Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an attractive issue in recently years, because several companies and people have noticed environmental or ethical problems of surrounding society, such as working places and pollution. Although the first Concept of CSR was proposed from the early 1950 and started being rarely discussed after Industrial Revolution, CSR is now using broadly in full integration with strategic management and corporate governance at 20th century to improve the reputation and profits of companies. This essay will argue that CSR could benefit companies to raise their business reputation, via building brand and products differentiation and strengthening relationship with workers, and enhance the competitive advantage to increase profits, such as complying with a standard legitimacy, even though some people think that the most important task is gaining the maximum profits and concern that CSR could cause a disadvantage because of lack of capacity to handle social activities.
The first supporting argument is that CSR help companies establish a well reputation with brand and products differentiation, and it is useful to help increase profits. In fact, reputation could be seen as an impression of a company, and it is a symbol and spirit in comparison with other competitors (Gotsi & Wilson, 2001). Furthermore, Companies with CSR provide the best experience for customers, which could be helpful to build brand differentiation and gain profits. Hernández-Murillo and Martinek (2009) had reported that Companies could acquire additional benefits by enhancing reputation and ability to generate profits with differential products. For example, Ikea, it has been a long time to reduce negative environmental impact of itself and products, and offer differential products with good design and function. In addition, IKEA always try to integrate social and environmental considerations into daily operations to build a unique brand and this
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