Core Characteristics of CSR

Corporate social responsibility is ideally a form of corporate governance which businesses integrate in their business model in order to create further value in the world through their efforts. Certain firms conduct CSR activities to fulfill the requirements of the law and live up to the mandatory ethical standards they are governed by (Tai & Chuang, 2014). On the other hand, the CSR activities of certain firms go beyond the legal and ethical standards as they aim to create value and make a bigger difference in the society that they live in. These CSR activities of business range from helping the underprivileged segment of the society, putting efforts in preserving our environment, attempting to better our economy or even working towards enhancing opportunities provided to their own employees (Suliman, Al-Khatib & Thomas, 2016).

Many governments encourage businesses to realize and work towards their corporate social responsibility by offering them subsidies and tax benefits on the same. This report throws light on various approaches and core characteristics of CSR aspect of the business. The company selected for further discussion is Nissan Motor Corporation, whose CSR initiatives would be discussed in detail.

Nissan Motors Corporation is a Japanese automobile manufacturer with a vast presence across the globe. The company is headquartered in Yokohama, Japan and was founded in 1933. Since 1999, Nissan motors has been a part of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. The firm is the sixth largest automobile manufacturer of the world after Toyota, General Motors, Volkswagen, Hyundai Motor Group and Ford. Under the leadership of Hiroto Saikawa, Nissan is the world’s Largest Electric Vehicle manufacturer of the world. This report has laid emphasis on various corporate social responsibility initiatives taken by the brand in order to create value across various different arenas of the society. 

Corporate social responsibility has six core characteristics that basically define the key features of all CSR activities across different firms. These characteristics are important for the understanding of the corporate social responsibility of businesses.

Voluntary: As mentioned above, most companies are now willing to go beyond the legal and ethical aspects of their corporate social responsibilities (Carroll, 2015). They have been putting efforts in creating value in the world through their activities by going beyond the legally compulsory boundaries. These activities are conducted voluntarily by many businesses out of their sheer desire to make a difference. Therefore the characteristic of Voluntarism is seen vividly in the CSR activities of various businesses.

Different Theories of CSR

Managing Externalities: Managing externalities refer to that aspect of the CSR acitivity which goes beyond the direct stakeholders of the business. The firms aim to help out the public in general by conducting activities of managing externalities (Manning, 2018). For example certain businesses like Patagonia work towards making the environment better and reducing pollution in the world.

Multiple stakeholder orientation: This orientation of any business leads the firm to believing that they have various stakeholders and their betterment is the responsibility of the business. By multiple stakeholder, the business refers to developing positive relationships with all the vendors, depicting honesty and transparency with media houses, limiting expectation of the customers to a realistic level, building and training the company for effective crisis management and conducting communication building courses for employees are all examples of firms considering their responsibility towards their multiple stakeholders (Steenkamp, 2017).

Social and Economic alignment: The balancing of various stakeholders’ interests leads to another core feature of CSR. This aspect of the corporate social responsibility throws light on how companies can be economically beneficial while creating social value or simple being socially responsible. For examples, Patagonia uses environment friendly products to manufacture their active wear clothes. This leads to betterment of environment as well as delivery of higher quality product by the brand (McWilliams, 2014).

Practices and Values: CSR is obviously dealing with a particular segment of business practices and strategies that deal with various issues. However, for many people, it is more than just the activity. Those activities rather hold some value set and ethics of the concerned business. If the decision makers of the business are communitarians then it is likely that their CSR activities would be directed towards preserving our culture and heritage (Muller, 2014). The managers most definitely place their values in mind while defining the CSR policies of their business. These policies of the organization and the personal attitude of the individuals are the part of their characteristics which vastly affects the way they behave.

Beyond Philanthropy: Most of the people believe that CSR include philanthropic activities. However, this is just a misconception or a dogmatic believe that reflects the narrow minded attitude of the people. CSR goes beyond Philanthropy (Mason & Simmons, 2014). It is not just about discretionary corporate responsibility or voluntarism towards public at large. It also deals with enhancing profitability of the firm. It is no more an altruistic approach but rather strategically focuses on improving upon their profits, revenues, employee structure and profitability, media relations or bettering their human resource management. Therefore this forms the last and important characteristic of CSR where companies do not simply think of the public or society at large, but look for strategic ways to enhance their productivity in the process of improving the society.  

