2. LITERATURE REVIEW范例

【全文請點擊英國dissertation范文：論企業(yè)社會責任對企業(yè)發(fā)展的重要性】

2.1 Overview of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR)
 

According to Kotler. P and Lee.n (2005, p.2) doing the most good for your company and your cause. By comparing good it has too many sights to give attention. A quick browse of different web sites for the fortune 500 reveals that good goes by many names, including corporate social responsibility, corporate community involvement, community relations, community affairs, community development, corporate responsibility, global citizenship, and corporate societal marketing. In order to do the best practice of CSR the authors prefer to use following definition: "Corporate social responsibility is a commitment to improve community well being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources."
 

A key element of this definition is the word discretionary, it referring to business activities, which are managed by law or moral ethics. Like as voluntary commitment to its serving community. If this sort of practices is managed by the company than it will be describe as socially responsible.
 

According to Price Waterhouse Coopers (2005-2008) the greatest asset of any retail and consumer product company is its reputation and its perceived value among consumers. Today, consumers around the world, particularly in Europe, are concerned how a company manufacturers its product and whether it is managing for continued sustainability through attention to economic, environmental, and social performance. If not, a brand's reputation can decline, and with it, an attendant decreases in future sales and profits.
 

It is especially important for retail and consumer product companies to maintain the reputation integrity of their brand and to be socially responsible throughout their business operations since their products and services are usually marketed directly to product purchasers.
 

According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) defines CSR as ''the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families and the local communities'' (WBCSD, 2001). Hence the fundamental idea of CSR is that business corporations have an obligation to work towards meeting the needs of a wider area of stakeholders (Clarkson, 1995; Wad dock et al., 2002). More generally, CSR is a set of management practices that ensures the company maximizes the positive impacts of its operations on society or ''operating in a manner that meets and even exceeds the legal, ethical, commercial and public expectations that society has of business''(BSR, 2001).
 

2.2 Definition of CSR
 

The Institute of Directors, a UK-based trade group, has also presented another Good definition of CSR: CSR is about businesses and other organizations going beyond the legal obligations to manage the impact they have on the environment and society. In Particular, this could include how organizations interact with their employees, suppliers, customers and the communities in which they operate, as well as the extent they attempt to protect the environment (Lea, 2002). I think the above definition captures most of what CSR is all about.#p#分頁標題#e##p#分頁標題#e#
 

According to Tom Cannon (1994, p, 32, 33, 38, 44, 45,) corporate responsibility, the role of business in society is depending on business types and as well time of change. "Business corporations exist primarily to produce goods and service that society wants and needs. Achieving this objective is their first and foremost responsibility; if they are unsuccessful in this mission, they cannot reasonably be expected to assume others."
 

Simultaneously, business depends for its survival and long-term prosperity on society providing the resources such as people, raw materials, services, infrastructure - which it needs to convert inputs into profitable goods or services. Business relies on society supplying a means of exchange - typically money - to allow it to convert the goods it produces into assets. Society is expected to provide an environment in which business can develop and prosper, allowing investors to earn returns while ensuring that the stakeholders and their dependents can enjoy the benefits of their involvement without fear of arbitrary or unjust action. An organization must support the established or prestigious programme; develop those activities, which endorse or sustain its position; and concentrate its investment in certain areas.
 

Society expects many things of its corporate sectors, from the corporate its stakeholders expects lots of outcomes and they are classified by the relationship to the business. For the owners point of view the primary expectation will be financial returns, if the corporate is able to return good financial returns to its owners then the corporate will added values to the company. Same like the employees' pay and additionally the working environment and training facilities. For customer it needs to supply of goods and services and secondly the quality of goods. Creditors need to have the assurance and secondly the security of money backs on time. The supplier wants firstly their payment and secondly long-term relationships. The community wants safety and security and secondly wants contribution to community. And the government wants from the business the compliance and secondly wants the improved competitiveness.
 

According to Ramanathan (1976) argued that there is a social contract between organization and society. Jaggi and Zhao (1996) also agreed with the social contract view when they argued that organizations do not exit in a vacuum, but are part of a society, which creates and supports them. Society will not take too kindly to corporations, which fail to recognize and support important social values. Organizations are aware that society will not hesitate to use different sanctions to punish or bring to book any irresponsible act or omission by an organization as and when deemed necessary.
 

