and forming a proper relationship with them. With the assessment of such areas, organisations will be able to engage the stakeholders on a large scale to make them more effective at providing their efforts towards the growth of the organisation. However, Falcone et al., (2019), implied, that practices such as fair pay, a safe environment of work and opportunities for professional development need to be focused on to make the stakeholders more engaged in the organisations. In light of this, the stakeholders are also required to be providing their support in meeting the goals in the respective market for having proper opportunities for growth. In such a way, the organisations will be more effective in managing the stakeholders to have their support in managing the framework properly to bring positive impacts.
Challenges faced by the organisation in executing the activities with CSR
CSR is filled with numerous challenges, which are required to be improved to have a better outcome in managing the quality of the practices within an organisation to meet the goals in the organisations. In support of this, major challenges that appear in the organisations in regards to CSR are,
Demand for transparency: The requirement of the transparent framework in the organisation is essential, as it is required to be managed with proper attention on the essential matters to have a better outcome (Taylor et al., 2018). In support of this, the culture within the organisations needs to be transparent as all the employees are required to be provided with the proper information without any manipulation to engage them in the workplace.
The inefficiency of the investors: Sometimes the major drawback that appears is the inefficacy of the CSR to manage the operations to have a better outcome. In such case, immense pressure from the investors is one of the major reasons of having less efficiency in the CSR practices to manage the employees and other areas with perfection (Arab et al., 2020).
Inappropriate corporate culture: The significance of the corporate culture is high in the organisations as it motivates the employees to provide their support in the organisation to manage the operations properly (Blok, 2019). In support of this, inappropriate culture may be leading to the high turnover of the employees, and it will not be profitable for the originations on a large scale.
Strategies to overcome the issues
Development of the strategies to overcome the issues is essential as the organisations are required to be developing strategies, which will be improving the efficacy of the organisations to achieve the goals. Therefore, the developed strategies are,
Improvement of the organisational policies: Organisational policies are required to be improved for bringing proper support to the environment, which will be creating chances for the employees to stay (Haque et al., 2020). It will be highly beneficial for the organisations, to have proper support of the employees to manage the operations as, with their support, organisations can bring positive impacts. However, having the support of proper policies, the rate of employee turnover will be less and the impact will be observed on the productivity of the organisations.
Enhancement of the stakeholder participation: Stakeholders are the most essential parts of the organisational business process and engaging them in the operations with their proper consent will be effective to bring positive impacts. However, for having the proper participation of the stakeholders, they will be required to be managed with proper transparency and fair play to have their support (Lane and Devin, 2018). This is how the challenges within the organisations linked to CSR can be improved perfectly.
Literature Gap
From the assessment of the above literature, it can be known that proper support of information on the efficiency of CSR has been provided in this study. However, some of the factors including the challenges and strategies related to CSR along with the stakeholder management needs to be focused on perfectly to highlight areas that are more essential. Therefore, proper research is required to be made to find the actual values of CSR using the proper methods of research.
Chapter3: Methodology
3.1 Research onion
Figure 4: Research onion
(Source: Influenced by Saunders et al., 2015)
3.2 Research philosophy
Research philosophy is about the process of making a proper description of the phenomenon that has been observed in the research to find an effective direction, which will create numerous impacts. In the opinion of Abu-Alhaija, (2019), the research philosophy is generally applied to discuss the nature and source of the research data to develop samples that will help to deploy the research framework. In light of this, the philosophy of the research has been divided into several essential forms, which are positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism and realism. Considering this, the positivism research philosophy has been applied in the research to help the researcher to explain the concept within the research perfectly. However, Marsonet, (2019), suggested that the use of positivism philosophy is appropriate for deriving the undertaken fact with proper logic to manage the efficiency of the process to have better support. Therefore, the use of the positivism philosophy has been effective at describing every fact and argument into visible information, which is effective for the audiences to understand the context.
