Essay Example on This part of the project will provide general overview of CSR

Introduction This part of the project will provide general overview of CSR define the term CSR and focus on the context of SMEs and provide brief on CSR in Ireland 1 1 Background Corporate Social Responsibility CSR it is the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on the society In addition to the legal obligations enterprises should have mechanism or process to integrate social environmental ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders with the aim of maximising the creation of shared value for their owners stakeholders and society at large 1 1 1 Overview of Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibility emerged and become very popular recently because of its ability to link businesses with the needs of the society CSR is becoming an important business approach because it provides businesses with opportunities to meet objectives that produce long term profits use business power in a more responsible way integrate social demands and contribute to the society by behaving ethically Garriga and Mele 2004 

CSR evolved and become extremely broad topic and not only limited to charity and philanthropy it involves how organizations responsibly run their business what responsibility they owe to the society and how they communicate and interact with the stakeholders Dahlsrud 2008 It has been argued that all organizations have impact on the environment and society in some way Hence businesses have been experiencing significant pressure to engage in activities of corporate social responsibility Jenkins 2006 as well as accepting the notion that companies have responsibilities towards the society that goes beyond their legal obligations and business aims McWilliams and Siegel 2001 However the increased emphasis on CSR practices drive organizations to be more aware of their responsibility to the society as well as realize the benefit of CSR engagement and how it can support their business performance The demand for socially responsible behaviour has become significantly higher and important for organizations who wants to excel and be viewed as a good company in the modern business environment Burke 2015 Organizations are no longer able to maintain positive brand and competitive position without taking responsibility for the actions of their operations workforce and suppliers the level of transparency has gone extremely high as well as modern consumers has become more aware and able to make decisions that could lead to destroy brands in a very short time due to their poor practice 

Dahlsrud 2008 this makes it difficult for organizations to adopt and follow consistence and strategic CSR approach However numerous scholars believe CSR is a necessity for organizations and finding a strategy that address social issues and integrate it into the core strategy is an important part of managing the business Hahn 2013 Management attitudes towards social responsibility represents one of the most important factors behind the motivation of organizations to engage in CSR Roxas and Coetzer 2012 In particular it has been noted that positive owner manager attitude towards CSR have great effect on the choice and extent of adoption and implementation of CSR practices among SMEs Lepoutre and Heene 2006 Jenkins 2006 believe in order for organization to succeed in CSR it must have an internal champion and in SMEs internal champion is often the owner managers as most likely they are both the driver and implementer of values Therefore the research in this project will focus attention on their attitude of and how likely it influences the motivation of their enterprises to behave responsibly The next section will provide the aims and objectives of the project