In work done by (Gray et al, 1995, 1996; Guthrie and Parker, 1990; Patten, 1992; Roberts, 1992). Holland and Foo (2003) noted that the unregulated nature of the disclosure in CSR reports could only allow the development the relationship of reporter, which provides a degree of accountability.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

Corporate stakeholders have the right to know what contributions corporate entities are making to society. The provision of information, which satisfies this need, is known as accountability; hence Gray et al. (1996) defined accountability as "the duty to provide an account of action or reckoning of those actions for Which one is held responsible". Hackston and Milne (1996) also supported the view that corporate entities should be held responsible for their actions that affect society. In the light of this, a recent survey (DTI, 2001) of 45 global and large companies operating in the EU showed that over 90 per cent reported on their mission, vision and values, workplace climate, community involvement, local economic development, market place and environmental impact.
 

2.3 History of CSR
 

The nature and scope of corporate social responsibility has changed over time. The concept of CSR is a relatively new one the phrase has only been in wide use since the 1960s.In the eighteenth century the great economist and philosopher Adam Smith expressed the traditional or classical economic model of business. In essence, this model suggested that the needs and desires of society could best be met by the unfettered interaction of individuals and organizations in the marketplace. By acting in a self-interested manner, individuals would produce and deliver the goods and services that would earn them a profit, but also meet the needs of others. The viewpoint expressed by Adam Smith over 200 years ago still forms the basis for free-market economies in the twenty-first century.
 

In the century after Adam Smith, the Industrial Revolution contributed to radical change, especially in Europe and the United States. Millions of people obtained jobs that paid more than they had ever made before and the standard of living greatly improved. Large organizations developed and acquired great power, and their founders and owners became some of the richest and most powerful men in the world. In the late nineteenth century many of these individuals believed in and practiced a philosophy that came to be called "Social Darwinism," which, in simple form, is the idea that the principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest are applicable to business and social policy. This type of philosophy justified cutthroat, even brutal, competitive strategies and did not allow for much concern about the impact of the successful corporation on employees, the community, or the larger society.
 

In the 1960s and 1970s the civil rights movement, consumerism, and environmentalism affected society's expectations of business. Based on the general idea that those with great power have great responsibility, many called for the business world to be more proactive in (1) ceasing to cause societal problems and (2) starting to participate in solving societal problems. Many legal mandates were placed on business related to equal employment opportunity, product safety, worker safety, and the environment. Furthermore, society began to expect business to voluntarily participate in solving societal problems whether they had caused the problems or not. This view of corporate social responsibility is the prevailing view in much of the world today.#p#分頁標題#e##p#分頁標題#e#
 

2.4 Benefits of CSR Disclosure
 

Implementing the CSR concept in an organization, there are lots of benefits an organization can get examples are: increased customer loyalty, more supportive communities, the recruitment and retention of more talented employees, improved quality and productivity and the avoidance of potential reputational risks which may arise from environmental incidents. However, Cooper (2003) noted that the practical experience of early adopters of CSR reports was mixed. Some companies noticed that instead of the provision of the reports enhancing companies' reputation, it actually attracted adverse comments by drawing attention to divergences between the values espoused by the company and its actual behavior. One can only view this as an inevitable teething problem, which would over time disappear from the corporate scene. Cooper's survey of FTSE 250 companies found that less than 33 per cent of companies considered that their CSR activities resulted in improved customer loyalty while only 20 per cent believed that it enhanced staff recruitment and retention. Cooper concluded that the benefits may be more subtle and realized over a longer timescale than is sometimes suggested, but there is no doubt that the resulting benefit will be enormous in the long run. Despite these perceived benefits, Schaltegger et al. (1996) have argued that one of the driving forces in the popularity of CSR reports was the need to appease some user groups, e.g. environmental activists.
 

2.5 Framework of CSR
 

CSR framework provides a standard for social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting. It includes mandatory external verification and stakeholder engagement. Tesco's CSR report published in annually and it has KPI, where the CSR people have to work hard to develop in next financial year. Work has done by the Institute of Business Ethics covers the fairness to employees, suppliers, customers, equity and loan creditors, contribution to community and protection of the environment. The framework provides that an independent verifier should assess the company performance annually.
 

According to Social Accountability (SA) there are lots of fields to look at which are trade union, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the basis of International Labors Organization (ILO) conventions - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN convention on the Rights of the Child. This standard focuses on child labors, forced labors, health and safety, working hours, discrimination, discipline, free association and collective bargaining. Any organization recognizes that it has a duty to act as a responsible corporate citizen, by meeting its obligations to all its stakeholders - shareholders, customers, employees and the local, national and global communities in which it operates.
 

