Tuesday, 14 June 2011

The importance of Corporate Socail Responsibility in relation to other corporate objectives
Corporate objectives are goals or targets that concern the business as a whole, providing a sense of direction to the whole organisation. These objectives are made by those at the top of the hierarchy, either the owner/ chairperson or managing director. They act as a focus for decision making and so is much easier to coordinate actions and so leads to improvements in efficeincy and overall a more productive and motivated workforce. Also it enables the firm to evaluate the performance as they have set targets which is easy to measure if they have been met, which is a vital means of control. They also provide a framwork in which business strategies can be drawn up. The type of corporate objectives that are incorporated will ultimateley depend on the charachteristic of the firm, such as the size and the structure, as smaller firms will have differerent corporate objectives to that of a larger firm. For example a smaller firm may have the objective to survive while the larger firm may have the objective of profit maximisation.
An example of a corporate objective for Marks & Spencers is increasing their international business to 15% to 20% by 2012. M&S also have objectives not solely based on profit as they have a plan A in which they have 80 commitments they will aim to achieve in order to make the firm more sustainable by 2015. The commitments made by M&S include reducing their carbon emissions by 8% and also by reducing the amount of waste that is sent to landfill by 33%.
Corporate objective ultimateley need to be SMART. Firstly the objectivesneed to be Specific which means stating exactly what the objective relates to. Secondly the objectives must be measurable so that it could provide a yardstick against which performance can be measured.Third, it has to be agreed by all those directly involved, including shareholders, directors and managers and thus they are more likely to understand and be more motivated to achieve the objective. Fourth it must be realistic as in order to push the business forward and maximise potential it needs to be achievable as otherwise if is unachievable it could have the reverse effect and demotivate employees. Finally the objectives must be timescaled and so the firm must decide when it should be achieved and so allows the firm to measure if the objective has been achieved. SMART targets act as a focus for decision making and effort and so provides the framework for deciding and determining strategy. Also it provides the firm with a means of evaluating the businesses performance and so if targets aren't achieved can help pinpoint their mistakes. If the corporate objectives weren't SMART then there wood be poor decision making as the firm wouldn't have any direction and so therefore there would be a lack of efficeincy and so productivity.

Friday, 27 May 2011

The factors that determine the extent to which a business is socially responsible

Each of the stakeholders of a business will all have different amounts of power and interest over a business; some have more power than others. The firm’s decision makers are more likely to take into account the social responsibility that the most powerful stakeholder’s would like to implement. The shareholders in a company are seen to be the most important stakeholder becasue they have risked their money in the business and have power over decision as they can vote at shareholder meetings. The shareholders must seek to keep shareholders happy with high dividends and profits so that they don't sell shares and so therefore making the company vulnerable to takeover. Each of the senior managers will have a different view about corporate social responsibility and whether they should incorporate it in their business strategies.


One factor that affects the extent to which a firm is responsible is legislation that is imposed. Abiding by legislation is the minimum requirement for firms however it can be the most influential factor determining the responsibility accepted by firms. This is to make sure businesses are socially responsible to the minimum extent; however it is down to firms to accept the responsibility and go beyond this. Many businesses only accept CSR in compliance with the law, however there are some very good firms that accept CSR in excess of the minimum required by law. If a firm goes beyond the law then they are increasing the amount of CSR thet they implement in their company.
However somtimes firms try to sidestep the law or seek to try and avoid regulation by a change in strategy, an example of this is having an offshore bank account in order to reduce tax liability. When firms sidestep the law then their activity is illegal and so fines would be imposed in order to try and make businesses comply with the law and to try and stop it happening again. However when firms try to exploit loopholes in the law then they aren't technically breaking the law; however many believe that even though the firm isn't breaking the law their activity is still unethical and so still unnacceptable of a socially responsible company. In order to try and combat the problems with the law is to make sure that there isn't loop holes so that people can get away with things that are still morally wrong.


