Company Q and Social Responsibility, Essay Example

Company social responsibility, more often referred to as corporate social responsibility in the world of global business, refers to a company taking responsibility for its actions as they related to people, customers, consumers, and the natural environment in which the company operates and/or does business. Many times, when a company practices social responsibility, it does more than required by government regulators and laws concerning the protection of the environment. Also, company social responsibility is often related to “corporate citizenship” or conducting business in a way that benefits society rather than the company itself (Corporate Social Responsibility, 2015).

In regards to Company Q, the decision to close their stores in high crime areas of the unidentified city because they were losing money (for the lack of sales one might assume) makes business sense, and finally placing some health-conscious organic products on their shelves because of requests by their customers also makes solid business sense, due to pleasing the customer which acts as an incentive to purchase other goods from the grocery store. However, the decision to throw away perfectly good food because the date on the package has expired (which in many states is mandated by law) does not make good business sense.

The chain’s excuse for not donating the food to a community food bank does not make any sense either. It would be safer to say that they decided to throw away the food because of laws mandating that expired food cannot be sold to customers regardless of its freshness. Therefore, the chain is not practicing company social responsibility at least in the sense of throwing away perfectly good food that might help feed a hungry local family or those who are indigent and homeless. However, the owners of the grocery store chain would most likely say that they are only attempting to protect the public by not giving away expired food.

It is quite clear that the company’s attitude concerning social responsibility is very poor, meaning that instead of throwing away the food, it would have been more socially responsible to give it to a local community food bank to help the homeless and others who cannot afford a healthy meal. Clearly, in order to be more social responsible related to the communities that it serves in the city, Company Q needs to adopt what is known as shared value which is founded on the idea that company success and the needs of the immediate community are interlinked, wherein each supports the other. In this way, Company Q could boost its social responsibility by becoming more concerned with its customers and business practices which ultimately determine company success and endurance in a very competitive business environment. This type of interlinking relationship also helps to create a sense of pride and contentment related to a company’s shareholders.

There are a number of approaches that Company Q could take to help boost its social responsibility. First of all, the company should replace its CEO with an individual who cares about company responsibility and its customers that in many instances can either make a company a success or bring about its failure. However, this approach would depend upon if the CEO is the owner of the company which if so would make it non-feasible. Secondly, it could offer a wider variety of health-related foods for its customers which would help to bring more people into the stores. As part of this approach, the company could advertise its line of health foods which would also increase the number of customers.

Thirdly, the individual that is responsible for determining the fate of expired food should make some kind of deal with the local food banks instead of throwing it away in the trash. This individual should also stop worrying about the company’s employees in relation to stealing expired food products. In fact, it might be a good idea to ask the employees if they would like to take some of the food home to their families or help out with donating the food to deserving charities in the community.

References

Corporate social responsibility. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corp-social-responsibility.asp