INTRODUCTION
In a world as globalized, unequal, interdependent and complex as the current one, it is necessary for each and every one of us to contribute, both personally and professionally, our grain of sand to make it a more just, solidary, responsible place, respectful, cohesive and sustainable.
Both organizations and citizens must recognize that we are in a change of time, therefore the development of a culture of Shared Social Responsibility must be generated, in which we respond to some ills that afflict society in general, we can all contribute small actions that gradually foster positive and lasting change in our communities.
DEVELOPING
DEFINITIONS
Shared Social Responsibility (CSR) is a way of directing companies based on managing the impacts that their activity generates on their customers, employees, shareholders, local communities, the environment and on society in general. This responsibility does not fall solely on the entrepreneurs, also on the human community. This shared responsibility will sometimes be personal: for example, when it comes to fulfilling basic human rights. Everyone within the company must assume that responsibility, not only as members of the organization, but as citizens or people, because it is something that can and should be required of each person, whatever their circumstances.
Other times, the responsibility is attributed to each one for his function or position in the company: the personnel director, for example, with respect to the policies and actions that affect the personnel; the one of factory, regarding the production processes; the commercial director, in customer relations, etc. And, in addition, all of them will share the responsibilities derived from the management of the entire company. (ARGANDOÑA, 2010)
HISTORY
Every company is an agent of continuous social change. Its actions have an economic, social and cultural impact within the organization and especially in its immediate environment.
The shareholders and managers, the workers, the users and consumers of its products or services, the community in which it is established and the populations affected in general by its productive and commercial practices are involved in each company.
There has not always been an awareness that the company has a responsibility against all this described universe. Even now that the concept of Social Responsibility has been developed, a portion of the business community still considers that its duty, or Social Responsibility, is fulfilled to the extent that it provides employment to the community.
This is a narrow vision of Social Responsibility that must be modified through the dissemination of the concept and practices that leading companies carry out around the world.
The concept of Social Responsibility evolved from the interest of European and American employers who, after the Depression of 1929, sought to create a favorable climate among workers in order to guarantee conditions for work.
After the second half of the last century, after the Second World War and with the socializing aspirations of developing workers, employers saw the political need to progressively integrate them into the management of the company. His strategy was to obtain political security and stability in the workplace to improve relationships and contribute to the humanization of work.
With this, labor legislation begins to change in various countries. In Germany, for example, the Co-management Law was enacted, which sought to establish equal rights to capital and labor in the steel and mining industries.
Parallel to the political interest in creating more favorable labor and social conditions for workers, and in order to develop an incipient Social Responsibility, it was necessary to increase the awareness of employers about the social consequences of the actions of companies.
This happened in the 50s and 60s in the United States, when the individual charitable action of the entrepreneur evolved towards the action of the company as a whole, encouraged by tax facilities. It is in the 1960s that a new vision of Corporate Responsibility appears on the stage of large companies, in which it is recognized that the power held by a large company carries great responsibility for the well-being of society.
This was the view of Thomas Watson Jr., then Chairman of the IBM Board of Directors, expressed at a conference in 1963. The following year, David Rockefeller, Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, argued that company ownership necessarily results in certain social obligations.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
It seeks to integrate philanthropy, the need to ensure the loyalty of the community and its development with the increase in worker productivity and the interest in obtaining profits permanently and stable over time.
This implies creating a comprehensive long-term vision in which not only incorporates the community, but also society in general and the country. A new form of organization must emerge that promotes internal leadership that contributes to reinforcing the company's mission and decentralizing levels of authority, which improves the company's productivity and competitiveness. (RESPONSABLIA, 2016)
CSR should be conceived not as a way to spend the money or profits of the company, but rather as a way to obtain these profits. In order to ensure that this process is sustainable, it is deliberately sought to produce positive synergies between the productive economic process and the social fabric in which it is inserted.
The internal and external projection of Corporate Social Responsibility leads the company to mobilize not only monetary resources or teams, but - and mainly - human and professional resources, committing its own workers - with time and dedication - in the activities they carry out. carried out to contribute to the development of society. This supposes the promotion of the volunteering between the workers of the company. (MARÍN, 2015)
COMPONENTS OF CSR
The company contributes to the development of society, however, it cannot replace the responsibility that stakeholders must share in the progress of the communities.
