Corporate Social Responsibility and Assisting Disasters, Essay Example

In case of natural disasters, like hurricanes, and man-made disasters, such as 9/11, governments and charities call for companies’ involvement and provide them with an opportunity to exercise charitable giving and philanthropy. The below analysis will analyze how companies got involved in taking responsibility for people in need, and how they implemented their support in their corporate social responsibility strategy after hurricane Katrina.

Katrina was a disaster that hit the United States and the Gulf unexpected. It was the costliest natural disaster in the history of the U.S. The Category 3 hurricane has left behind devastation, people lost their homes, while 80 percent of New Orleans was destroyed. (Hurricane Katrina website).

Kuo & Means (2012) describe two current frameworks used to assess corporate social responsibility: classical and progressive. When a company acts not only in the interest of the leadership and shareholders (classical approach), they use a progressive approach. The companies feel like they have a special duty for the government, society, and the entire environment, and act to “serve a broader community of stakeholders”. Some of the companies, indeed, took the progressive approach and created ad-hoc campaigns to get people most in need the help they couldn’t get from anywhere else.

WalMart was one of the companies that stood up and implemented help for Katrina survivors into its corporate social responsibility strategy. Kuo & Means (2012, p. 980), state that “Wal-Mart‘s Emergency Operations Center successfully routed trucks with ?hundreds of thousands of cases of bottled water, Pop-Tarts, and generators to distribution centers outside the city before the storm hit.”. Further, WalMart donated an extra 20 million for disaster recovery. Another source, (Mallenbaker.net) concludes the efforts of Walmart as follows: “ In the first few days, the company delivered $20m in cash, 100 truckloads of free merchandise, and food for 100,000 meals”. Today, according to Vijayaraghavan (2011), WalMart has a team of meteorologists and a system that helps them predict emergencies and disasters, making sure that shortages are avoided as much as possible.

Another company, mentioned in relation with Katrina’s devastating consequences is Nike.  The company donated half a million dollars immediately to Red Cross to support their disaster recovery and humanitarian work (Nike, 2005).  Further, they provided free products, just like WalMart. They involved their celebrity partners to create awareness of the need. By supporting the Arizona State University, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl using celebrity endorsement, they raised money for the cause and donated a further 1 million dollars to the “Bush-Clinton Katrina Relief Fund and the Hurricane Katrina Student Relief Fund” (Nike, 2005).

Vijayaraghavan (2011) mentions further companies involved in SCR campaigns to support families affected by Katrina and agencies working on disaster recovery, such as Home Depot, monitoring hurricane forecasts and installing emergency generators, and CVS Pharmacy encouraging customers to get their prescriptions before the hurricane, and stocking emergency products, such as water and flashlights.

The above review has indicated that several companies have taken a lead in supporting the community and taking collective action.  Kuo & Means (2012) state that the above interventions – according to the social capital theory – have increased the companies’ reputation, social network link effectiveness, and social capital alike.

As Vijayaraghavan (2011) concludes: “taking a proactive stance towards disaster management is not only good CSR, it simply boils down to good customer service. Ensuring that stores are well stocked and open ensures that most people can get what they need after an emergency. In this way, relief agencies can focus on the less fortunate”.

References

Hurricane Katrina website. (n,d.) “About Katrina” Retrieved from http://www.katrina.com/index2.htm

Kuo, S., &  Means, B. (2012) Corporate social responsibility after disaster, 89. Washington University Law. Review. 973 . Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/lawreview/vol89/iss5/3

Mallen Baker (n.d.) “Wal-Mart gets praise for response to hurricane Katrina” Retrieved from    http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/page.php?Story_ID=1485

Nike Inc. (2005)  Nike, Inc. Donations Top $4 Million to Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts. CSR Wire. Retrieved from http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/24958-Nike-Inc-Donations-Top-4-Million-to-Hurricane-Katrina-Relief-Efforts

Vijayaraghavan, A. (2011) Major retailers show that disaster management is an integral part of CSR. Triple Pundit. Aug, 29. 2011. Retrieved from             http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/08/major-retailers-show-disaster-management-integral-part-csr/