INTRODUCTION
Social responsibility refers an ethical framework that suggest an individual and businesses to act which can benefit to them to the great extent (Wang and et.al., 2016). This study is going to show an increasing importance of corporate social responsibilities or activities which improves living standard of people without hurting the future generation. It will also show some negative impacts of unethical act or whistle-blowing as it decreases brand image and relationship with suppliers of an organization. Some CSR approaches have critic impacts on SMEs.
SEMINAR 1
Social media and CSR
Meaning of social media and CSR
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a management concept where organizations incorporate environmental and social concerns into their everyday operations. This approach enables businesses to become socially accountable to themselves as well as their stakeholders (Golob and Podnar, 2017). Social media encompasses various forms of electronic communication that allow individuals to create and interact online. Examples of social media, or its modes of interaction, include company websites, Instagram, Facebook, and more. If you're looking to effectively discuss CSR and social media in your coursework, you might consider asking someone to write my assignment to ensure you capture all necessary details accurately.
Importance and impacts of social media on SMEs'
Social media and modern way of sharing information is having great impacts on small and medium size businesses to the great extent in critical manner. In the context of importance of social media for SME's, some benefits are shown below:
- Social media has provided an opportunity to SMEs to create direct contact with each of its client and make them aware about features of products via social media platforms. It saves their time and cost as well.
- It helps them out in attracting and retention of customers by solving their queries 24*7.
- It increases their sales by providing online services to different areas of people.
Difficulties of social media in SMEs'
Social media does not have only positive impacts as it has negative impacts on businesses and the society as well. Some challenges and difficulties occur because of social media in SMEs' includes:
- It is stated that SME's find difficulties in measuring effectiveness and performance of social media activities.
- Several platforms of social media has an option of feedbacks in which customers share their feelings and views about the products which may be negative and positive. By reading out negative feedbacks and comments, new customers change their decision of buying products (Roy and et.al., 2018).
SEMINAR 2
CSR and Global sustainable development
Global sustainable development
Global sustainability refers a condition under which people, societies and businesses perform as well as co-exist in a manner which makes them able to create stability, harmony and support the future generation by using resources in an efficient manner. Global sustainable development means to perform all those activities by all countries around the world as a whole that can give the same and better opportunity to all to live a better life (Nhamo, 2017). Solving challenges by cooperating which humanity faces and also think about the future generation is global sustainability development.
Linkage between CSR and global sustainable development
Sustainable development's main aim is to improve living standards of present population and society and also by protecting resources for the future generation. On the other hand, CSR is to increase long-term profit, improving relationship and trust among people by reducing risks. From the definition of both and aim of both terms it can be said that they have a strong relationship as without performing ethical activities or CSR people cannot develop sustainability. Sometimes, CSR is used synonymously for sustainable development.
Importance and impacts of GSD to SME
It is stated that SMEs have great impacts on the global sustainability as they contribute approximate of 70% of the total employment which create value. SME's care about sustainable development and for fulfilling promising of global sustainable development they perform ethical and effective activities (Fessehaie and Morris, 2018). All these activities help them out in retaining potential customers and skilled workforce for the long run. It directly helps them in improving productivity and brand image and also help them out in taking competitive advantages.
Challenges of GSD to SME
There are some problems and challenges occur in developing sustainability. For maintaining sustainability, there is a requirement to have access to finance, skilled workforce, capacity and marketing and management skills. Due to size of businesses, SMEs face problems in getting access to informations and meet voluntary standards. Lack of funding and working capital is other problem by which they cannot compete with large business and perform in efficient manner. Due to lack of finance they even cannot invest in new technologies which create barriers in making their business sustainable (Moore, Venkateswara and Panchanathan, 2018).
SEMINAR 3
Whistle-blowing and workplace ethics
Meaning of whistle-blowing
Whistle-blowing is an unethical act of disclosing or exposing secretive and sensitive informations to others or competitors. A person who perform this unethical act is called whistle-blower (Wang and Sung, 2016). This act can create several problems for the society and businesses. Some examples of thus illegal and unethical act is corruption, an individual and employee who reports harassments, corruption, discrimination and fraud. It can have several negative impacts on the image of the company and society as well.
Workplace ethics
Workplace ethics is a set of morals and ethical standards that shows an individual the difference between the right and the wrong and guide their actions in the workplace. This principles and codes of ethics drive an employee or an individual's behaviour. These ethical standards may vary from industry to industry and position to position but all fields have some common ethics which need to be followed by all for protecting themselves against law suit and other legal issues. Some examples are: fairness, loyalty, respect, caring, responsibility etc.