This is why the components or pillars of shared social responsibility must be the following: (BEGOÑA, 2013)
Civil society must be aware of its rights and obligations but must also be responsible for assuming them. Citizen awareness is what motivates civil society to move, to assume the public as its own, it can achieve this by:
- Neighborhood Organizations, Peasant Communities, Professional Colleges, NGO's, Church, Associations, and Federations.
The State, for its part, is the one who must participate in giving support to this tripartite relationship, but based on the normative frameworks, the institutional framework that will allow for the sustainability of the agreements but also for governance.
So, shared social responsibility is also generating involvement, belonging, commitment and above all active participation in the other two actors: civil society and representatives of the state articulating concerted actions. (TORO, 2014)
CHALLENGES
Some problems in which shared social responsibility may incur, in order to reduce its adverse effects on society, are the following:
- Fight against poverty Precariousness Discrimination Inequalities Reduce the gap between discourse and action, vision and behaviors, laws and practices (principles of equal opportunities at work) Understand current changes to manage transitions in the medium term and avoid the feeling of powerlessness that paralyzes institutions, populations Promote to companies that integrate strategies of social responsibility and commitment to their community to promote quality employment Recognize the contributions of ethical initiatives, solidarity of citizens, companies in the social and solidarity economy, insertion companies, cooperatives. Favor the birth of new forms of cooperation between Multi stakeholders in decision making, organization in networks with shared decision making (BENQUÉ, 2011)
EXAMPLE OF CSR ACTIVITIES
Shared social responsibility to meet challenges can use activities such as:
- VolunteeringCampaignsMedical campaignsEducational guidanceTrainingCreation of codes of conductStrengthening of capacitiesInstitutional relationshipEvents and festivalsPhilanthropy
(MINOLTA, 2016)
CSR INITIATIVES
Below are some successful activities of some companies in the context of shared social responsibility.
- Haus APP
For using mobile technology to coordinate neighborhood groups to help each other in an emergency.
Haus App is a free mobile application created by a multicultural team from Chile, Brazil and Mexico that allows you to create neighborhood networks through your smartphone with two main uses.
The first and most important is security. The app serves as a community alarm within a private social network of neighbors in an emergency; Members can send an SOS message to their entire network in just three seconds, reducing the response time to emergency situations by 90% on average, according to their creators.
The second use is as a means of communication between neighborhood networks, which allows you to be aware of news from the neighborhood; create chat groups on different topics related to your community; sell or give away objects; promoting neighborhood initiatives, and strengthening the coexistence and organization of neighborhoods through a free and democratic digital medium.
Haus App has more than 10,000 neighborhood networks created in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia and Spain, becoming the first and largest private social network of neighbors in Latin America.
- Proactiva Open Arms
For transforming social concern about Syrian refugees into a maritime rescue aid organization that has mobilized volunteers and funds through crowdfunding.
Proactiva Open Arms is an NGO in Badalona (Barcelona, Spain) created in September 2015 to help save the lives of the thousands of refugees fleeing the Syrian war through the Aegean Sea.
Óscar Camps, director of the Catalan company of beach surveillance services Proactiva Serveis Aquàtics, was alerted when seeing on social networks the photo of four children drowned in the sea trying to get away from the Syrian war.
What was a personal concern to help, with their work, save lives on the Greek coast, has transformed into a non-profit organization, which attracts volunteers from all over Spain (lifeguards, ship skippers, doctors, nurses…) in addition to financial resources that guarantee the sustainability of the NGO, which does not receive public aid.
Without material means, they began to save lives using the boats that the newly arrived refugees left behind. But the different crowdfunding campaigns have allowed them to also be present on the island of Chios at present; They have three boats of their own that makes their work safer, and their surveillance covers 17 km of coast by land and by sea, helping the arriving refugees (approximately 20 boats a day) to disembark safely.
- Murals of our city of Grand Bourg
It is about bringing art to disadvantaged neighborhoods through participatory work with the community, which produces murals on the streets.
Murals of our city of Grand Bourg is a project that seeks to bring the great works of art history to the streets, aiming at coexistence with those works that belong to the collective unconscious.
Under the motto Paint your village and you will paint the world, the group is made up of artists and students from the city of Grand Bourg (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and is open to the participation of the entire city.
The main objective of the initiative is that prestigious works of art are replicated on the walls of different neighborhoods so that all people can access them and it is not a privilege for the few who have the resources to go to museums, inviting all those who they are far from the art that they approach, contemplate them and can expand their knowledge through the reviews that are written on each side of the murals.
