Michael Bagiella Santiago
Word Count- 1947 /PIN-10539
Michael Santiago Bagiella
Subtopic 1: Rethinking of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship People always believe that large business corporations had their own share in the integration of every nation’s society. They believe that these corporations can help in the development of a productive society, a conducible place for the improvement of one man’s life. Truly, these huge business empires can serve as a great key in uplifting the lives of the people around it, or even maybe the state of the whole nation where it belongs. For a very long time, we have seen how these business corporations had rose from being just a part of every community in this world up to where they are now, wherein they are playing a more vital role in shaping not only our social landscape, but also our economic state.
CSR has been the alter ego of private corporations. They showed to us that despite being a privately owned organization, they are proving to us that they can help the public through their social programs that calls for a growth in every aspect of life that a human being needs to grow. With their so-called “social advocacies“, they are promoting themselves not only as a private organization but also as a social organization with a heart that is willing to respond to the call of the society. Several private corporations had engaged themselves in this type of social interaction, conducting different programs that will provide services to the people using the services or some part of the profit of their businesses. This exercise of power by these privately owned corporations is a good indicator that there is a good relationship between these organizations and the public. If there is a good relationship between the two parties, then we can expect that each of them is open to entertain new concepts or ideas that will promote continuous progression for the benefit of each of them.
Corporations nowadays have already become interactive with the society. From being a private body that exists in our societies, they are now introducing themselves as a social agent of change. We have already seen this scene; several corporations are now engaging themselves in charitable activities, environmental awareness campaigns, and even in alleviating the present conditions of our educational systems, most especially in the developing countries like in Southeast Asia, by providing scholarships to underprivileged students. These altruistic deeds somehow proved to be beneficial to us. Through their continuous generosity to us, we are now having the feeling that, they can help us to achieve a better social status and a better life in this world. True enough, we must admit that we should be thankful to them for their effort in reaching out to our needs, but the question is how far can they go in helping us? Are they willing to push their own limits as a private corporation just to attend to our needs?
Corporate Social Responsibility is a good concept in aiding every nation to accommodate fully the needs of its people. We cannot deny the fact that private corporations can be a great help to the government of a nation when it is lacking the ability or unable to suffice the needs of its people. For several years, large corporations are practicing CSR in order to provide continuous development to our society. Those forms of assistance are helpful and we will really benefit from those programs, however, there are still some questions regarding the full potential of the Corporate Social Responsibility.
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According to T. V. Learson, former president of IBM in the book The Limits of Corporate Responsibility, “Business usually profits best when it serves the public interest within its ability to do so. But we can never loosen ourselves from the iron law of profit which necessarily limits our freedom of action and put bounds on what we can do“ If a corporation so diverts its energies and resources as to go broke, there is nothing it can do “
Michael Bagiella Santiago nothing at all – even if it claims to have a heart and conscience as big as the world–. He is saying that if a company, however it wants to help its society, if it focused on diverting its resources to perform social activities to improve the lives of other people, the company itself will not be able to survive. Private corporations will not live long in this world if its main purpose of existence will change from gaining profit into allotting their resources to unprofitable and less beneficial activities. Gaining profit is what makes a corporation exists. Profit is the lifeblood of a corporation, it needs to flow within itself, or else it will die, just like the blood of the human being that needs to flow throughout our body in order for us to live.
in this discussion, we gave a privately owned educational institution as our example. We can see that even in the educational aspect, if an institution is own privately, it cannot devote all of its profit simply because if they will are going to do that, they will soon to start digging their own burial place.
