Howard R. Bowen's Sustainable Development

1.2. Corporate Social Responsibilities

1.2.1. Definition

1.2.1.1. Sustainable development

Development is defined as an improvement in the quality and living conditions of the population. The notion of sustainability reflects a continuity in time.

The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), in the Brundtland Report (1987), defines sustainable development as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to respond to theirs ".

Sustainable development is not just about protecting the environment, as many people still think. Sustainable development is a global concept, at the crossroads of strong pillars, which are traditionally the environment, the social

Bowen first evoked the concept of CSR in the business literature by publishing Social Responsibilities of the Businessman in 1953. He described a globalized society in which the lives of citizens was determined by a few hundred companies that held a true center of power. "To meet this challenge, Bowen proposed a very innovative synthesis: moving from the classic opposition between managers and shareholders to the strategic idea of subjecting the company to legitimacy resulting from a contract with the company. So had just born the Corporate Social Responsibility (...). CSR was therefore confirmed as a response to the excessive power of multinationals, by limiting the absolute nature of the shareholders' property rights (in particular the financial markets), to the benefit of what is called everywhere today. stakeholders "(Rosé,

The responsibility of the company passes necessarily by these actors, but also applies to these. Stakeholders of the company can be classified into three groups:

1.2.4.1. "Traditional" stakeholders

It is the managers, the employees, the customers, the resellers, the suppliers, the competitors ... who evolve in the immediate environment of the company. Internal stakeholders (managers and employees) are responsible for implementing CSR at the corporate level. CSR is first and foremost a cultural change within the company, or even a way to revisit its modes of decision-making and operation, the role and involvement of managers, starting with the first of them, the leader business, will be decisive in the appropriation of the approach by the entire company. To a lesser degree, it is the same for the company's staff who must be convinced and trained from the beginning of the process.

Other stakeholders, but also employees, are direct beneficiaries of the company's implementation of CSR. But they are also required to respect a certain mode of conduct in line with the CSR approach in their different interactions with the