3.3 Research approaches
The definition of the research approaches can be presented as the methods, which are used for developing a set of processes to guide the researcher to achieve the goals with proper quality. In the opinion of Woiceshyn and Daellenbach, (2018), the efficiency of the research can be improved by undertaking a suitable research approach as per the availability of the resources to manage the efficiency of the process. In this regard, the research approaches are generally applied in the form of inductive, deductive and abductive with the proper assessment of the suitability of the method. Following the above statement and assessing the scenario of the research, the selection of the inductive approach has been facilitated to find the proper support. On the contrary, Ochoa et al., (2019), indicated that the concept of inductive research has been effective for developing the particular facts into general while converting them into notable facts. Therefore, the researcher has had significant support due to the use of the inductive research approach as with the support of it the framework of data collection and analysis has been enhanced perfectly.
3.4 Research strategy
The strategy of the research needs to be developed by a proper focus on the methods of data collection and analysis to make a better scenario for achieving the research objectives. In the view of Chowdhury, (2019), the research strategy is usually dependent on the approaches like the quantitative and quantitative. Therefore, the qualitative approach of research has been applied to develop the strategy to collect and analyse the effective data, which have been collected from accurate sources. However, the development strategy has been effective for the researcher to collect and analyse the data with proper suitability.
3.5 Research design
Designing research is the prime area for the researcher to improve the quality of the process to have a proper framework, which will be effective to collect and analyse the data to present the statistics and facts. As the design of the framework of the research is dependent on the selection of the approaches, thus it should be managed with proper attention to the included steps (Ishtiaq, 2019). Therefore, the design for this research has been made undertaking the inductive approach and qualitative method of research to provide the best possible support to improve the efficiency. Therefore, the data have been analysed properly to build the proper theories from the assessment of the findings and it has been a significant part of developing the framework.
3.6 Data collection
Data collection is the most important section of the research in which the data is extracted by the assessment of the major sources of information that can be utilised to build the framework. In the opinion of Lobe et al., (2020), the quality of the data collection process needs to be managed by undertaking the methods, including the qualitative and quantitative to improve the efficiency of the process. In light of this, qualitative methods of data collection have been applied to improve the efficiency of the data collection process. As with the focus on the qualitative approaches of data collection, the secondary data has been collected on a large scale using the framework of the thematic analysis. In order to build the themes, the sources like the articles, journals and valid websites have been assessed properly to extract and highlight the major facts to be visualised as suitable findings. This has been the significant responsibility of the researcher to find the proper articles and journals from Google Scholar to use that as the source material to facilitate the effective themes.
3.7 Data collection instruments
The significance of the instruments, which are used for collecting data, is effective to build a proper scenario, which will be making a strong impact on the visibility of the data. In the opinion of Neuendorf, (2018), there have been many types of data collection instruments including the survey, interview case study, thematic analysis and others. Following the above statement, thematic analysis has been applied to manage the collection of the secondary data in which the appropriate themes have been developed. However, the use of thematic analysis has been effective at improving the accuracy of the data analysis process through the proper conduction of the descriptive analysis process. Therefore, the proper use of the thematic analysis process has helped the researcher to improve the efficiency of the operations with perfection.
3.8 Sampling techniques
Sampling has been one of the major parts of the research, which is effective for the selection of the populations within research to improve the efficiency of the data analysis process. As suggested by Sarstedt et al., (2018), the concept of the sampling method can be defined as the process for choosing the proper population, who can be used in the process of data collection and analysis. With the support of the above statement, sampling is usually found in different forms including probability and non-probability sampling. The selection of non-probability sampling has been effective for the researchers to improve the data management process with the support of the proper selection of the themes. However, Pandey and Pandey, (2021), included that the effectiveness of the sampling is high in the case of developing a proper set of data samples. Therefore, the respective findings within the study have been done with the development of the structured samples from the improvement of the unstructured data samples to ensure a better outcome in the research.
3.9 Reliability and validity
Managing the reliability and validity of the research data is the major factor to be assessed to improve the efficiency of the operations within the research. In the view of Rose and Johnson, (2020), the data, which have been used in the research must be reliable to be used with the assessment of the suitability of the context. With the focus on the above statement, all the data have been gathered from the assessment of the reliability of the sources to have a better outcome. Therefore, sources like Google Scholar has been used to improve the reliability of the process, as the collected data have been considered as trustworthy for the description of the phenomenon. On the contrary, Bornmann, (2018), indicated that the used data in the process must be valid to be presented in order to reflect on the topic that has been selected. In support of this, all the data, which are valid and updated have been collected as only research papers with the publication limit of 2018 have been used to draw the arguments on the research topic. Therefore, consideration of the reliability and validity of the research has been essential to provide the findings to the audiences with a proper quality to manage the outcome.