Nissan’s CSR Initiatives

As per the traditional approaches, a corporation is simply built with the aim of creating profits and generating revenues for themselves. However, even though that might be the primary aim of the organizations, firms conduct CSR activities for various reasons. These reasons are elaborated in different theories of CSR which are defined as below: 

Economic theory

The economic theory of CSR determines that the CSR activities conducted by the business are also profit oriented and are aimed at generating revenue for the company. The business ensures that along with creating value, these activities economically benefit the company. Therefore the managers must keep in mind the social cost incurred by the business in order to create a social value (Cheng, 2014). This theory lays emphasis on the interrelation and connection between the economic benefits reaped by the company and the social responsibilities fulfilled by them.

Legal theory

Many different governments have levied many different rules and regulations to ensure, encourage and implement conduction and understanding of the corporate social responsibilities of every business in the country. Governments often offers subsidies and tax benefits for the cost incurred by the company for their social initiatives (Bobby Banerjee, 2014). The organizations must also keep in mind all the legal aspects while performing any CSR activities. All the companies within the same industry of a country are governed by the same law and it is important that businesses abide by them. It is also important to make sure that no laws are being broken while conducting these activities.

Value creation theory throws light on the aspect of CSR which aims to create value in the society. There are various companies that conduct many philanthropic activities with an aim to make the world a better place. Many companies work on reducing pollution. For example, Adobe has made all their office buildings green. This has led to immense conservation of the environment. Here it is important to note that the individual value set of the decision makers of the firms play a very important role. Some businesses like Patagonia, give 1% of their total revenue to the conservation of the environment (Patagonia, 2018).

Many organizations seek to use environment friendly material and reduce pollution in the environment by installing effective waste management systems in their organizations. Organizations may also put efforts in reducing unemployment, decreasing illiteracy and improvising living conditions for people are also aspects of creating value in the society.

Environment Conservation

Stakeholder theory

This stakeholder theory implies creating value for stakeholders of the organization. This would include all the stakeholders including customers, investors, media personnel as well as employees. This would include developing positive relationships with stakeholders, being honest and transparent with the media houses and ensuring that the customer grievances are effectively handled by the firm. These are aspects of businesses understanding, identifying and fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.

Nissan Motors Corporation is a leading automobile manufacturing business based out of Japan and spread across different aspects of the globe. This part of the report lays emphasis on various CSR initiatives of Nissan. The brand has consistently aimed to create value in the society and build productive and mutually beneficial relationships with all their stakeholders. The brand is well known for its tremendous efforts as CSR initiatives especially towards the betterment of the environment. The CSR activities of Nissan Motors Corporation could be divided in the following heads as given below:

Environment

Nissan understands the increasing global population and its negative effect on the environment. They have identified the need to preserve the world irreplaceable resources and have been consistently putting efforts to work towards the same. The company provides innovation products to its customers which reduce the level of pollution in the environment. Their cars are often specifically designed to reduce the usage of fuel by customers. The company focuses on zero emission vehicles, minimization of corporate carbon footprints and immense reduction of the usage of natural resources.

They have even established a green program in the year 2016 where they aimed to reduce the environmental impact as well as resource consumption of the brand’s corporate activities as well as its vehicles during their entire lifecycle to such a level where the planet can surely naturally sustain itself (Nissan, 2017). The company has launched a new six yearly environmental plan. 

Safety

The increasing usage of automobiles as well as the increasing mishaps on the roads causing various accidents has led Nissan to sincerely work upon increasing the safety of their products and addressing this issue at its very core. Nissan makes sure that their cars are manufacture with the focus on real world safety. It has been identified that over 90% of the accidents are a result of human error. Therefore the ultimate goal of the company is ‘Zero fatalities’ (Nissan, 2017). They aim to accomplish this by ensuring that the number of fatalities of deaths caused by accidents that involve Nissan vehicles comes down to virtually zero. Nissan drastically works to improve the safety of passengers in Nissan vehicles. This is done by adopting automated driver support technologies which aim to assist the driver to avoid collisions or at least mitigate their effects. They are also into promoting various educational activities that enhance individual information on road safety among drivers, pedestrians and other members of the community.