There are many mixed views about CSR between the Public and Private sector. Businesses in the private sector there is conflict between the stakeholders and whether their objectives should be profit or social responsibility. The shareholders of the business would generally want the main objectives of the business to be profit maximisation as they want a high return on their investment. Even though being more socially responsible presents a higher intial cost in the long run it will improve the brand image of the firm as they will be diversified, meaning they will be generating more profits in the long run. However other stakeholders such as the local community and consumers may want the business to be more socially responsible.  However business in the Private sector are more likely to have the objective of social responsibility. Public sector organisations such as the BBC accept CSR by raising £127m for Comic Relief. lso not for profit organisations such as Nationwide Building Society try to reduce thir carbon footprint through suppliers etc, also by supporting people who are homeless or who have housing issues and also encouraging and supporting sustainable living and housing.

Overall Private sector businesses are generally more likely to focus on profit as their shareholders have power over them and so can influence whether they accept CSR or not. However firms in the public sector will have objectives to incorporate social responsibility into their business as they are in the not for profit sector.
 

The type of legal structure that a firm has may affect the extent to which a firm is socially responsible. This may be due to the limited liability status and the accountability to shareholders. Many unincorporated business such as sole traders and partnerships have limited liability and so the are limited to the amount of money that they can invest into a business, however this would be protected if the business was to ever be liquidated. As a limited companies accounts are open to scruitiny then this means that companies are more willing to adopt more socially responsible methods. However as sole traders and partnerships are owned by the individual owners and Private Limited companies are owned by the shareholders this means that they only have to meet the standard of CSR that is desired by the private owners. Even though they have laws which firms are required to meet they only have a few that require them to report accounts to the public. Partnerships and Private limited companies have to produce a an annual report and account to the Companies House, however this isn't available to the public. This doesn't mean that they don't incorporate CSR methods, however the owners or shareholders can decide the amount of CSR that is accepted as the public can't see the accounts.

 Whereas Public limited companies have an obligation to produce all CSR productivity in the annual report. This means that they may accept CSR methods as the public and shareholders can see the reports and so CSR may benefit profits and possibly investments. As Public Limited companies are run by directors who report to the owners, the shareholders for the company demand return on their investment, for example in dividends. This means that the company may not have the money to use for using more CSR methods, unless this is suggested by the shareholders and all agree that this would be worthwhile for the business. Under the Companies Act 2006 business have to take into account the wider communit of stakeholders.

The Companies Act states that the business should be run in the interest of the shareholders and the objectives should still remain that of profit seeking and shouldn't be distracted by consideration of corporate social responsibility for other shareholders. Also it states that the director should act in a way that is most likely to promote succces for the company. This includes taking into account the company's employees, suppliers and customers, the impact of the businesses operations on the environment and the need to maintain high standards of business conduct. The act suggests that directors should incorporate CSR methods aswell as creating a high return on investment.
The extent to which Governments should influence Corporate Social Responsibility


Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been accepted by many companies, mainly in order to improve their brand image and so further generate profits, and so not for the purpose of the community or the environment. However other businesses refuse to undertake CSR as they believe it will increase the costs for the business. Therefore as the Governments are voted into office by the majority of the population then they are expected to be concerned about the impact of business decisions.

It is the Governments aim to try and defend the rights of the employees, consumers and the local community against the actions of the larger and more powerful businesses. The larger companies will generally only accept CSR methods if they are low cost and are more beneficial to the company, therefore they will ignore different types of stakeholders such as the employees, consumers and the local community as they don’t have the power over the firms. As Governments are voted into office every four years they will need to have responsibility for the current generation and for the future generation. Therefore they shouldn’t just make decisions that will benefit the country in the short-term but have a major impact in the log-term (short-ism). Also the competitiveness of the UK businesses shouldn’t be undermined, by encouraging people buy from abroad and not the UK due to the increased costs form CSR.

How can and do Governments Influence CSR?

One way in which the government can influence whether firms adopt CSR is by imposing legislation. Legislation that has been imposed for example is employment rights, health and safety, discrimination, consumer rights and for pollution. The main laws for pollution are The 1990 Environmental Protection Act and the 1995 Environment Act which encourages firms to have the responsibility to clean up their own land and make sure it isn’t contaminated. If the legislation is broken then firms will incur major fines. Since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, BP have and are continuing to spend millions to ensure they meet the introduction of stricter regulations the government are planning to put in place. Even though firms recieve fines these still may not have an effect on the social responsiblity of the business, as this will depend on whether the level of fines outweigh the consequences of not being socially responsible.

