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Business Fundamentals was developed by the Global Text Project, which is working to create open-content electronictextbooks that are freely available on the website http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu. Distribution is also possible viapaper, CD, DVD, and via this collaboration, through Connexions. The goal is to make textbooks available to the manywho cannot afford them. For more information on getting involved with the Global Text Project or Connexions email us atdrexel@uga.edu and dcwill@cnx.org.

Authors: Vlad Malamud, Yevgeniy Rotenberg

Editor: Douglas Allen

Reviewers: Dean Murray Young (Thompson Rivers University, Canada) Timothy B Folta (Purdue University)

Contributing authors: Wesley Scott Cables, Ricardo Cubillos, Mike Davis, Vesselin Dotkov, Loiuse Doyle, Barbara Gabhauer, Glenna Gagliardi, Melissa Harrison Hiatt, Katie Holtmeier, Alisa Jeffrey, Alexia Jennings, TimPitner, Ashley Randall, Dag Johan Sundby, Nathalie Tryon, Jeffrey Wiant, Sarah Wilson

The topics surrounding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have become more complex due to the globalization of the economy and the issues that arise from companies competing in international markets. Companies are manufacturing goods, hiring local labor, utilizing raw materials and resources extracted from the environment in international locations.

This heightened awareness of CSR and sustainable development has been endorsed by an increased responsiveness to ethical, social, environmental and other global issues. In recent years, companies have been the center of scandals regarding accounting practices, damages to the environment, inadequate treatment of employees and workers and the effect of its products on the society.

For example, in January 2009, the Chairman of one of India’s largest technology companies, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., said he fabricated key financial results, including a fictitious cash balance of more than USD 1 billion (Sheth, 2009). Cases like this, and others such as Enron Corporation and Worldcom in the United States, prompt concerns about corporate governance and accounting standards globally. Further, corporate fraud puts into question one of the fundamental reasons of why shareholders invest in public companies, the need for transparency.

As a result, companies are responding to increased public expectations of responsibility and incorporating the concept of CSR into their operating plans and strategy.

Corporate social responsibility is a diagram showing how the shareholders, consumers, government NGOs, local communitites, unions, and employees affect the marketplace, workplace, environment, and community, and ultimately, the quality of management and the impact of the company on society.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby companies integrate ethical, social, environmental, and other global issues into their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders (employees, customers, shareholders, investors, local communities, government), all on a voluntary basis
Source : industryplayer.com

Corporate social responsibility and sustainable development defined

Traditionally, CSR has been defined as the corporation’s responsibility to comply with the laws and responsibilities to its shareholders. This concept of CSR has evolved to include the organization’s responsibility for its impact on different stakeholders such as employees, customers, investors, local communities, and government.

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Source:  OpenStax, Business fundamentals. OpenStax CNX. Oct 08, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11227/1.4
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