To what extent is it in the interest of business to engage in Essay

To what extent is it in the interest of business to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - Essay Example The business case for CSR can be considered. Many economists have the view that CSR is not actually the demand of social ones. One of them has the view that it is not socially desired. Milton Friedman mentioned that the only social responsibility of a business is to maximize profits. Before going into the pool of Corporate Social Responsibility, we should be familiar with the term Corporate Social Responsibility, which is abbreviated as CSR. It can be profitable for the businesses and so for businessmen. Corporate Social Responsibility cannot be defined as a specific term. Different researchers and economists gave different definitions to it according to their point of view. Most of the researchers agree that, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility is a process by which, businesses are monitored.’ It has its own standards that are internationally accepted as the rules and regulations through which businesses are monitored. The word ‘responsibility’ describes that it takes the responsibility of concerned companies and appreciates their impact on customers, employees and stakeholders. The history of Corporate Social Responsibility is not as old as business; however, as the business community realised the importance of the Corporate Social Responsibility, the knowledge about the term is continuously increasing. In late 1960s, Corporate Social responsibility appeared as an important pillar in the development of a business. With the emergence of Corporate Social responsibility, different multinational companies (MNCs) started using the term stakeholder. This term was initially used to give explanation of the corporate owners (beyond the shareholders of a company), as a result of an influential book by R. Edward Freeman, Strategic management: a stakeholder approach in 1984 (Freeman, 1984). Corporate Social Responsibility is also accountable for the actions of concerned companies and it answers some questions such