Regulations can also be imposed to force firms to implement CSR, for example the reporting requirements and product safety. An example of when products didn’t meet the product safety requirements would be when the cars made by Toyota were recalled due to faults in the accelerator pedals.As implementing CSR methods can be extremely expensive the Government should also provide businesses with subsidies, grants and tax concessions so that they can research and develop methods of using renewable energy, and so encouraging firms to adopt CSR methods. However the amount of power that the governement can impose will rely on the whether the population that voted them into power will keep supporting them in their decisions.

The case for Government action

The reason for some businesses not being socially responsible is usually because they have a Profit Motive. If there wasn’t any government intervention then a firm’s main aim would be profit maximisation, causing a loss to the rest of society. Therefore the Government action is required to force firms to accept CSR. However as it is now a requirement to have a minimum level of CSR corporated into the business plan, this could help to boost the firms brand image. Therefore this will be benefiting the firm and also the community, consumers and other stakeholders. When BP had an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 11 people were killed and 4.9 million barrels of oil was discharged, having a major impact on the environment as miles of coastline was damaged and threatened marine life. Due to the oil spill BP were fined $34 billion in order to try and prevent such damage happening again. As BP had such an effect on the environment this meant that their profit margins dropped significantly. Therefore as the shareholders main priority is profit and so as the margins were reduced people began to sell shares and some even withdrew investments as they didn't want toplay a part in such a harmful business. This meant that BPs price per share was dramatically reduced and so could have a negative impact on the firms brand image.

As CSR is forced upon companies by legislation etc. then it can be argued that even though they have to undertake CSR, their main motive is profit. It may be seen by some that for a firm to be socially responsible they need to go beyond the minimum requirement set by legislation as by following the legislation the firm isn't taking any voluntary action to be socially responsible.

There are also particularly strong arguement for governement action in relation to pollution. Pollution is becoming a rising issue due to the increased scale of production in order for businesses that are trying to meet the higher demands of the public. Pollution from these companies has a negative impact of the environment, including the local community and the other businesses in that community. Many profit seeking businesses may have methods of production that are high polluting but are cheap rather than having ones that have low levels of pollution but are more expensive. The shareholders of the profit seeking business would be more concerned about the profits of the firms rather than the impacts it has on that community. The pollution from these companies will not only inflict a cost on the present generation, it will also on future generations and so the governement need to be concerned about the future generations. Therefore for these reasons governement intervention is essential to try and prevent the amount of pollution that firms cause. The amount of pressure the governement puts on businesses will depend on the political party that is in power and their attitude to CSR and the impacts on the environment.

There has been laws and regulation introduced in order to try and reduce the amount of pollution providing minimum requirements that they need to take responsibility to meet. However the legislation are only forcing the companies to take their responsibility of meeting the minimum standards and so there will still be pollution occuring. If there is only action being taken by UK governements then this will not be suffiecient as we will be effected by pollution from Europe and visa versa. Therefore there isn't much help to the environment if only the UK are enforcing these regulations.

The case against government action

The main reason against governement action is that it damages the free market economy. A free market economy operates by voluntary exchange in a free market and is not planned or controlled by a central authority. In the free market economy the governement plays a neutral role. There are many advantages of a free market economy; the profit motive in a free market ensures that businesses supply the goods and services that people need. Another advantage is that the competition among business benefits customers who want to buy what they need at the lowest price and with the highest quality as possible. Another advantage is that a free market rsults in high levels of economic growth, which then therefore raises living standards. There are some market failures

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that the governement should intervene as they should do right by the whole population and so should enforce requirements to tackle the issues that are caused by businesses such as pollution that harms the community and also future generations. Governments want firms to accept CSR and as firms aren't willing to do this then it needs to be achieved by legislation, incentives and threaths. However successful businesses create jobs , provide people with goods and services, provide the country with export earnings and genertae tax revenue. The taxes of businesses contribute to public services such as education and health care and without the taxes from businesses then they wouldn't be as good a service. There is a limit to the amount of control that can be inforced by the government as there is the possibility that UK businesses could be forced to migrate abroad. In my opinion there does need to be government intervention however there needs to be a balance between a free market and state control. There should be a minimum amount of CSR that businesses should meet and if they aren't then penalties should be enforced. However the amount of CSR that should be enforced will depend on the governement party that is in power at the time as all will have different views about how socially responsible a firm should be.   

