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International Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility Mumbai, March 16, 2005: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a buzzword that sits at the top of the business agenda today. With the greater economic freedom that liberalization brings comes greater responsibilities for business to act as a positive force for development. Leading companies are now expected not just to act ethically in the marketplace, but also to develop their workforce, invest in the community, and sustain the natural environment. And instead of being a constraint on business success, a strategic commitment to CSR has been shown to enhance competitiveness, improve reputation, and build both employee and investor loyalty. These were some of the views expressed by the distinguished panel of Presenters at the exclusive "International Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility: Challenges and Innovative Solutions", on Thursday, 10 March 2005 at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. The Workshop was conducted by a four-member group, who were visiting from the Loyola College in Maryland, USA. Taking corporate social responsibility seriously means taking care of it besides mere market or communication logics, writing in the corporate balances true facts, avoiding cheating with certificates, being coherent starting from the attitudes inside the company (the so-called business ethics), building policies and matters of social responsibility taking into consideration the stakeholders, having a strategy, being aware of having even public responsibilities for the defence of the general interests. But most of all, it means doing all these things together. There were two phases of the workshop each one dealing with two diverse topics with a strong underlying theme. The first segment dealt with Corporate Social Responsibility, which was taken up by David Monsma and Sheryl L. Kaiser. One of the main issues discussed were the state of modern CSR in India. After more than two decades of innovation in CSR, the task facing the Indian business community is to take stock and outline a long-term vision that can underpin the nation's development aspirations. Too often the CSR debate has been dominated by generic global initiatives that have yet to be tailored to India's specific circumstances. Equally, India has a rich tradition in social responsibility that should be captured so that it can be made available to both domestic and international audience. Contributed by - |
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