Doing Well While Doing Good: A Case Study Examination of Corporate Social Responsibility
Open Access
- Author:
- Royle, Alexandra Francella
- Area of Honors:
- Advertising/Public Relations
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Marcia W Distaso, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Susan Mary Strohm, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Purpose - Abstract:
- Ambiguity surrounding corporate social responsibility has made the topic a highly-polarizing subject in both the academic and corporate realms. Despite some skepticism, pressing societal issues such as climate change and world hunger have made the adoption of corporate social responsibility initiatives more critical than ever. Realizing our world’s current state, this study set out to resolve some of the uncertainties hindering the adoption corporate social responsibility as a sustainable business practice by examining five corporations that are proving that they can do well financially while also doing good for the greater global community. The cases examined focus on corporate social responsibility initiatives in the five impact segments of Economic Opportunity, Education, Environment, Human Rights, and Public Health, and all derive from Fortune Magazine’s 2016 Change the World list. Selected companies include MasterCard, Intel, Unilever, Gap, and Nestlé, which were individually chosen to represent a variety of industry sectors. While it is evident that each of these cases is unique to their specific company, common trends and patterns reveal strategies promising to the achievement of a desired impact of an initiative as well as overall success of a company. Of these observations, the most influential is the adoption of a purpose that transcends corporate social responsibility and permeates a company’s business model.