Introduction
The review seeks to analyze the article by Carroll titled, “The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the Moral Management of Organizational Stakeholders” in order to gain more insight on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The article details the various factors that a company should consider as its CSR. There are various stakeholders involved, in addition to the shareholders of a company. Thus, a company should consider its environment and consumers as vital stakeholders in its operations. The nature of CSR is also looked at with emphasis on the various components that comprise CSR. The article also seeks to differentiate the various moral aspects of CSR and analyze them in terms of their application within a company’s management strategy. The article proves to be informative in regard to a company’s CSR efforts.
Background Information
The article analyzes a company’s CSR efforts. It considers a business environment and how the company interacts with its surroundings. Various stakeholders are involved. This number has grown as more people have to be considered by the company so that it can be viewed as a corporate citizen. Many companies are forced to meet certain expectations of the community in which they operate. The article will be analyzed by looking at whether the model used is applicable and universal in nature in determining these expectations.
Summary
The article tries to show that companies are supposed to meet their CSR goals through a sequential method. Using the pyramid, the changes should begin from the base. The pyramid provides a graphical representation of the importance of CSR efforts and their application. Thus, the responsibilities of a business are legal, economic, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities.
Carroll also considers the legal requirements established in business as codified ethics. Thus, such laws will guide the ethical considerations of a company, ensuring that it is able to meet its CSR goals. He makes an assumption that evolving values are, “the driving force behind the very creation of laws and regulations” (p. 41).
A business will be involved in philanthropic activities since it considers this as a practical way to prove that it cares about the society. Despite this, a major difference also exists between philanthropic and ethical responsibilities. Thus, philanthropy is not expected to be considered as a moral decision. Communities may expect a company to contribute and support various initiatives within the society. Communities will, therefore, fail to consider a company as ethical if it does not take part in such initiatives.
Ethical responsibilities affect all stakeholders of a business. From Carroll’s perspective, consumers, employees, and the environment are affected more by these issues frequently. The various responsibilities of a company are voluntary in nature, although the society expects the company to meet them. The model is considered sustainable as its shows long-term responsibilities that are applicable to future generations of stakeholders.
Evaluation
The article was able to achieve its goals effectively through the use of the CSR pyramid. This pyramid detailed an important and durable model used in exploration of CSR and defining it. The article has been able to capture the various expectations of an organization’s CSR. This is a major strength as many companies have established CSR efforts. With the pyramid, a company can find the best strategy to apply ethical, philanthropic, economic, and legal requirements.
The article is characterized by various weaknesses. There is a lack of consistency in Carroll’s explanation of why CSR is considered a hierarchy. In some instances, he details that it is the way CSR has undergone changes historically. In other instances, Carroll considers CSR as an order of dependence. Despite this, he still gives empirical evidence. This implies that hierarchy results from the relative importance assigned to managers. Moreover, the considerations on an organization’s hierarchy are done to show that ethical and economic obligations should be met at the same time. Thus, the pyramid lacks a conceptual clarity to be considered accurate.
The article also lacks descriptive accuracy. Carroll tries to present his model as universal, but that is not the case in reality. The model has not been tried in contexts that are not within America. Different cultures can affect the model differently and might vary in application within different environments. Thus, the model might not be applicable in different cultural contexts.
The article can be related to my personal experience whereby many companies I know of have established CSR efforts. Each company tries to give back to the society through various initiatives. For instance, some companies are involved in sponsoring and constructing libraries for the community at large.
Conclusion
The article provides a simple approach to CSR by the use of a pyramid. It acts as the basic principle that guides the CSR goals of a company. Despite this, further research should be conducted to determine the effect of the model within different environments. Various factors can determine the applicability of the model, for instance culture. Conducting further research on such a variable will ensure that the model is useful for organizations within different environments. CSR is an important aspect of an organization. Profitability may be dependent on how the organization is considered by its environment or society around it. An organization with a well-developed CSR plan will be considered to be a corporate citizen and it will easily gain as business in comparison to a business without any CSR efforts.