3.10 Ethical consideration
There have been many types of ethical measures, which are required to be managed with perfection to improve the quality of the process to have a perfect outcome in the research. The significance of the ethical measures in the research is high, as it should be managed to avoid the legal and other obstacles to ensure proper quality in the process. Hence, the Data Protection Act 2018 has been managed with perfection to improve the privacy of the collected and analysed data to meet the major objectives of the research (legislation.gov.uk, 2022). It has been essential at improving the superiority of the outcome as the researcher has followed all the steps properly to protect the data. On the other hand, Sookhak et al., (2018), indicated that the quality of the research could be improved by preventing illegal access to the data. Therefore, the researcher has been concerned with the management of accessibility throughout the research.
3.11 Limitation of the research
The academic research is filled with many limitations, which are needed to be managed with the support of proper focus to improve the scenario to achieve the goals. In consideration of this, the major limitation that can be found is the inefficiency in the process of collecting and managing the process of data analysis (Theofanidis and Fountouki, 2018). On the other hand, the use of the data analysis process with the concern of the data analysis is one of the major parts of focus to ensure better quality in the process. Hence, these are the factors, which require attention from the researcher to make proper progress in future.
Chapter 4 Data analysis and findings
This chapter has included major secondary information about how organisations use CSR. There has been consideration of journals, articles and relevant websites that can help to know how UK organisations are implementing the strategy of CSR in line with the literature section.
Themes |
Author |
Title |
Year |
Corporate social responsibilities and environmental consequences |
|
|
2022 2022 |
Factors influencing implementation of CSR |
|
|
|
The issue in CSR management within the organisations |
|
|
|
Ways to successfully manage CSR in the organisations |
|
|
|
Table 1: Thematic analysis
(Source: Created by the learner)
Corporate social responsibilities and environmental consequences
CSR mainly deals with three major areas that are considered by the organisations that implement this principle. These three areas are society, environment and ethical responsibilities. In this regards environmental aspect become one of the major concerns because of increasing carbon emission cases. Organisations make goals and targets so that they can abide by the global carbon emission standards like SDG or Sustainable Development Goal 13. This goal emphasises decreasing greenhouse gas by net zero by the end of 2050. Industries in the UK are confined to following this policy by participating in this goal. For achieving the goal greenhouse gas emission needs to fall by 45% by 2030 (Sdgs.un.org, 2022). This kind of standard helps the organisations in managing the environmental aspects. Considering Boeing which operates in the aviation industry has managed to complete its obligation of CSR by taking its environmental impact into consideration. It operates and innovates in a way that can make the world a better place to live by entering into a deal of 2 million gallons to make a sustainable future. SAF or in other words sustainable aviation fuel is going to be purchased for its large scale operations.
Figure 5: Boeing sustainable approach for the environment by using SAF
(Source: Boeing, 2022)
Boeing has decided to use decarbonise its aviation and SAF will act as an immediate outcome for the company to maintain the sustainable approach for the environmental aspect. However, the SAF test has been started by the company in early 2008 and the approval for the large scale is provided to it in 2011 (Boeing, 2022). Flights with SAF operations have begun in 2012 and in 2018 the company has tested the first SAF commercial testing of the aeroplane on 777 Freighter. Jet fuels that are sustainably produced have been able to reduce carbon emission by a maximum of 80% over the lifecycle of the fuel. This will further reach 100% and SAF is considered to offer the greatest potential and immediate way to decarbonise the aviation industry in the next twenty to thirty years. Further, in order to meet SDG 13, Boeing is committed that all the commercial aeroplanes delivered by the company are certified and capable of hundred per cent SAF by the end of 2030.
