Corporate Responsibility or Corporate Greed?
Loughborough University, 2013
Ana Raquel Pinto Coelho Student I.D.: B227487
Table of Contents
1. Literature Review..…………………………………………………………1 2. Method of Research………………………………………………………...5 3. Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s – Companies Profile………………………….5 4. Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s – CSR Analysis - Actions and Issues…............7 5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….10 6. Appendix……………………………………………………………………12 7. Bibliography………………………………………………………………..15
1. Literature Review
In the last 50 years Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) became a day-today subject discussed by multinationals, governments, Non Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) and society in general. These discussions vary from social to environmental issues, such as labor rights and climate change. Furthermore, CSR is directly linked to companies, thus most companies opt for certain programs from which will receive market-based incentives (Jr., W. et al., 2005). CSR as a mainstream topic can be seen through the volume of ‘voluntary’ actions, publications, seminars, and organizations, committed to it. However, there is not one unique definition of CSR although the fact most definitions comprise a correlation between profit maximization and the fulfillment of civil society (Doane, D., 2005). The term Corporate Social Responsibility started its uncoordinated evolution in 1950s, due to stakeholder pressures and commitments towards the future generations (De Bakker et al., 2005). This evolution was pronounced with the publication of “Social Responsibilities of the Businessman” by Howard R. Bowen’s, in 1953. After this publication, a great range of research and works was dedicated to the subject, contributing to the development of the social responsibility concept (Carroll, A., 1979). Some of the pioneers in CSR framework were Keith Davis (1960), he advocated that social responsibility related to businesses’ was
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