Is Profit the Solo Focus?
In 1970, Nobel Prize winner Professor Milton Friedman published his then well-known article titled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” in the New York Times Magazine. Milton’s view on the objectives of enterprises essentially dominated in the following decades. His view was commonly shared by the leaders of the western world who regarded social responsibilities as binding constraints against enterprise development and those constraints would eventually do harm to competitiveness.
Four decades passed and a lot has changed. Although far from a universal consent, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is nowadays an increasingly wide-spread credence suggesting that enterprises need to do much more than Milton suggested. The influence of corporate behavior to the society and to the environment has proven to be too substantial to ignore (think the financial crisis in 2008 and the Gulf oil spill in 2010). As the public gets more aware of the tremendous power of corporations upon people’s lives, higher pressure and expectation were put upon corporations. Worldwide the business community finds its business decisions confronted by stakeholders of the society, and it is a much larger group than shareholders.
In CUMBA we believe partnership works better than confrontation. Enterprises can operate in a more social-friendly way which strengthens their stakeholder engagement and delivers sustainable returns. While some may argue those efforts mean no more than window dressing, more and more businesses are taking steps further than charity donations and are actually integrating CSR elements into their business decision process.
“Would that hurt their books?”, you may ask. The classic MBA answer applies here: It depends! It truly depends on how you practice CSR to realize the synergies with your core business. But one thing is for certain: the paradigm shift of social responsibilities fulfillment is real. After all it is about how your business interacts with the society. I cannot see how profit can buy a way-out for the two to go separate ways in a long run.
CUMBA CSR Conference 2011
Since 2007, CUHK MBA students have been organizing an annual conference looking into the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Marching to its fifth year, the Conference has become a premier platform of exchange between the business community, the academia, and the CSR experts in Hong Kong.
The 2011 Conference, themed "Global Partnership for a Sustainability Future", was held successfully on 11 May. More than 250 delegates from over 50 organizations of various business domains participated in the conference to share their experience and aspirations of fulfilling social responsibility through responsible business practices. You can find the Conference presentation materials at its official website: http://cumbacsr.baf.cuhk.edu.hk.
Extended Readings
"The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value" at HBR by Prof. Michael Porter and Prof. Mark Kramer is a good place to start.
And of course, the other side of the coin. Here comes a hard one:
"The Hot Air of CSR", by Stefan Stern, columnist of the Financial Times.
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