Corporate Social Responsibility Task Critique Essay

The partnership is employee owned (these employees are Often called members or partners) and so they state that their purpose is “the happiness of all our members, through their worthwhile, satisfying employment in a successful business” The next business researched was McDonald’s which is the largest global fast food restaurant in the world. It has over 34000 stores located around the world that serve around 68 million people a day (equivalent to the population of the K). McDonald’s has often been criticized for its effect on the environment and its customers due to its low quality products.
Its main competition is KEF and Burger King although to combat this McDonald’s offers a larger product range with KEF mainly focusing on chicken and Burger King mainly offering burgers. To help promote their food to children they use a clown mascot that they also use for their charities that support children e. G the Ronald McDonald House charity which offers temporary homes for families with close relatives who are in a distant hospital. The Final business researched was SAD which is owned by Wall-Mart, the largest private employer in the world and the second largest public reparation in the world.
SAD got its name from the merger of Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited and Acquits (a small chain of supermarkets) with the AS coming from Acquits and the DAD coming from Dairies. SAD has had various problems with false advertising in the past usually due to showing items in adverts for sales that are not included in the sale. SAD manufactures and sells its own range of clothes called George. SAD employs 175,000 employees and 565 stores in the ASK. Its mission statement is “to be Britain’s best value retailer exceeding customer needs always. All of these organizations have been put under pressure in recent years to act responsibly and show good corporate social responsibility. The main pressure on these businesses comes from pressure groups which are groups such as Greenback who put pressure on businesses who damage the environment. These groups can have a substantial effect on a business as they can use various protest methods to reduce the profits of a business. These methods include calling for boycotts, deterring ethical consumers, picketing and even suing the business.

All these methods cause negative publicity for the equines which deters customers from going to the store as its actions may not follow their ethical beliefs. Negative publicity can also affect share prices as this publicity can be an indicator that the profits of the business fall drop soon due to some of their customers being deterred. The main organization have researched that has been effected by this is McDonald’s who has been targeted by various environmental groups in the past and is now being targeted by PETA who has done investigations into McDonald’s and has set up whom. Cruelty. Com which publicizes how McDonald’s mistreats animals. This is likely to deter customers from going to McDonald’s and cause it to lose a small amount of its market. Although it is being targeted negatively by some pressure groups, other groups have recently sat reed to us port its new CEO-friendly initiatives and employment strategies which has improved the company’s image a lot. Another organization that has been effected negatively is SAD who have been targeted by Labor Behind the Label and War on Want who have shown various suppliers of SAD to be underpaying workers.
This would affect ethical consumers as they would be deterred from supporting SAD and its u pliers by buying their products and some may protest against SAD in other ways. Pressure groups can also help a business if it shows advancement in particular CAR fields. The John Lewis Partnership is the main business that I’ve researched that has benefited from positive publicity from pressure groups as it has received various awards from pressure groups for having good suppliers and caring for the environment.
One of their recent awards, the good pig award, allowed the company to advertise that they sourced their pork products from high welfare farms which would increase the likelihood hat an ethical consumer would purchase that product. Many of the Actions taken by pressure groups would not work without ethical consumers. Ethical consumers are people who purchase goods based partly on them being ethically right.
An example of this is people who buy fair trade products which are often more expensive than non-fair trade products but help support the producers of those products. These consumers are very important for the pressure groups as it can allow them to get customers to boycott certain products or retailers. This also allows pressure groups to influence the decisions of a business as they can reduce the profits of a business or alternatively if the business is doing well in some aspect of CAR they can give them an award that will attract ethical consumers to them.
An example of the power of ethical consumerism is that McDonald’s has been forced to alter its view on the environment with it being linked to rainforest’s destruction and over packaging of products whereas now it has some of the best packaging in the fast food industry and has decreased its effect on the rainforest’s. The main way ethical consumerism has affected SAD is through the reduces it sells with them now stocking a large range of fair-trade and free range products to encourage ethical consumers to go to SAD instead of its competitors.
This has caused SAD to decrease its profit margin on these products as these products cost more for SAD to buy which may have lost them money for a short time but would increase their sales due to greater Customer retention. The John Lewis Partnership has benefited a lot from ethical consumerism with many of its products aimed at ethical consumers and a lot of its customers choosing to shop their because of their view on business.
This allows them to maintain a good customer base as ethical consumers are likely to keep shopping at John Lewis Partnership stores so long as they continue to make ethical decisions. Often the main way a business promotes it is being socially responsible is through its investments. This helps to maintain a good relationship with pressure groups and advertises the business to ethical consumers. An example of this is McDonald’s who promote their investment into fuelling over 50% of their trucks with bodiless and continually researching ways to reduce their packaging waste.
Most socially responsible investments made by a business have other benefits too such as the bodiless they make themselves which reduces fuelling costs and decreasing waste packaging means they don’t have to buy as much of the raw materials for the packaging. The John Lewis Partnership promotes its socially responsible actions a lot. An example of this is that it has invested into an awards program called the Waitress Supplier Awards which rewards suppliers for improving their environmental performance. This has helped Waitress improve its suppliers so that ethical groups will continue to support Waitress.
This also advertises to consumers that Waitress are trying to improve the CAR Of their suppliers and not just their stores. SAD gain substantial benefits from advertising its socially responsible actions. One way it has benefited is through better employment as it advertises its employment benefits, such as access to its skills academy, to gain a better standard of employees. It also benefits by advertising the various things it is doing for the local community, such as supporting a local athlete, which would help the local community see some of the good aspects to having an SAD in their community.
All 3 of the businesses I have researched have benefited from their positive CAR which has helped them grow. The John Lewis Partnership has benefited a lot from the good publicity it has received from various organizations that report on CAR to the extent that it has become the industries leader for ethical consumers. This has allowed their stores to offer their goods at a higher price than their competitors as their customers are willing to pay more for an ethically sourced product.
As they have a history of ethical consumerism they have been able to maintain customer loyalty as it is less keel for them to make an unethical business decision. John Lewis has also used its employment benefits to maintain a good work force with it giving its employees a large percentage of the profits (usually in the form of a bonus worth 2 months pay). These benefits increase employee loyalty and make the John Lewis Partnership a more attractive option for job seekers. This allows the stores to be more selective when employing new members of staff so that they can get the best person for the job.
This also allows them to create a more diverse workforce so that they can find out bout different ways to market products towards people of a different age, culture, ethnicity, sex and background. McDonald’s has benefited from the positive publicity from its socially responsible actions a lot because in the past many pressure groups have given McDonald’s negative publicity on its effects on the environment, its packaging and its effects on the consumers health. Over recent years though it has advertised what it has done to combat these issues to such an extent that it has now won a lot of environmental awards.
This has helped to increase its ethical consumer customer base and in turn increase its profits. The main area McDonald’s has benefited from good CAR is in its recruitment. Due to McDonald’s offering its employees a good range of benefits it has been named one of the Auk’s top employers. This helps promote McDonald’s to potential employees and helps retain employees which is essential for McDonald’s as most Of their franchise owners are previous employees. SAD has benefited a lot though the loyalty of its customers. This is due to them maintaining a good price for their products while still doing a lot for their CAR.
This has meant that the business has not had to invest in club cards which it says cost “hundreds of millions of pounds” and only reward “people who can afford to spend the most”. Instead it explains that it uses that money to reduce the cost oftener products “across the board for everyone. ” This allows them to advertise that they have more products cheaper than Deco’s than Deco’s have of SAD. This draws in new customers and maintains customer loyalty as customers believe it is the best option for them to shop there. SAD have offered a lot of benefits to employees with cheaper stock offerings and various qualifications available.