The works are financed with donations from friends and neighbors, they are made with the remains of paintings and anyone is invited to paint, sectors of the entire society, including those at risk of exclusion.
In 2015, 34 murals of works by artists such as Da Vinci, Dalí, Picasso, Van Gogh, Boticelli, Renoir or Monet were made.
- Hands that save lives
This project transforms the disability of blind people into a competition for the early detection of breast cancer, generating new employment opportunities.
Manos que salvavientes arrives in Colombia by replicating the German Discovering Hands model, which uses the tactile skills of women with visual disabilities for the early detection of breast cancer and encourages job creation for disabled people.
Breast cancer, the leading cause of death in Colombian women, has a higher survival rate with early detection of tumors. Taking advantage of the superiority in the sense of touch of blind people as a special skill for the detection of breast cancer, Hands that save lives transforms disability into strength, contributing to the social and occupational integration of the population with this disability.
Last 2015 two professionals specialized in teaching people with disabilities - selected by the Rehabilitation Center for the Blind Adult (CRAC) and the Institute for Blind and Deaf Children - have traveled to the cities of Duisburg and Berlin (Germany), to train in the Discovering Hands methodology.
Upon their return, the teachers have worked with the San Juan de Dios Hospital (Cali, Colombia), especially with the Rosa Clinic service, where they are training blind women as "tactile examiners."
- Tato Sustainable Urban Mobility
It offers a comprehensive and dignified response to the waste picker community through sustainable vehicles, training and an organizational structure.
Tato Movilidad Urbana Sostenible is an ecological transport system designed for collectors of recyclable materials in Latin American countries. With zero emissions, this electric tricycle serves to collect all the materials that can be recycled and thus help the environment, but above all, to dignify the employment of a group excluded from society.
In developing countries, millions of people spend their days collecting recyclable materials on the streets to support their families. Throughout Latin America, urban waste pickers are key figures in the recycling process, however, in general they lack organizational structure, formal recognition and legal rights.
But Tato is not just a collection vehicle; It is part of a project to reconvert the urban waste recycling system, which includes a comprehensive organization of the process, the creation of a Transfer Center and different training programs for collectors.
The objective is to promote the organization of the recycling industry in order to generate decent and economically profitable work for waste pickers, in addition to maximizing benefits for the environment and society in general, through joint actions between the public sector, the companies and the collectors themselves.
- Climb and win
Identify the basic needs of slums through a participatory process based on physical and recreational activities in the communities.
The Municipality of Lima has built stairs to improve the quality of life of the residents who reside on top of the hills of areas of extreme poverty in the city. These stairs generally culminate in sports areas, which have served to launch the Climb and Win program.
These sports spaces have a double function. On the one hand, they promote neighborhood participation meetings and contribute to healthy community decision-making, and on the other, they promote the practice of sports and other leisure activities in which neighborhood ties are consolidated.
Trepa y Gana encourages physical activity through the use of stairs and sports slabs, through competitions and sports and recreational activities, but also complements the global attention to the needs of the extremely poor neighborhoods of the Lima hills, making that through these activities it is possible to reach, in alliance with other public or private entities, to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the residents, both in health, education and basic services.
This project also improves the aforementioned infrastructures, the planting of trees in the area and the collection of information on the needs of the neighborhood.
- COA Surf
It transfers the spirit of freedom of surfing to a project for the social integration of inmates through the design of products related to this sport.
COA Surf is an enterprise that seeks to socially reintegrate inmates, through training in the handling of fiberglass, clothing, printing, screen printing and carpentry, to develop products related to surfing within penitentiary centers. These products are subsequently marketed in Chilean retail.
At the beginning of 2015, COA started producing only surfboard covers and making prints of products such as hats, shirts or T-shirts and pullovers or sweatshirts. But in a second stage, COA has insisted on developing 100% of its products within the prison, from surfboards to merchandising products.
In this way, prisoners maintain a constant work flow and higher incomes throughout the year, which offers stable and lasting opportunities for deprived of liberty workers, who can send money to their families so that, for example, children go to school and receive education in addition to keeping them away from street violence, or saving it so that when they leave the prison they do not commit crimes again.
- Energy efficiency at the service of the social
It tries to improve the health, quality of life and security of the homes of vulnerable families by increasing the energy efficiency of homes.