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

Responsibilities accepted by a Business

The influences determining which responsibilities are accepted by a business and which are not

The stakeholders of a business all have different amounts of power; some are more powerful than others. The firm’s decision makers are more likely to take into account the social responsibility that the most powerful stakeholder’s would like to implement.  Firms will accept responsibility for some stakeholders, however it won’t for others. For example a firm may treat customers well but are late at paying the suppliers. There are many factors that affect the amount of responsibility a firm takes for the different stakeholders.

One factor that affects the amount of responsibility a firm accepts to the stakeholders is the Legislation that is imposed. Abiding by legislation is the minimum requirement for firms however it can be the most influential factor determining the responsibility accepted by the firms. This is to make sure businesses are socially responsible to the minimum extent; however it is down to firms to accept the responsibility and possibly go beyond this. This impact of a business of enforcing legislation is the added costs to the business. There are many laws that a business has to abide by, many guarantee rights for the firm’s employees. One law that protects employees is the 1970 Equal Pay Act, which ensures that employees are provided with equal pay for different genders and the disabled. The impacts of the Equal Pay Act being imposed on a business is that the costs of wages will increase as everyone would have to be paid the same. However this is not necessarily bad for the firm as some people, dependant on the type of worker they are, may be financially motivated. If the workers are theory X workers then they will be more motivated and so in turn the productivity for the business will increase. Therefore the overall unit cost may drop as the wages are being spread amongst more products.

Sometimes firms will try to sidestep the law and so aren’t being socially responsible. If firms don’t comply with certain laws then there will be fines imposed. Another example would be the 1990 Environmental Protection Act and the 1995 Environment Act which gives companies fines for pollution, encourages environmental waste management and encourages firms to have the responsibility to clean up their own land and make sure it isn’t contaminated.

Fines are imposed in order to encourage compliance with the law. If they aren’t significant enough, in relation to the size of the business or their savings if they don’t abide by the law, then they won’t work. Also whether the firm would accept the fine would be down to the costs to the firm of not accepting against the actual fine. It is questionable whether the fines incurred by firms actually make them more socially responsible in the long run or whether it has no effect over the way they operate. If the fine that is imposed creates a lot of media attention for the business then they will be more willing to pay the fine as they wouldn’t want to damage the reputation of the business.

An example of when a company has received fines for not acting responsibly is Toyota when they incurred major fines due to defects in their cars. Due to many defects in the floor mats pushing down on the accelerator pedals in cars made by the company Toyota have caused many deaths. However later it was found that there was default in the making of the cars and it was not due to the floor mats. Toyota has recalled 8.5m vehicles worldwide over accelerator problems. Whether or not Toyota would pay the fines incurred from these faults would be down to whether the fine outweighed the cost of litigation because if it did then they would not pay this and just pay the litigation fees. However Toyota has paid its £20.9m to the US government for failing to swiftly recall millions of vehicles with faulty brakes and steering.

The different types of Stakeholders exert a lot of power and interest over a firm and how it is run, however different stakeholders can exert more power than others. Stakeholders can be categorised by the level of power and interest that they have over a firm. This is shown by the Power Interest Matrix. Those stakeholders that have a high level of interest and or power are referred to as key players, these would generally include shareholders. However those with a low level of power and interest are said to have minimal effort, an example for most firms would be the community. Those that have a high level of power and low interest the firm needs to keep satisfied and those with high interest and low power the firm needs to keep informed.

Shareholders have a high level of power over firms as they invest money into the firm and so have the right to vote on issues. Also shareholders have power over the firm as they can sell their shares and if a large number decide to sell theirs then it means there would be a fall in the share price. This ultimately would mean that the company would become worthless and so more vulnerable to takeover.  Due to the problems with the recalls of the cars the share price for Toyota dropped significantly by 5.6% as many shareholders sold their shares. This may be due to the fact that they didn’t was to invest in a business that was deemed risky or because they didn’t want to invest in a business that wasn’t socially responsible and was causing harm to consumers. Due to the shareholders selling their shares reduced the company’s market by billions. 

The amount of power that a firm has over the firm is dependent on the amount of shares that they own, the more shares they own the more say they will have in the business. Shareholders can also have power by threatening to sell their shares and so reducing the worth of the business, therefore if the firm wants to prevent his then they must keep the shareholders happy. Even though the shareholders can vote for decision they want to happen, if they have a low amount of share then they individually may not have a large influence over the firm.

