Title          : Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability in Business:
                   How Organizations Handle Profits and Social Duties

Editors     : Preeta M. Banerjee, Vanita Shastri

Publisher  : Sage Publications, 2011

Pages       : 184, HB

Price         : Rs. 350.00

 

There has always been a need to analyse and respond to societal processes and unrest. But in the times when we are faced with global economic crisis, there is an urgency to renew our commitment to social issues. Reduction in public and private spending on social programmes throws up further challenges for the sustenance of efforts towards development. The book advocates countering this trend through ‘global social entrepreneurship’ and the use of innovative, inexpensive and locally customised solutions. The authors review three theoretical approaches to strategic ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR), which can be defined as voluntary CSR actions that enhance a firm’s competitiveness and reputation. It is stated that the end result of such activities should be an improvement in financial and economic performance of the organisation. After careful examination of recent empirical evidence, the authors conclude that economic implications of strategic CSR have the greatest potential for advancing this field of inquiry. They further note that theories related to strategic leadership should also be incorporated into this perspective. In the remainder of the article, they provide focused summaries of the articles presented in this special issue and outline an agenda for future research on strategic CSR and environmental sustainability.

Using in-depth and contemporary case studies, the book demonstrates how to define, measure and achieve socially and environmentally sustainable growth. The book is organised in three broad themes. The first theme defines social responsibility and environmental sustainability and describes performance measures in each of these areas. The second theme offers four in-depth cases of social endeavors in newly formed organisations. The third and final theme offers four in-depth cases tackling issues on environmental sustainability. The book not only motivates social entrepreneurs to build new models of sustainable growth, but also to scale existing solutions and to create new public-private partnerships (PPPs). This book advocates global social entrepreneurship through the use of innovative and low cost intensive solutions, suitable to local needs and environment. In a more analytical perspective, ethics involve concepts of right and wrong, fair and unfair, and moral and immoral. Beliefs about what is ethical serve as a moral compass in guiding the actions and behaviours of individuals and organisations. The editors distinctly point out three categories of managers, which stand out with regard to their prevailing beliefs and commitments to ethical and moral principles in business affairs: the moral manager, the immoral manager and the amoral manager. By some accounts, the population of managers is said to be distributed among the three types in a bell-shaped curve, with immoral managers and moral managers occupying the two tails of the curve, and the amoral managers, especially the intentionally amoral managers, occupying the broad middle ground.

The moral case for social responsibility boils down to a simple concept: "It’s the right thing to do" or "What is the right thing to do". The basic principle in business with regard to social responsibility holds that it is in the enlightened self-interest of companies to be good citizens and devote some of their energies and resources to the betterment of stakeholders such as employees, the communities in which it operates and society in general. There’s ample room for every company to tailor its social responsibility strategy to fit its core values and business mission, thereby making its own statement about "how we do business and how we intend to fulfill our duties to all stakeholders and society at large." Corporate sustainability involves strategic efforts to meet the needs of current customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees and other stakeholders, while protecting and perhaps enhancing the resources needed by future generations to come.

In today’s world, there is absolutely nothing that lives in isolation. Everything is interlinked, including sustained economy and sustainable environment. Without sustainable environmental initiatives, prospects of a sustained economy are limited. However, a planned approach to educate stakeholders and make them a part of the team helps in finding a successful solution – for environmental champions as well as for those who focus on developing sustainable business models. q

Anisha Phillipa Laming
aplaming@devalt.org

 

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