Corporate Social Responsibility – Why an MBA program should be incorporating it in its curriculum

October, 2020

Philip Kotler in his book, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the most good for your company and your cause” has remarked that “A good company offers excellent products and services. A great company also offers excellent products and services, but also strives to make the world a better place”.

A quick browse of the websites of many a successful corporation would find carefully worded commitments to “sustainability”, “corporate citizenship”, “social responsibility” and words to that effect. Over the past few decades, more and more businesses are aware of their impact on the environment and the society at large. Environmental and social impact issues are increasingly being talked about as one of the biggest risks to global business.

So how is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) defined? CSR is typically considered an umbrella term encompassing aspects of sustainability, ethical business operations, social responsibility and social obligations of corporate citizens. In general terms, it is understood that CSR happens when a business goes beyond the boundaries of financial performance objectives and contributes to society at large. T.M. Jones defines CSR as ““the notion that corporations have an obligation to constituent groups in society other than stockholders and beyond that prescribed by law and union contract”. Another definition of CSR by A.B. Carroll in 1999 states that “CSR involves the conduct of business so that it is economically profitable, law abiding, ethical and socially supportive”. It is evident from the above definition that to carry out CSR, a key pre-requisite is that the corporation should be profitable and hence achievement of profitability can be construed as a key starting point for CSR.

Why should an MBA program incorporate CSR in its curriculum?

Every nation ideally requires that business entities engage in ethical and sustainable practices while conducting their business activities. A large part of the managerial workforce today comprises of business school graduates who may occupy key managerial decision-making posts in the present as well as future. It is therefore, the responsibility of every business school to teach sustainable ways of doing business as well as inculcate in its MBA graduates a sense of responsibility towards other stakeholders and the society at large. Key benefits of including a course on CSR in an MBA curriculum would be:

• In addition to being good for society at large, CSR has many positive implications for companies which practice it. We live in an information driven era and consumers look up at companies with a positive image. Today’s MBA students who are the managers of tomorrow would do good to remember that companies which incorporate CSR into their practices as well as their corporate and business strategies give consumers a chance to feel good about buying their products thereby enhancing not only the company’s public relations but also resulting in improved consumer relationships.


• Sustainable business development, a cornerstone of CSR is not easy to achieve. It requires a combination of knowledge and a structured approach which a CSR course can enable in the MBA students, thereby creating more responsible managers/ entrepreneurs.


• Socially responsible practices have an impact on every aspect of a company’s value chain. From inbound logistics, supplier relations, sustainable sourcing and procurement, ethically transparent HR policies, sound financial dealings - all are critical knowledge resources that every future manager needs to imbibe.


• Giving back to society through a sound, well thought of and structured program would go a long way in enhancing the overall corporate image of an organization and MBA students, as aspiring leaders need to understand how organizational success is interlinked with ethical and societal issues.

Teaching Pedagogy Options for CSR courses

A few teaching pedagogical options (in addition to the regular lecture based pedagogy) for the CSR course in an MBA curriculum are outlined below:

• Essay writing – This is an ideal way for a student to understand the concept of CSR in totality. Students can be asked to write a 500-word essay on CSR practices of an organization that they can select themselves. The student has to explain the efforts of the organization in the CSR space in their own words. The CSR efforts could be on any specific practices that the company focusses on, ranging from community development, sustainability, human rights issues or any such other practices. This will enable the students to acquire a deeper understanding of the various facets of CSR and how organizations run effective CSR programs. Asking students to cite and provide references would also help them improve their writing as well as research skills.


• Class room debates – Debates can be an excellent tool to foster creative thinking and analysis and could help students to examine opposing viewpoints on CSR related topics.


• Case Study Competitions – Faculty could host case study competitions where students could be asked to develop sustainable solutions to real life social, environmental or economic problems through CSR initiatives with different groups of students being asked to examine these problems from perspective of existing for-profit business and not-for-profit business in order to get multiple perspectives of how classroom concepts could be applied in the real world.

In summation, higher education institutes like business schools are uniquely placed to provide future generations of managers with a distinct perspective on the challenges of social responsibility in the corporate world. Aspiring managers need to be prepared to deal with demands of social, economic and environmental concerns possibly from national as well as global perspectives. Business schools would do well to realize this and incorporating a CSR course in the curriculum could go a long way in arming these students with the necessary skills to make the world a better place.

References

Carroll, A. B. (1999). Corporate Social Responsibility: Evolution of a definitional construct. Business and Society, 38(3), 268- 295

Jones, T. M. (1980). Corporate social responsibility revisited, redefined. California Management Review, 22(3), 59-67.

Kotler, P., & Lee, N. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: Doing the most good for your company and your cause. John Wiley & Sons.

 

Kala Mahadevan
Assistant Professor,
DR V N BRIMS, Thane

 

Also read : TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT - AN IMPORTANT FIRST STEP BEFORE STARTING A TRAINING

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