Another stakeholder that has a lot of power over the business is customers. The customers have a lot of power over the business as they have the power to withhold purchases and so can be a significant threat to the business if large numbers of people don’t buy from them. This would obviously reduce their sales and so therefore have a significant impact on their profits. Many firms may also rely on repeat custom and word of mouth recommendations and so can’t afford to alienate the customers. After the cars made by Toyota were recalled the sales for the company fell by 16%. This is because customers no longer trust the brand as there has been so many accidents caused by faults with Toyotas cars. Also consumers have a legal right over the business. The 1987 Consumer Protection Act was enforced to ensure that the firm is liable for faulty products that cause harm to the customer.   

The amount of power the customers have over a firm is dependent on whether there are other substitute products available to them, if there are substitutes then they will have a lot of power as they can buy other products instead. Therefore the business will want to keep to customers happy so that this doesn’t happen. The level of power will also depend on how dominant the firm is, if they have low prices then they may have advantage over others. If larger firms slash their prices then other firms that are smaller may not be able to compete with them and so this eliminated the amount of choice that a customer has.
               
There are other stakeholders such as the community, that don’t have as much power over the firm. As the community is a non-connected stakeholder then it is bound to be in a weak position. The community however does have some legal protection against pollution and planning permission for example. The 1990 Environmental Protection Act and the 1995 Environment Act which gives companies fines for pollution, encourages environmental waste management and encourages firms to have the responsibility to clean up their own land and make sure it isn’t contaminated.

In conclusion most businesses, except form the most responsible and committed firms will generally only accept responsibility which is enforced by law and regulation. However this is only the minimum requirement of the firm and if they want to be socially responsible then they would have to go beyond this, the firm could incorporate their own code of conduct and so contributes to being more socially responsible. The amount of power the stakeholders have is shown by the Power Interest Matrix. The shareholders are obviously key players as they have a large amount of power over the firm. The customers are said to have high power but a low level of interest and so need to keep satisfied. Therefore they are not key players in the business, however if they aren’t kept satisfied then they can have a major impact on the firm. This was shown when customers weren’t satisfied with Toyota’s cars as they withdrawn from purchasing their products. The most influential stakeholder to Toyota would be the shareholders, however they also need to keep other happy otherwise they could also have more of an impact on the productivity of the business.



Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Corporate Social Responsibility

The potential benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility relative to the costs for businesses and stakeholders

Introduction
Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR is about how businesses are encouraged to have a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, and all other members of the public. CSR describes a company's commitment to be accountable to its stakeholders. Businesses have the commitment to behave ethically and contribute to economic developments whilst also improving the quality of like for the workforce. CSR is known as ‘doing well by doing good’.
Michael Porter took CSR one step further and created another approach known as Creating shared Value where companies would actually incorporate changes in the business in order to be more socially responsible. Creating shared Value is a concept by Michael Porter based on the idea that businesses should aim to create products that would not just be beneficial to the business but to society. When a business creates a benefit to society they can actually benefit themselves economically as they will have a competitive advantage over others.
The stakeholder concept is an example of an approach contributing to Corporate Social Responsibility. This concept is where a business tries to meet the needs to as many stakeholders as possible and not just the needs of the shareholders.
Whereas the traditional shareholder approach regards the maximising the shareholder returns as their main objective. They attempt to increase the firm’s earnings, increase the market value of the shares or increase the amount of dividends paid. This approach would be an example of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit.
Benefits
1.       Motivated employees
There are many businesses that have gained an advantage from being socially responsible in various ways. One advantage of a business being socially responsible is that they can have satisfied, motivated employees therefore meaning the recruitment is easier and cheaper as productivity is high also there is lower labour turnover and so therefore resulting in lower costs. An example of a business that has benefited from this is Marks & Spencer’s.  Marks & Spencer created The Marks & Start community programme which was launched in 2004. This programme was created to offer work experience to those who for whatever reason are unemployed. The people that it is aimed at include the homeless, disabled people, young unemployed, parents returning to work, students who are the first in their family to go to university  and also school students (aged 14-16).
The aim of this programme is to give these individuals a taste of the working environment and the encouragement and the ability to gain employment. Each participant, regardless of target group, receives a two to four week placement in either a M&S store or office; the allocation of a ‘buddy’ (a M&S employee) as a mentor; the provision of travel expenses, lunch, a uniform (where necessary) and a reference (when requested).
M&S have benefited from the Marks & Start programme in various ways. This knowledge and skills of the workforce would have improved as they would now have an understanding of how to treat different customers, e.g. working with those with disabilities. Due to the employees being more motivated, they will produce more products and so therefore the unit costs of the products will go down as their wages are spread over more products, this will therefore increase the profit for the business.