In this work done by Peter Jones, David Hillier, Daphne Comfort, Ian Eastwood in Management Research News, at Patrington: 2005. Vol. 28, Iss. 1; pg. 34, 11 pgs describes the awareness of consumerism and sustainable development. It provides the basic outline of sustainable development and how it relates to the business as a successful retailer. Here the retailers are increasingly recommending on social issues, for example, social inclusion, ethnical trading, healthy living, training, health and safety, community support initiatives under a broadly sustainable agenda. However, on this report there is no model used for measuring the standard of CSR. Here the author looking in different company's report and letting the reader, sustainable development is important and it gives the stakeholders enough confidences to invest or employees to work for the company. If the author add the model of Key performance Indicator (KPI) then it will be good enough to measure the level of CSR. In this work done by Peter Jones, David Hillier, Daphne Comfort, Ian Eastwood in International Journal and Retail and distribution Management, Bradford: 2005. Vol. 33, Iss. 2/3; pg. 207, 8 pgs suggests that the majority of the major retailers are addressing sustainability agendas, that they recognize, albeit in varying measure, the impacts their businesses have on the environment, the economy and society and several of them are looking to measure and benchmark their performance. But on this report the author did not mentions about fair trade and how it will impact on the supply chain on the organization. If any organization can build up a good relation between supplier and consumer providing good money to the supplier and best product and service to their customer then it will increase the market loyalty, which will increase the goodwill to its whole stakeholders.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

2.6 CSR in UK Practice
 

Within the last few decades' corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been fast momentum across the business community and it is seen to be gradually higher on boardroom agendas. Many of the UK's top retailers are major employers, they continue to be very much at the leading edging of innovation and growth and many of them recognized the impacts they have on the environment, on society and on the economy. They are increasingly keen to communicate their commitment to CSR to their shareholders, their customers, their employees, to government and to the public at large. Mixtures of factors are cited as being essential in building the current momentum behind CSR. Ernst & Young (2002) recommend that there are five key drivers, which have influenced the increasing business, focus on CSR namely greater stakeholder awareness of corporate ethical, social and environmental behavior; direct stakeholder pressures; investor pressure; peer pressure and a heightened sense of social responsibility. The Government's approach is to encourage and incentive the adoption and reporting of CSR through best practice guidance, and, where appropriate, intelligent regulation and fiscal incentives. The government also looks at Pensions Act Amendment, Transparency. The Government encourages companies to report on their CSR performance in a number of ways such as Issued guidance on environmental reporting, Supported initiatives promoting company reporting, Provide the guidance for the financial services sector and the ACCA sustainability reporting awards, Supported the Global reporting Initiative and The enhanced business review requirements of the Companies Act. The UK government focusing their attention in four key areas, namely promoting good practice, supporting work to demonstrate the business case, promoting international action on CSR and joining up action across government (DTI, 2001).
 

The recommendations in the European Union's Fifth Action Programme on the Environment embedded in the report Towards Sustainability (1992) has contributed to the current interests in this area. The report calls on organizations to provide information on a number of areas, namely: details of their environmental policy and activities and the effects thereof in their annual reports, their expenses on environmental programmers, and make provisions in their accounts for environmental risks and future environmental expenses.
 

A number of the top ten retailers report on the improvement and/or use of CSR Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Tesco, for example, employs some 18 CSR KPIs covering economic, environmental and economic issues and containing 24 specific targets. In choosing these KPIs the company uses one or more of four criteria, namely customer priorities; staff priorities; business priorities; and compliance with legislation or public policy. The company's CSR report provides a brief description of the annual target for each KPI, outlines the actual performance against each target and sets a target for the following year. During 2003/2004 the company exceeded expectations on 18 of its targets, met 13 and was below target on three. Where possible verification of the data used for the KPI's is carried out using external sources including market share data, independent surveys, services bills and audits for the Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Levy Agreement.#p#分頁標題#e##p#分頁標題#e#
 

2.7 Criteria of CSR practices and Effectiveness
 

In order to practices effectively it needs accuracy of commitment, facing the challenge and work with coordination in between corporate bodies in the entire business. In this case the effective can be measured by (KPI) at annually while doing the financial report. It also monitored and justified their work by different independent person for whole year and makes a comment for improvement if needed. By doing survey, how the business can improve such as expectation from stakeholders, community, and government and for its own employees then it can find some direction, which they can follow. By following those steps the company can reach its most effective practices at CSR level.
 

2.8 Conclusion
 

This chapter has reviewed the literature regarding the CSR, measuring the performance within organizations. The literature review has examined some common themes emerging from the implementation of the CSR in real practices. After reviewing the past works, it is very clear that CSR is vast growing concern and its important in business is essential. So in real business CSR is seen quite common and practices by the corporate bodies effectively. In order to measurement the performances of CSR, they have to maintain the model, which called (KPI). Around the business many related groups looking for improvement of CSR performances because of their profit interest.