Corporate responsibility

The articles Corporate Social Responsibility , Corporate Citizenship , Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Corporate Management overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Chezzo ( discussion ) 2:12 p.m. , Oct. 21, 2014 (CEST) Sustainable corporate management supplemented - PM3 8:15 p.m., Dec. 3, 2014 (CET)

The term Corporate Responsibility (CR) or corporate responsibility , and corporate responsibility describes a degree of responsibility of the company , which its business activities impact on society, employees, the environment and the economic environment. In the narrower sense, corporate responsibility stands for a corporate philosophy that focuses on transparency, ethical behavior and respect for stakeholders . The term “CR” includes the subject areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate governance and corporate citizenship .

Definition of terms

The terms CR and CSR are often used synonymously, but the concept of CR is much broader. While in Anglo-Saxon usage the concept "CSR" emphasizes the ecological and social dimension more than the economic one, in German "CSR" is increasingly being equated with the concept of entrepreneurial sustainability (ie company management with a balanced consideration of economic, ecological and social factors) . In addition to these aspects, corporate responsibility also includes questions of corporate management and control (corporate governance) and corporate citizenship. CR is based on a dialogue with all relevant stakeholder groups, e.g. B. customers, business partners, suppliers, employees and NGOs. It should be emphasized that the CR concept, the responsibility for the value chain ( english Supply Chain ) includes. CR therefore stands for a comprehensive management strategy to help ensure long-term economic success.

The term corporate responsibility can be seen as a further development of the older term corporate social responsibility and is increasingly gaining acceptance as a central concept for corporate responsibility in the discourse against older, competing or less comprehensive terms. In addition, the term CR does not run the risk of incorrectly translating "social" (in English) with "social" (in German instead of "socially", as it would be correct in this context) and thus an inappropriate and unintentional restriction to only social aspects corporate responsibility.

Importance of CR for (German) companies

The concept of corporate responsibility is becoming increasingly important for German companies. In particular, due to increased interest in the capital market, CR risks are (more) taken into account by risk management. Rating agencies specializing in CR evaluate the CR performance of listed companies . As a result of Basel II , SMEs and non-listed companies will also be checked by banks for their CR performance in the future, which in turn can have an impact on lending. In this context, the regular and structured dialogue with all relevant stakeholders is becoming more and more important, on the one hand to know the requirements for the company and - especially in the case of critical issues - to find solutions through a constructive dialogue before the company is damaged. In addition, more and more companies are realizing that active action in the area of ​​CR enables opportunities and thus competitive advantages. To document their behavior, an increasing number of companies regularly publish corporate responsibility reports, which are increasingly based on the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative , following the life cycle assessments for products, environmental reports and sustainability reports that have been established since the mid-1990s .

literature

• Alexander Bassen / Sarah Jastram / Katrin Meyer (2005): Corporate Social Responsibility. An explanation of the terms, in: Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik, Jhrg. 6, Heft 2 (2005), pp. 231–236.
• Michael Blowfield / Alan Murray (2008): Corporate Responsibility: A Critical Introduction. Oxford University Press, New York, ISBN 978-0199209095 .
• Nick Lin-Hi: A Corporate Responsibility Theory: Linking Profit Making and Social Interests . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-503-11478-8 .
• Carl Oechslin: Main areas of corporate responsibility. Introduction to the entrepreneurial management problems of our time . 1974/1999 (978-3721406528, Oratio Verlag), Novalis Verlag ( ISBN 978-3-907160-33-6 )

Web links

• Information on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Citizenship (CC) in Germany and Europe
• Homepage of the journal for business and business ethics

See also

• Corporate mission statement , guiding culture (a social consensus of values)
• Mission statement of the honorable businessman
• responsibility
• justice
• Unilaterality - acting (especially of a state or a large organization) without consideration for others. He / she does not make any attempts to reach understanding or to resolve conflicts.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ novalisverlag.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.