The Importance Of Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility, some may say it is an organization's duty to behave in an economically and environmentally acceptable manner but there is more to it that just that. A company has a duty to its shareholders, the duty to maximize benefits and avoid trouble, a responsibility to the employees and others who depend on that company for a living , and last but not least they have the duty to create a safe environment for everyone. A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr depicts a civil lawsuit that takes place in the United States. The lawsuit is filed by residents of a small town, Woburn, in Massachusetts, against two powerful corporations, Beatrice Foods and W.R. Grace, for polluting the water in the local river with carcinogen TCE and causing the deaths of many children. A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr demonstrates that the issue of Social Corporate Responsibility is prevalent throughout the piece but because of the adversary system of law there is no place for apology just winning for both parties.

In A Civil Action, corporate social responsibility cannot be proven because there is too much morality involved in the case especially by the people and Jan Schitmann. According to The Business Ethics Workshop, v.10, there are three forms of corporate social responsibility; Corporate Social Responsibility, Triple-Bottom Line and Stakeholder (1). In the Corporate Social Responsibility there is the economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility. All these four components of social responsibility appeal to different key events, dialogues or descriptions that appear all throughout the piece. Moreover, these four components help to prove that these companies cannot be held re...

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...s and lack of rigor. One of the most asked questions is: What does it mean to say that a "business" has responsibilities? A corporation is an artificial thing meaning it has artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot have responsibilities, even in a vague sense. When trying to understand what it means to have responsibilities, we have to examine the doctrine of the social responsibility of corporations and ask who it precisely refers to. There is no tangible responsibility that can be placed upon an inanimate building. Presumably the individuals who are to be responsible are the bosses, which means individual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives because they are in-charge.