Name: Zhang Miao  Student ID: S08244
Research paper supervisor:Dr.Sekou Conde
School of management  Minzu University of China
2008-2009 Academic Year
 
 
Abstract:
Nowadays, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is a word with wide concern in areas of business and theory. With the development and progress of the society, people are beginning to realize that in addition to providing products or services, companies also have broad responsibilities to the society, customers, the environment and other stakeholders.
This article briefly describes the history and development of CSR, discusses in details supportive and opposed views of CSR and analyzes related reasons. Moreover, the author uses cases, data analysis and other methods to describe the current situation of CSR in China and also gives some personal suggestions for improvement. Wide cooperation is needed to improve the construction of CSR around the world. The author hopes to arouse widespread concern on this issue with this article, and also hopes to be able to provide some recommendations and enlightenment to Chinese companies.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, shareholders, debate, development
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In today's world, capital has an increasing obvious position of strength as the trend of economic globalization develops. Economic globalization globalizes economic activities, then at the same time globalizes a variety of social problems caused by globalization —labor rights, the consumer movement, human rights, the environmental movement and so on. With the expansion of capital, social issues like the polarization of wealth, social poverty especially labor conflicts are increasingly acute. Faced with this situation, the Corporate Social Responsibility increasingly attracts wide attention over the world, and many scholars, practitioners and corporations today are paying increasing attention to it.
Today in China, in the fierce market competitions, business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility has been growing concern for all sectors of the society, particularly within the background of focusing on building a harmonious society, this issue has a very important practical significance to discuss. After the serious SanLu milk crisis happened in China several months ago, people in all walks of the society can’t help asking this question: As members of the society, should enterprises fulfill social responsibilities to protect our common environment and resources, protect the common interests of the public, and make efforts to build a harmonious society?
Definition
There is not uniform definition of "Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR)" internationally at present and scholars have different views about it. Westerns have deeper studies on this issue and this definition has also gone through an evolutionary process[1]. Generally, it is a kind of corporate obligation, beyond that required by laws and economics, to pay more attention to be aware of the impact of their business on the rest of the society, including their own stakeholders and the environment. This definition contains three points. Firstly, corporation obeys laws and pursues economic interests. That is the nature of corporations. Secondly, corporation should be a moral agent and make efforts to do something good for the society. Finally, stakeholders are constituencies that are affected by the corporate decisions and actions, including customers, employees, suppliers, communities, governments, stockholders, competitors and so on. When enterprises are in the creation of profits and take legal liability to stockholders, they also need to make commitments to their stakeholders, which means that enterprises must go beyond the traditional concept that takes corporate-profits as the only goal, laying emphasis on concerns to people’s values in the process of production, and on the contributions to consumers, the environment and the society[2]. That is concept as a whole.
The emergence of the concept of CSR experienced a long and progressive history. The ideological origins of the concept can be traced back to the 18th century. As early as the mid-and-late 18th century, the modern sense of the enterprise had had a full development when Britain completed the first industrial revolution, but the concept of CSR isn’t yet to come. The practice of corporate social responsibility limited to owners’ personal moral conducts at that time. The starting point is the book named "invisible hand" by Adam Smith. He said that “Classical economic school believes that the only social responsibility of business was to maximize profits so long as it was operating within the law. [3]” Classical economic theory held that a society could best determine people’s needs through the market. If companies use resources and provide products or services as efficiently as possible to meet the needs of the society, and sells them with the price that consumers are willing to pay for, then enterprises take their social responsibility already. By the end of the 18th century, subtle changes of the Western concept of corporate social responsibility had began to take place. Small business owners began to donate money to schools, churches and the poor. Into the 19th century, two industrial revolutions brought about the leap of the social productivity. Corporations developed to a greater extent in the number and size. Influenced by the thought of "social Darwinism" during this period, people held pessimistic attitudes about CSR. A large quantity of companies did not take the initiative to undertake social responsibilities, but exploited closely related suppliers and employees as much as possible in order to grow up into a strong competitor rapidly in the society of fierce competitions. This kind of concept brought about lots of strong negative impacts with the development of the industries. At the same time, the enterprise system improved gradually in the mid-and-late 19th century,  and the requirements of maintaining their own rights and interests for working class combined with growing series of《Antitrust Law》 and 《consumer protection laws》of the U.S. government to curb corporate misconducts, all these objectively put forward new demands on CSR. The concept of corporate social responsibility is bound to emerge.
The course of development
Ø        The 20th century 50's -70’s, profit first
September 13, 1970, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman published an article——《the social responsibility of business》 in 《The New York Times》, pointing out that “One of, and the only one of the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits within the framework of competition rules. [4]” He analyzed that in order to achieve this, they must be committed to social obligations and the resulting social costs. They must use ways like ‘no pollution, no discrimination, and no engagement in deceptive advertisement’ to protect social welfare, they must integrate into their communities and subsidize charitable organizations, so as to play an active role in improving the society.
1976 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) drafted 《Code Of Conduct For Transnational Corporations》, which is so far the only multilateral and comprehensive code of conduct for transnational corporations signed and committed to implementation by the governments. Although these guidelines have no constraints on any country or company, they requested more protection of the rights of stakeholders and stockholders, increase on transparency and strengthen of accountability. In 2000, the guidelines were revised and made more emphasis on responsibilities of stimulating and implementing these guidelines of the governments that signed.
Ø        The 20th century 80's -90’s, concerned about the environment
Corporate social responsibility movement gradually began to rise in western developed countries, which included contents like the environment, labor, human rights and so forth, resulting in that concerns of consumers developed from quality of products only into concerns about many aspects like product quality, the environment, occupational health, labor and social security. Some non-governmental-organizations as well as public opinion involved in Greenpeace, environmental protection, social responsibility and human rights called for links of social responsibilities and trade. Under increasing pressure and their own development needs, many European and American multinational corporations made some necessary commitments to social responsibilities, or dealt with the needs of different interest groups through certifications of the environment, occupational health, social responsibilities.
Ø        The 20th century 90's till now, the rise of social responsibility movement
In the early 90's, the U.S. labor and human rights organizations launched the "anti-sweatshop movement" for clothing and footwear industry. After the U.S. clothing manufacturer Levi-Strauss was exposed by the news media owing to the use of "sweatshop" system, it became the first company to develop codes of conduct in order to save its public image[5]. Under the pressures of NGO like labor and human rights organizations and consumers, many well-known companies set up their own codes of conduct, which subsequently turned into "Codes of production movement", also known as the "Norms of action movement" or "Factory Code Campaign", to directly fulfill its corporate social responsibilities.
But multinational corporations developed their own codes of conduct with an obvious commercial purpose, and its implementation can not be the supervised [...]

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