How Whistle-blowing impacts in the workplace ethics
Whistle-blowing is an unethical act which become the reason of conflicts and its brings main 2 moral values such as fairness and values into conflicts. But some authors consider whistle-blowing in a positive manner and say that it can have some positive impacts for some people. Whistle-blowing have several negative impacts in the workplace ethics as it can decrease image of the company, increase labour turnover, decrease sales. It can also violate the company's loyalty and make them unsustainable.
Conflicts of whistle-blowing in the workplaces
Whistle-blowing has several negative impacts as is becomes the reason of conflicts in the workplaces. Some impacts of whistle-blowing or unethical act are described as below:
- Whistle-blowing lead to a breakdown of trust among employees and in the company. When this trust breaks down due to unethical acts between employees and manager then it creates tension and also decrease working relationship (Kyu Wang, Fu and Yang, 2018).
- Whistle-blowing or unethical acts brings legal related consequences for the company.
SEMINAR 4
Can we have effective and approaches to CSR?
Approaches to CSR
Corporate social responsibility is an effective concept in which companies contribute voluntarily and perform to provide a better society as well as a cleaner environment. There are mainly 4 approaches of this such as:
Obstructive: It means to get in a way by which obstructive stance blocks out its social responsibility. In these approach, managers cover up some unethical behaviour. Example of this is fruit juice manufacturer as they hide evidence of using industrial sugar.
Defensive: These type of companies consider themselves neutral as their main aim is to make profits rather becoming social responsible. They perform activities in w manner that other companies cannot take legal actions against them (Galant and Cadez, 2017).
Accommodating: According to this approach, companies believe that social responsibility is more important and for that they follow all ethical standards and legal requirements.
Proactive: Proactive company also make social responsibility and their main mission is to follow ethical standards and make them socially responsible.
Importance of CSR world approaches and their impacts on SME
CSR and its approaches have great impacts on SME's. Some importance of CSR approaches on SMEs' are:
- It helps SME's in improving relationship with suppliers and customers as well. Approaches of CSR improves quality and reduces prices that is beneficial for customers.
- CSR strategies and approaches helps companies in increasing efficiency in the terms of productivity.
Difficulties in worlds approaches to CSR impacting SME
There are several factors relates to the CSR approaches which creates barriers and challenges for the society and businesses.
- In this context, companies are forced to follow regulations to deliver environmental and social objectives which may lead some certain failed initiatives sometimes.
- Engagement and CSR approaches is making continuous changes in demands of customers and behaviours of employees which put pressure on SMEs to change their policies which increases operational cost (Hadjimanolis, 2017).
Reflection on CSR
Corporate social responsibility is a self-regulating business model that supports an organization and individual to become socially accountable and improve living standards of the present population without compromising needs of the future generation. In the context of CSR, I can say that it plays an important role not only for businesses but also for societies and all living beings. On the basis of above study, I can say that CSR makes a business able to develop global sustainability or operate their business in different areas for the long run without getting affected. Global sustainable development has a strong connection with CSR and by performing ethical and socially responsible activities, people make themselves sustainable which have great positive impacts on businesses or SMEs.
In addition, I can also say that maintaining sustainability and becoming socially responsible is not an easy task as managers or SMEs have to face several problems due to their size of businesses and lack of information access. Some external factors like advanced technology, globalization also put pressure on businesses to adopt technologies and make changes in their policies for taking competitive advantages. In the context of CSR, I can also say that it has some approaches which has critic impacts on the performance and productivity of SMEs' and other businesses. Some benefits which I believe, companies can take with the help of corporate social responsibility model or make themselves socially responsible is improving relationship with potential customers and suppliers and retain them for the long run with the company. These practices and activities of CSR leads ethics which protects company's from legal actions as they fulfil all legal requirements (Bass and Milosevic, 2018). On the other hand, if an organization does not follow accommodating and proactive approaches of CSR then it has to face several problems. Whistle-blowing or unethical act shows that an organization or an individual is not socially responsible or not following codes of ethics. And in this regard I can say that this act creates several barriers in the growth of the company.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarized that corporate social responsibility played a vital role as it provides several positive impacts on the society and businesses as well. CSR and sustainability are interrelated with each other as without becoming socially responsible and performing accordingly, companies cannot make their business sustainable. It has also shown the importance of workplace ethics and negative impacts of whistle-blowing on SME's performance.
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