Corporate Social Responsibility
Tesla Motors Inc., Patagonia Inc., & General Mills Inc.
Brendan J. Bowers
Konstantina Karatzoudi
Rhoda Williams – Moore
MET AD 655: International Business, Economics and Cultures
Professor Jung Wan Lee
December 12, 2016
1. Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is rapidly becoming a factor that companies must consider in order to remain relevant and favoured in the eyes of their consumers. This is more so important on international scene where MNCs are expected to embrace this model.
Corporate social responsibility can be defined as the business approach that contributes to sustainable development by delivering economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders.
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Although it is a concept that was widely discussed during the last years, the idea that businesses have societal responsibilities became evident already from the beginning of nineteenth century (Pour et al., 2014). As companies are not only expected to have obligations towards their shareholders but also towards society, there has been an increasing interest in corporate social responsibility among scholars and practitioners and therefore it is a prominent issue for business community and academic literature in recent years (Su & Jie, 2015). Scholars were interested in investigating many dimensions of corporate social responsibility, mainly its relationship with corporation’s financial performance, its influence on consumer response, how it can create value for stakeholders and as a source of competitive …show more content…
Militaru and Ionescu (2006), found evidence of a significant positive relation between corporate social responsibility and competitive advantages within a sample of 24 organizations. Similar to Militaru and Ionescu’s study, De Sousa Filho et al. (2010) saw that social responsibility strategies are related with competitive advantages, such as enhancing a company’s reputation and image. Their study showed that the formulation of social strategies that are influenced by resources, skills, opportunities, industry structure and stakeholders can be associated with competitive advantages. They proved that if social responsibility is managed effectively can create significant benefits, enhance the reputation, bring returns and motivate the employees. In the same framework, Husted and Allen (2001) stated that if corporate social responsibility used properly, it can create competitive advantages, as there is a positive relation between corporate social responsibility strategies and competitive