Essay Corporate Social Responsibility Represents a voluntary Approach Taken by an Enterprise – Management Assignment Help

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INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the number of studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has increased significantly (Aguinis, 2012; Placeholder1). Interest in corporate social responsibility began to emerge in the 1960s when the idea became widespread that, although business is fundamentally an economic institution; firms exert significant influence in society (Roberts, 1992). Today CSR needs to be considered by firms in their strategy and can thus be a real source of social progress. Firms as social factors play a primary role in ensuring that present and future generations apply resources, expertise and insights to activities that benefit society (Porter, 2006). Nevertheless, there has been a worrying increase in the amount of misleading information produced by companies, including information on environmental and social aspects (Lydenberg, 2002). In different quarters, particularly among social and environmental activists, concerns are being increasingly raised about corporate deception, sometimes imbedded in rhetoric (McQuarrie, 2003). There is increasing apprehension that some companies may be creatively managing their reputations with their stakeholders (customers, financial community, regulators, society, etc.) to hide faults and problems, improve their reputation or appear more competitive. In the existing literature, interest in greenwashing has increased, although there is currently no single accepted definition of the term. Different definitions and perspectives have been put forward and adopted (Seele, 2017) but in general, it is recognized as a misleading communication practice concerning environmental issues. Numerous studies focus on why and how firms engage in greenwashing (Testa, 2018) and find that one of the most frequent reasons for legitimacy (Walker, The harm of symbolic actions and green-washing: Corporate actions and communications on environmental performance and their financial implications, 2012). Because legitimacy leads to stronger relationships, companies try to achieve or preserve it through disclosure and may thus pursue strategies to influence stakeholder perception.When companies offer misleading communication and then try to influence the perceptions of their stakeholders, they incur the phenomenon known in literature as “greenwashing” (Federica). Numerous studies find that information about the social and environmental responsibility of a company influences stakeholders which mean that legitimacy is a critical feature. The only other way to legitimization a firm is to use credibility which exists when stakeholders’ expectations coincide with what companies do (Sethi, 1975,2016). The aim of this study is twofold. Firstly, it aims to review the different definitions and perspectives used in management literature to study and analyze greenwashing, Secondly; it traces the relationship between the concepts of communication, credibility, legitimacy, and greenwashing and perceptions through the lens of legitimacy theory, starting from Habermas’s communicative action theory (Habermas, 1984). The study comprises three main sections. The first focuses on the definition of greenwashing and the different perspectives in which it is analysed in current literature. The second section describes the relationship between greenwashing and four key variables (communication, credibility, legitimacy and perceptions). In the final section, some conclusions are drawn.

1. DEFINITION OF GREENWASHING

Corporate social responsibility represents a voluntary approach taken by an enterprise to meet stakeholder expectations taking into account their different features (Donaldson, 1995). Engaging in corporate social responsibility initiatives is the main corporate response by stakeholders and society in general to the call for action (Federica). CSR activities come in all shapes and sizes. They can be taken at various levels of corporate organisation and strategy, and they can be voluntary or mandatory, short, medium, or long term, and aimed at various objectives (profit, environmental protection, ethical, social behaviour). Certain CSR projects (e.g. environmental) are undertaken by companies in order to gain corporate legitimacy. Simply giving the impression of being socially responsible can be easier, cheaper, and more flexible for companies, and at least at first may bring the same benefits as true commitment. When companies act through misleading communication only at the symbolic level to strategically influence stakeholder perceptions, greenwashing occurs in the context of pragmatic legitimacy (Seele, 2017). The debate on greenwashing first appeared in the 1960s because of the growth in environmentalism. Environmentalists term incorporate greenwashing actions and strategies “eco-pornography”. The first to coin the term “greenwashing” was a biologist and environmental activist Jay Westerveld, who, in 1986, interpreted an invitation about towel use in his hotel room as the hotel trying to save money rather than protecting the environment by reducing water consumption (Federica). Academic studies on greenwashing started only in the mid-1990s, when Greer and Bruno (1996) discussed it in their book on environmental marketing (Laufer, 2003). But because of its growing importance in practice and because it raises challenging issues and research opportunities lying at the intersections of various academic disciplines, greenwashing has become an increasingly significant topic in academic literature over the last decade. From 1995 to 2014, a total of 105 full-length peer-reviewed articles in academic journal articles focused on greenwashing from various perspectives. So in simple words, greenwashing can be defined as the process of conveying false impression or providing misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound. greenwashing is considered as an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly. It is a quick fix that tends to cover up ongoing issues a company has like, fixing the river without decreasing the polluting rate by dumping wastes into it. Planting trees and supporting afforestation without reducing carbon dioxide emission rates. In 2020, 8 brands are called out for greenwashing.SC Johnson’s Windex Vinegar Ocean Plastic bottle claims to be the world’s first window-cleaner bottle made from 100 per cent recycled ocean plastic. The “ocean plastic” claims suggest that the plastic was retrieved from the ocean. Not so it was sourced from plastic banks in Haiti, the Philippines and Indonesia; plastic collected on land that would otherwise have leaked into the ocean, which is usually known as ocean-bound plastic.