Introduction

Corporate social responsibility is now becoming a strategic imperative for many businesses around the world. Due in part to the internet and social media, consumers are now becoming much more cognizant of the plight of those around them. Issues related to carbon emissions, income inequality, policy brutality, racism, and healthcare have not entered mainstream discourse. Businesses are increasingly taking stances on issues they believe are helpful to move society in a much more prosperous and beneficial manner. Investors are backing these initiatives too, seeing a large potential for both profit and shared prosperity. The coalesce of investor capital, consumer demand, and business interest has created new and exciting initiatives around corporate social responsibility. In fact, research shows that consumers are willing to pay premium prices for products backed by companies that are socially responsible (Albinger, 2000).

The signs related to the increase in corporate social responsibility show no signs of abating either. Society is now holding businesses accountable to all their key stakeholders, not just investors. By being a good corporate citizen, not only can businesses continue to grow and flourish by society overall all will be better for future generations. One area that has garnered particular interest as it relates to corporate social responsibility to diversity and inclusion. The recent killings of George Floyd have highlighted a long existing racial gap within the country. This gap has grave implications for society. For one, income inequality heavily impacts people of color as many simply are not afforded the same opportunities as their white counterparts. This also an adverse impact on society as income and wealth have strong correlations to crime and incarceration rates. Companies have recently taking up various diversity and inclusion initiatives aimed and attracting, hiring, and training, diverse candidates. Companies around the world have taken these initiatives as it aims to protect and help all parties involved. Businesses benefit from a much more robust and engaged employee base. Society benefits as more minorities are able to move up the income and wealth ladder of society. The individuals themselves benefit from the opportunity to revers centuries of policies and procedures that often hindered the growth and prosperity of minorities. With these initiatives, the opportunity for generational wealth creation is afforded to minority groups.

1What is the nature of the CSR opportunity you are considering? Specify which CSR theatre you are focusing on (see assigned reading: The Truth About CSR). https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-truth-about-csr (4 points)

The nature of the corporate social responsibility opportunity I am considering is vast. Here the diversity initiative more closely resembles that of theater 3 which is related to transforming the business model. The idea behind this corporate social responsibility is to fundamentally change the method in which the organization not only interacts with minorities and women, but also how they attract them to the organization to address income inequality. For example, Wal-Mart has not only raised the minimum wage for its employees to $15 dollars an hour, but it also has aided in helping employees generate news skills by helping to pay for college tuition. Another example is Nike who have fundamentally altered senior executive bonus structure to account for diversity and inclusion initiatives. It has set internal metrics related to diversity and conducts annual reviews of compensation related to minority candidates. The company has also addressed this issue by donating heavily to women owned businesses and historical black colleges and universities. All of these initiatives are designed to fulfil the income and inequality void through corporate social responsibility.

As noted earlier the nature of the opportunity is large given the overall scale and scope of the work needed to be...

…company products until the corporate social responsibility initiative is untaken. Likewise, they can simply go to a competitor who does prescribe to these corporate social responsibility initiatives.

4. What actions do you suggest to mobilize stakeholder support for this initiative and to counter stakeholder opposition? (8 points)

Political intervention, social media campaigns, shareholder votes at the annual meeting, and direct messages to management can all be used to counter opposition. Political intervention related to areas such as taxation, minimum wage, job programs and so forth can help further the corporate social responsibility initiative presented above. With government backing, this provides a strong backdrop by which other organizations can follow. For example, the large ground swell for raising the minimum wage was strong backed by most United States citizens. Through the threat of legislation, many companies took action themselves in order to help assuage both politicians and society at large.

Social media has also been a very compelling tool to garner large support for certain corporate social responsibility initiatives. Here, social media can be leverage as a means of educated society, particularly the young demographic, about the benefits of the corporate social responsibility initiative. This can become particularly power as an online discourse often encourages further engagement with the initiative. It also provides a very cost-effective way to improve elements related to the initiative, answer questions and otherwise engage with others without geographic limitations.

Shareholder votes can be used to mobilize stakeholders through a proxy vote. During many annual meetings, shareholders have the opportunity to engage with management and even propose changes to the structure of the organization. Here votes can propose new initiatives related to corporate social responsibility and have others shareholders vote to adopt them. Likewise shareholder can even propose members to the board who are aligned with their corporate social responsibility initiatives, providing…