Measurement of Corporate Social Responsibility, Essay Example

Corporate social responsibility is the voluntary activities performed by an organization to operate in environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable manner. This is where the company or organization performs its duties more than the level required by the regulation acts. This enables the organization to maintain its activities and fightwith competitors in the marketplace. Self reported disclosures is a method used to measure corporate social responsibilityin an organization (Lindgree & Swaen 2010, p. 162). This is where the duties performed by an organization are used to measure its corporate social responsibility. From the study of Fortune 500 analysis, it was reported that self reporteddisclosures is the best method to measure corporate social responsibility. This is because it is easy to collect the data. Thedata is easily collected from the company’s annual reports. The exercise will be less expensive as travelling expenses andaccommodation are eliminated because the required data is available in the organization. In addition, the annual reports of the company are made public, this does not require the company to participate I data collection. This is because theinformation displayed in the annual reports is enough to be used in the study.

A self-reported disclosure is where the information or data to be used is acquired from the financial statements of the organization. This does not require any further explanation from the company. This is because the informationdisplayed in the annual reports is enough to determine the corporate social responsibility of the company. This proves thatless time is spent when gathering information to be used in the study (Portney 2005, p. 99). On the other hand, publicperception is whereby the company and the public are required to give their views on how the organization is performingits daily activities. This method of data collection is much expensive as compared to self-reported disclosures. This is because funds are spent in collecting data from the public. Much time is spent when measuring corporate socialresponsibility. This is due to the data gathered from the public and it might take some days or months.

References

Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2010). Corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(1), 1-7.

Portney, P. R. (2005). Corporate Social Responsibility. Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms—Perspectives from Law, Economics, and Business.