?elazna et al. (2020), has further mentioned that companies used to meet their sustainability goals with the help of their internal people. These people are the staff and employees of the organisation who are made to comply with the adopted strategies of the company to meet environmental sustainability
Factors influencing implementation of CSR
The implementation of CSR is affected by many factors in which financial factors and support of the management is some of the major factors. They can hinder the implementation of CSR if not properly followed by the organisations. However, Schaefer et al. (2019), added that these factors might assist the companies to implement the activities of CSR. Considering the first factor that is a financial consideration, it is necessary for the organisations to have proper funds to support the CSR activities. For example, philanthropic responsibilities can only be met when there is proper profit generated to donate to the weaker group of the society. Surplus funds are required to meet philanthropic responsibilities which shed light on the economic obligations too.
Figure 6: Most philanthropic countries
(Source: Statista, 2018)
Marks and Spencer Group plc from the retail industry of the UK has been able to take the title of one of the best philanthropic companies. £5 million is given in charity by the company which shows it has been able to meet this responsibility by earning the surplus profit (Marksandspencer, 2022). Moreover, it is also one of the most identified within the geographical boundary and beyond that. Figure 3 clearly shows how the UK has managed to become one of the highly donating companies in the world. There has been a contribution by the private sector, voluntary sector, government and the public sector. All the sectors are able to maintain their need of managing their investment income that can help to meet the philanthropic need under CSR activity. The financial factor is considered to be the most influencing factor in implementing CSR.
Carrol's model also suggests the financial factor where the emphasis is made on economic responsibilities. This economic responsibility is largely related to creating a sufficient amount of profit by the business so that it can support the other CSR responsibilities like philanthropic, ethical and environmental concerns. As per Coluccia et al. (2018), there is a necessity to follow the CSR responsibilities so that there can be a positive impact on the environment and the wider society. Moreover, when it is concerned with management practices their support to the CSR is highly considered. The amount of effort given by the management to the CSR is detrimental in implementing the same.
The issue in CSR management within the organisations
CSR management is becoming a complex task within UK organisations with its increasing needs. It is necessary for organisations to improve the quality of CSR management by bringing changes in the practices. One of the major issues in managing CSR is the increasing demand for transparency which is directly related to the organisational culture. It is not only the responsibility of the management to abide by the CSR regulations or standards but other stakeholders are also required to maintain compliance with ethical, environmental or other needs of the organisation. Arab et al. (2020), opined that employees sometimes are not trained properly on how to comply with CSR activities. Policies and principles implemented by the organisations are not properly followed by the employees who mainly conduct the day to day operations.
:
Figure 7: CSR report of Asda
(Source: Asdagroceries, 2021)
Transparency and disclosure are highly demanded by the stakeholders where not only investors but the local community, customers and different other parties demand greater disclosure. This is mainly in terms of how business activity is conducted and what necessary steps are taken by the organisation to resolve the social issues. UK organisations highly comply with this requirement so that they can provide necessary information to the interested parties most companies of the UK used to publish their CSR reports so that they can avoid any legal consequences. Asda which is mainly a grocery retailer in the UK has started to publish ESG report where it has shown how its strategy supports the SDG 2030 goal. The report has shown two major areas and the target set for them. These areas are carbon and nature where the target has been set as reaching net zero-emission of the carbon by 2040. It was necessary for the company to publish the report to show transparency in conducting the CSR activities and disclose all the information related to it.
Connecting the profitability and value chain with CSR is also a major challenge where it is not easy to align activities (Phillips et al., 2019). Companies can earn both soft value and hard value by savings money going paperless and inviting staff by making an inclusive environment. However, there needs to be an investment made in installing all the machines that can alter the cost. Apart from this, it is not possible to satisfy all the stakeholders with greater CSR compliance and thus most of the time is invested in managing the CSR activities.
Ways to successfully manage CSR in the organisations
Asiaei, and Bontis (2019), asserted that it is necessary to measure the sustainability and socially responsible initiatives in the organisation. In this regard, it can be said that it is only necessary to implement the CSR activities but to also measure its success periodically. Organisations used to set long term targets like Boeing has targeted to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050 which need proper evaluation from time to time. Further, it has decided to achieve the target by reducing emissions by 45% in the year 2030. In this way, it will be possible for the company to measure its target by assessing the progress by 2030. This is a major approach of the organisations in meeting the long term sustainability goals. Further, different dimensions of CSR needs to be managed properly and given equal importance. Ethical, societal and environmental dimensions are majorly considered in this convex. Integrating discipline regarding CSR practices can also be a major way to handle CSR activities in the organisation. Transparency and stakeholder participation are two other ways that can be included in the organisation to reduce the inefficiency in handling the CSR activities (Lee and Comello, 2019). Top-level management commitment for the same can be increased so that there can be successful implementation of CSR standards. Goals can act as benchmarks that can be used to know how much the organisation is committed to sustainability issues.
Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the management to ensure that organisational policies are built in a manner that can help to support CSR activities. Building ethics is one of the major requirements for companies so that employees can understand how their business activities impact the broader society. Employees' support is highly required in case of meeting the CSR goals because they handle the day to day activities that create economic benefit and impact on the environment. However, economic benefit helps the companies to invest in the CSR activities like installing machines and contributing to philanthropic activities. This has been seen in the case of Marks & Spencer where the company has been able to invest 5 million in charitable activities. Boeing is also able to purchase fuel that can reduce the carbon emission from the society. Changing the company policies will also be helpful to reduce the turnover where every employee will be treated with equality that will enable greater productivity. This profit can be used in creating more sustainable approaches and doing philanthropic activities. Therefore, for managing the CSR activities it is necessary to measure the goals timely and increase the commitment towards economical and ethical considerations.
Overall, it can be said that organisations are significantly involved in using CSR in many forms. They maintain the impact on the environment, maintain ethics in the organisations, and help society by earning proper profit. However, while doing so they also face some challenges like increasing demand for disclosure and transparency and pressure from the shareholders. It is necessary for organisations they measure their CSR activities periodically. This can help them to know about the gap in the strategies and further steps can be built in managing those gaps. Future of the CSR is highly dependent on maintaining net-zero carbon emissions. Asda and Boeing are highly confined to this and they are making sure that they meet the global standards.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations
It can be concluded that CSR is an important element for the business and the each objectives has been fulfilled in this research by making clear study. In this CSR is being used to meet the environmental obligations by the companies. Boeing is being committed to maintaining sustainability by aspect in the environmental field by acting towards the global standards. This will help the company to decarbonise its operations which shows its compliance to meet the environmental concerns.
Moreover, CSR is being considered as one of the core goals of the companies and they duly publish their CSR report as well. It helps the companies to tackle the adverse impact of any non-compliance made to the environmental regulations. Meeting the environmental concern of the CSR is related to meeting the ethical concerns too. This is because it helps to maintain fair business practices in all the regions. Thus, CSR in terms of meeting environmental concerns is directly related to reducing the day to day activities of the environment. A large concern is given to greenhouse gas but the other things can be water pollution mitigation as well.
Moreover, there are other factors like trust and transparency that forces the companies to implement CSR activities. Companies need to build trust among the stakeholders that they are following the CSR principles. Further, transparency needs to be shown that there is proper compliance with the environmental laws and standards. Moreover, the practices of management are considered to be important a well in determining the successful implementation of CSR. This is because the strategies and goals of the organisation lead them towards sustainability.
It has been seen in the case of Boeing that is highly concerned with managing the environmental aspect by meeting the SDG 13 goals.
It could be said that maintaining transparency is one of the major requirements for companies while dealing with CSR activities. They need to show that their operations are having less impact on the environment, ethical concerns are being undertaken and people are not affected by its day to day activities. Herrera and de las Heras-Rosas (2020), added that there is a problem with the organisation managing vast areas at once where sustainability has become a major issue. Management has to look at major areas at once which create issues of financial shortage as well. CSR mainly demands investment so that responsibilities can be completed properly. However, there are different priorities and corporate culture where the company has to ensure that business ethics and its stances on environmental, political and social issues are balanced. This is mostly not possible when there are different priorities and responsibilities that can align with the company goals for the bottom line but not with CSR initiatives.
Developing a team that can handle the CSR activities is a new source of cash outflow. Therefore, those firms who are not able to employ a significant part of the profit in the CSR activities cannot be able to meet. In this way, the major challenges that are faced by the organisations in meeting the CSR activities are financial issues, employee commitment to the targets and a high level of transparency in the business activities. Another important thing is getting the support of the employees in meeting the overarching goals of the organisation. Skill shortage can also be an issue where there can be difficulty in learning new techniques that can have the least impact on the environment.