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A private corporation cannot dedicate its full time and resources just to attend to the society’s need that is why there is the government to take that major responsibility. The cost benefit factor is very vital to their every operation so they cannot just engage in any social activities without gaining any benefit from it in the end. Yes, they can help us, but we Let us take a private educational should not put to our minds that they could be institution as our example, say that a private the answer for us to meet our requirements in educational institution is strongly campaigning order to survive in this world. We as members of for an advocacy to eliminate the problem of out- the society need to survive, and so they are of-school youths through giving educational being a part of it. scholarships to them. It is good to hear that they are going to do that to give their contribution in If that is the case, social experts have elevating the standard of education, but will it already found an answer as an alternative of benefit them? How are they going to profit to CSR and that is what we known today as Social that kind of action? How can it increase their Entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is not profit in order for them to continue that new to us; in fact, it already began flourishing to scholarship program? Those questions will pop different countries long ago. It is a practice in the minds of the people before applying the wherein an organization earns profit in order to CSR to that kind of situation. A private continue to its commitment in upholding the educational institution, which is own and run by social stability of a society. In terms of which of a private group of people, cannot simply pour the two has the greater boundless limitations in out all their school–s profit just to gain the taking over the social responsibility, the concept reputation that they are adhering to promote of social entrepreneurship will emerge as the equality to all people by providing free and high winner because it is not bound to gain profit for quality education even if they really want to. If the sake of its own survival. The role of this they will do that, in the end they will be the ones social entrepreneurship in the economy and who are going to suffer. If they were going to society is very pivotal especially at this point in allot their profit to provide scholarships to as our time where we are currently going under one many aspiring students as possible, in where of the toughest challenges of the century. It is they are going to get their resources to upgrade pivotal because it shows that it is possible to their educational facilities? Where they will get combine the business strategies of a private the money that they will be going to use for the corporation to make attainable plans in aiding advancement of their teaching staff? Where they the society’s needs. This approach proved to be will go to get the money to fund their programs more realistic than CSR because its primary that will promote the quality of their teaching concern for survival is to serve as a society’s competency? We are just discussing here the lifeboat and not to gain profit mainly only for its limits of Corporate Social Responsibility if we survival. are going to apply it in a private corporation, and
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009
Although social entrepreneurship is showing us a more optimistic view about social responsibility, some still found it inaccurate in doing its primary aim because it stands in the middle of the ground. It is not part of a government body so it does not have the power that the government has so it needs to comply with the rules given by the government before they can act freely according to what it wants to. It is not also a part of the corporate world so it does not have the vast resources that private corporations do have like the financial resources. Therefore, in order for these social entrepreneurs to success in promoting their battlecry as a catalyst for social reformation, they will need to start from the beginning to accumulate the resources that the government and the corporate world does have which it will needed to achieve its goal and make a full utilization of its potentialities. After analyzing the capabilities of the Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship, we can say that they also share some similarities but at the same time, they have their own differences to each other. As their common denominator regarding with social and economic issues is the possibility that they can take a role in hoisting our present social state into a higher level through the application of the principles in which they believed would be helpful to the continuous growth of our global society and economy. Discussing about their strength and weaknesses, both of them showed the both sides, the CSR proves its strength and competitive achievement attitude in attaining a certain goal because of its enormous capability to change the course of the lives of a society using its financial resources and through the application of business principles. The same thing with social entrepreneurship, it does the same thing in order for it to reach out to the needs of the society. However, both also have their own weaknesses, regarding with the CSR, it is their weakness to become fully operational in spending their resources to finance their philanthropic programs because it will greatly affect the stability of their organization because their main goal is to gain profit before anything else, even doing philanthropic activities. In the
case of Social Entrepreneurship, it is not limited in aiding the needs of the society but it does not have the individual autonomy which is being enjoyed by large private corporations in doing their business and philanthropic acts. CSR or Social Entrepreneurship, whatever the private corporations and social groups wants to apply in their desire to help us to give the best for our society will not be the main issue here. What important is both options can provide equal opportunity for the society and for the corporate and social entrepreneurs in order to assimilate to themselves the importance of the role being played by each other in establishing a more dynamic and humane society which is responsive to radical changes and is willing to entertain new ideas for the sake of having an essential transition for the amelioration of our society.
Bibliography: Chamberlain, Neil. The Limits of Corporate Responsibility. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1973.
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Rethinking of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship
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Michael Bagiella Santiago
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009