2.       Differentiation
M&S introduced the ‘Plan A’ in 2007, which included setting 100 things the company could do, by 2015, in areas such as waste, supply chain, climate change, health and sustainable raw materials. M&S has also been doing a lot of work within its supply chain and their first goal is to get 10% of its clothing to come from Fair-trade.
An example of how M&S has achieved this in another of its programmes is through its partnership with Oxfam. Together the organisations have established the Clothes Exchange designed to raise money for Oxfam’s work also reducing one million tonnes of clothing that ends up in landfill in the UK each year. The Clothes exchange was set up to encourage people to donate clothing that they don’t wear. If the clothes that are donated are from Marks and Spencer’s then they will receive a £5 gift card. The clothing that gets donated will be given to Oxfam in order to raise money for work internationally. Since 2008 the Clothes Exchange has raised £2.5m for Oxfam’s charity work.
M&S have benefited from ‘Plan A’ as they are now differentiated. By setting up this plan Marks and Spencer’s now have a USP as they are trying to be socially responsible, whereas other firms aren’t. Due to them implementing CSR this means that they would be able to charge higher prices as many people would rather pay more for products that they know have been made in a sustainable way, than products that are low cost and no made in such ways.


Disadvantages
1.       Costs
Even thought there are many advantages to a business to implement CSR there are also some disadvantages. The main disadvantage to implementing CSR is the initial costs to set up such strategies. Marks & Spencer’s ‘Plan A’ cost £200million to set up, which is a large investment. However in the long run the initial invest would pay off because the profits of the business would be increased due to the increased prices. This would still depend upon whether people still demanded the firm’s products as the price would be higher.
2.       Loss of customer
Another disadvantage of using CSR is that due to the increasing prices they may lose some customers. As Porter's strategy suggests a business has to be low cost or differentiated otherwise the business will fail as it can't incorporate both. M&S's aren't low price as there are other firms that compete against prices such as 'Tesco', however by them using CSR it makes them differentiated. Even though the CSR strategies may make the firm more differentiated the customers of M&S may not think that these methods are so important and would rather pay a lower price for products than for ones that are fair-trade for example. Therefore as the prices have risen for these products customers may go to competitors as they are low cost. However this will all depend on the morals for the consumers. Obviously the CSR strategy is implemented in order to benefit the stakeholders, however if the business is losing customers and therefore not generating the revenue that would have been expected, then it would be down to the shareholders to decide whether the CSR strategy has been a worthwhile investment or not depending on their values. It isn't clear to determine whether shareholders want to implement the CSR strategy in order to increase the revenue and not for the purpose of benefiting the stakeholders.
 
Conclusion
In conclusion it is Obvious that CSR represents a benefit to stakeholders; however the question is whether CSR benefits the shareholders in the form of lower costs or more customers in order to increase the revenue for the business. A major debate about CSR is whether having a long-term successful company allows you to undertake CSR or does CSR contribute to a long –term successful company. If a company does undertake CSR then for the process to be successful then it would need to do a lot of advertising to show consumers how they are benefiting the stakeholders, this would have to be done in store and in other various ways. This would need to be done so that consumers have awareness about what that company are trying to achieve, also it will show them that by buying the products they could also help them benefit society etc. If this is done properly then this could mean that they increase the amount of customers and so therefore revenue. If the business is already successful then if they undertake CSR it may be easier to make customers aware about the things they are doing. As they already have a large amount of repeat customers if they undertake CSR then may increase the amount of customers that they have. Overall I think that a business doesn’t have to be successful in order to undertake CSR they just need to make sure their customers are aware of their practices. 



http://www.creatingsharedvalue.org/?tag=/Michael%20Porter