This is because many stakeholders want to know how organisations conduct business or maintain sustainability. It can be a major role player in handling the issues faced in CSR activities. Asda has started publishing ESG reports so that it can maintain the need for transparency in how business activities are managed in the organisation. All the necessary details like what activities were included, goals developed to manage the CSR activities in the organisation. Further, the aspect of stakeholder participation is also a necessary aspect in handling CSR in business organisations. Boeing has participated with EPIC Fuels so that it can procure sustainable aviation fuel and help the broader society by reducing its environmental impact. This will also attract customers, investors to know how Boeing is maintaining sustainability in the organisation. There are chances of further investments by the organisations as it will influence the shareholders that the company is operating sustainably.
Organisations need to know how operations need to be performed so that there can be a positive influence on the society and environment. Another challenge that is faced by the organisations is the inefficiency of the investors to comply with the company's regulations towards CSR. On the contrary, investors are interested in companies that have higher compliance with CSR. In this regard, for securing investment it is necessary for the companies to increase the concentration on CSR activities. Organisations need to design CSR plans with more flexibility, longevity and responsiveness. There is high pressure given on earning a profit which sometimes affects the CSR responsibilities. Aggressive goals of the company make them harm the environment and the people living it. Therefore, financial, managerial trust and transparency are some of the major factors that can impact the implementation of CSR in organisations. Business organisations are the socially responsible entities that are used to meet the needs of the broader society by reducing their operational impact on society. UK organisations are highly confined to meeting the environmental concerns which are seen in the case of Boeing. There is a collective effort made by the industries to minimise their operational impact on the environment.
It is the responsibility of the company to help charitable organisations in fulfilling their needs. Providing free food, funding the old age organisations, helping the orphanage or indigenous part of the society are necessary under CSR which is only possible when the company is able to earn more than the normal profit. It could be said that if the company is able to gain the required profit then there are high chances of losing the philanthropic responsibilities. In this case, if management practices to use CSR in its core business activities then there are high chances of meeting all the responsibilities under CSR.
Based on the discussion following recommendation is provided to the organisations that handle CSR practices:
Developing the level of transparency- CSR is effectively used by different companies so that they can handle their role in the bigger society. In that case, it is highly required to develop transparency in the business reports where it is necessary to keep the reports clear and organised so that the stakeholders can know what are the major activities performed by the company in the area of CSR. In that case, there is a necessity to use clear language and define appropriately the future strategy of the company to manage CSR activities. In this regard, it will highly be necessary to keep the people informed about the latest functions. This will help the interested people evaluate the performance of the company regarding the CSR practices. Further, it is necessary to keep the business updated with the latest legislation which can help to abide by the legal requirements of doing CSR activities.
Optimising the operations- Making the best use of the resources is significantly necessary in the case of handling CSR in the business. This is because whether it is financial or human or natural resources used by the organisations to perform day to day activities, they all impact the business organisation. In that a case, it is necessary to avoid illegal or reckless use of the resources that are further not available to meet future needs. Asda and Marks and Spencers need to consider this change in the organisation and need to make the best use of resources. The business can save profit so that the role of meeting the societal responsibilities can also be fulfilled in the organisations to meet the CST responsibilities. Moreover, ethics and corporate governance are also important terms in the case of managing CSR. This is because it can create a large impact on the business and its reputation. Overall, optimising the business operation can be a helpful tool in organisations to manage CSR.
Building a team to handle CSR- Nowadays every organisation is required to manage the CSR activity where there is a need for a large number of compliance to meet the business objectives. In that case, companies like Tesco, Boeing and others have a well-equipped team that handles the CSR activities within the companies. In this regard, it is highly necessary to keep the team updated with the latest requirements so that they can know the importance of CSR to the business and act accordingly. In that case, if there is no proper information received about the requirements of the business environment then the team cannot build a proper report. in that case, there is a major requirement to keep the interest of the stakeholders in the business which can be significantly handled with the wide involvement of the CSR team I knowing the business d the demand of the external environment. Therefore, by engaging in social responsibility organisations can increase their social value, economic value and brand image.
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