Zero Emission Vehicles

In order to reduce traffic accidents and achieving this zero fatality goal, it is imperative to develop safety technology in a large number of vehicles. To achieve the same, comprehensive efforts are being put to encompass individuals as well as the driving environment of the world. This is the triple layered approach adopted by the brand by taking measures in the area of vehicles, individuals and society. And this is their contribution to the creation of a truly safe automobile society.

Philanthropy

The world has been facing various issues across all parts. These issues range from climatic changes to overpopulation and from environmental degradation to poverty. Nissan has been consistently putting efforts in combating the same. Nissan strongly believes in strongly playing the role of an active community member and applying its necessary technologies in order to tackle the world’s issues (Nissan, 2017). The brand focuses on three important areas namely environment, education and humanitarian support. The company provides financial assistance through various channels while also performing activities which are ‘distinctly Nissan’ while making use of its expertise, products, facilities and automotive heritage.

Nissan as a brand aims to provide the best quality products and services to all its customers.  The brand does not compromise on quality no matter the cost. The aim is to provide the quality which continues to satisfy customers throughout the lifecycle of the vehicle. Nissan has initiated and established various campaigns to increase customer satisfaction (Nissan, 2017). As a part of maintain a high quality of product and service, Nissan aims to focus on three things:

1. Listening to customer feedback
2. Manufacturing a high quality products
3. Sales and service quality at different levels of customer service.

Employees

An important aspect of corporate social responsibility of a business is taking care of its employees. Nissan caters to all of its employee needs. The brand makes sure that people from different diversities are provided with equal opportunities and face no discrimination throughout their tenure of any kind (Nissan, 2017). Employee’s personal goals and agendas are also discussed and kept in mind while designing each job profile. Workplace is being strengthened around four important pillars:

1. Respecting diversity as a core component of management strategy
2. Career development and learning opportunities of all employees
3. Building completely safe workplaces.
4. Frequent dialogues with employees.

Nissan has also established the Nissan globe code of conduct which applies to all employees worldwide. The code of conduct aims to ensure equality and fair treatment of all employees.

Ecological responsibilities

The brand must aim to increase the sales of their electric cars by building efficient promotional campaigns to target the market. Use of electric cars ensure dramatic reduction in the carbon pollution of from transportation (NRDC, 2015). These cars also help in reducing overall carbon footprints and air quality of the world. Hence the brand could look at effective marketing strategies and tie up with advertising agencies to promote the use of electric vehicles.  

Global Green Program

Social welfare

In order to work harder towards the social welfare of the society at large, Nissan could work upon ensuring higher literacy for children and better work opportunities for women and youth. Work opportunities could be created within the firm. While education and training sessions could be conducted for underprovided children. Efforts must be put in order to add value in the society by working towards the underprivileged section of the society.   

Employee responsibilities

To fulfill their responsibilities towards their employees, Nissan must work towards creating two important changes in their organizational structure. These two changes would include:

Implementing a 360 degree feedback structure: A 360 degree feedback structure implies that employees of the business get their feedback from their seniors, peers as well as their subordinates. This leads to transparency as well as encourages employees to work harder. This enhances open communication and genuine feedbacks also help in the growth of employees in their personal endeavors.

Open door policy: Open door policy is often adopted by various organization wherein the senior management of the organizations keep their doors open to signify that they can always be reached. This creates transparency and enhances open communication within the firm. This also encourages employees to report grievances and hence leads to improved learning as well as better working environment at the workplace.

Conclusion

Corporate social responsibility is an important aspect of every business. These responsibilities include the responsibility of the business towards the society at large. These CSR activities may involve philanthropic activities, activities that serve to save the environment, improved relationships with stakeholders as well as creating value in the society. Many organizations have been putting tremendous efforts in the name of CSR and worked towards building the world a better place to live in.

This report has laid emphasis on various CSR strategies adopted by Nissan Motors Corporation. NMC has been conducting various CSR activities some of which are philanthropic in nature while some have aimed at improved relationships with their stakeholders. The company is without a doubt putting its best foot forward in fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. It is strongly recommended that the firm works to enhance the sale of its electric vehicles as well as implement open door policy and 360 degree feedback mechanism in their organization to build better employee relationships 

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