Weatherizers Without Borders started a pilot program in 100 houses in Uruguay in 2015 to increase their energy efficiency, comfort and safety of low-income homes. The ultimate goal is that the houses are adapted to the local conditions of the country and that the project is scaled up to the public administration.
This methodology consists of the training of auditors to carry out diagnoses in low-income homes, identifying energy losses and health risks (gas leaks, CO2, lead in paint, etc.) and quality of life, and in putting Simple and economical modifications to improve energy efficiency.
In this way, not only is the quality of life of people improved, but health risks are also reduced, savings are generated in energy consumption that increase the disposable income of vulnerable families and new green jobs are generated.
The weatherization methodology has been part of federal public policy in the US for 40 years; country where 8.4 million homes have been made more sustainable with public funds. Despite the success of this public policy model in the United States, it has never been adopted in another country, with Uruguay being a pioneer in replicating it.
- Stock Exchange
The first participatory financing platform (crowdinvesting) authorized by the CNMV for companies that have a positive social and environmental impact.
The Bolsa Social is a participatory financing platform (crowdinvesting), the first authorized by the CNMV in Spain, which was created to finance companies with potential that produce a favorable impact on society and the environment.
Created by a group of professionals from the world of finance, technology, law and social entrepreneurship, the Bolsa Social promotes in Spain ethical financing and entrepreneurship with a positive social impact.
The Bolsa Social is aimed at investors who are concerned with the ethical aspects of their economic decisions; that is to say, for those investors with values that, together with the economic profitability, give importance to the social and environmental impact that their investments produce. They are the so-called social impact investors.
This platform selects companies with a good business model and growth potential, ensuring that they produce improvements in society and the environment. Registered investors access all information about companies and can become partners in them, investing in capital.
The Social Exchange unites the rigor of venture capital in the selection of projects, the collaborative force of participatory financing of crowdinvesting and the ethical values of investment with social impact.
- The Reading bus
It promotes reading through a free loan system at bus stations and the download of stories via the app.
The Reading Bus is a free loan system for books and magazines at the metropolitan bus stations in the city of Lima (Peru). This initiative carried out by the Management of Education and Sports of the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima promotes reading and strengthens civic values among the city's residents.
The Reading Bus, articulates the participation of private companies, governments and the media to supply the content of booksellers with their magazines and books, in addition to cultural agendas of cultural institutions and libraries near bus stations, which complement the publications that the municipality acquires.
Each book loan point, located in the three main stations, is attended by a promoter who has the support of young volunteers. The volunteers are education students from the universities of Lima, in which they participate once a week for three months. In remuneration, each volunteer is given free access to an academic diploma in Comprehensive Educational Management, issued by the main educational institutions in the country.
Additionally, the Reading Bus has an app to download stories and poems that users can read while riding the bus, the content of which belongs to contemporary Peruvian writers. (LATINA, 2016)
CONCLUSION
Shared social responsibility goes beyond complying with legal regulations, the creation of new laws and regulations aimed at protecting the environment is frequently observed, if it is true that this is an adverse effect generated by organizations, it is not the Unique, it can also be seen that companies care about getting these badges to gain prestige, or increase their sales.
Shared social responsibility really seeks a balance between the economic, social and environmental dimensions, generating a positive impact among stakeholders on the progress of society in general, through a set of business management practices, strategies and systems.
THANKS
Thankful to God for all his blessings, also for the opportunity to work in the process of improving myself.
To my “alma mater” the Orizaba Technological Institute for their dedication in training quality professionals, to my MAE Professor Fernando Aguirre y Hernández for their dedication, dedication and commitment in sharing their knowledge.
To God for life and for science!
THESIS PROPOSAL
DESIGN OF A METHODOLOGY TO PROMOTE, IMPLEMENT AND MEASURE SHARED SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN BUSINESSES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- ARGANDOÑA, A. (02 of 2010). IESE. Obtained from http://www.iese.edu/en/files/2010-02.%20Una%20responsabilidad%20social%20compartida_tcm4-43777.pdfBEGOÑA. (2013). ECONOMY. Obtained from http://economizonzamas.blogspot.mx/2013/06/la-responsabilidadsocial_6336.htmlBENQUÉ, N. (2011). CEEFIA. Obtained from http://www.bcn.cat/barcelonainclusiva/ca/2011/6/xarxa5_conferencia_nadia_ benque.pdfLATINA, BD (FEBRUARY 2016). BUSINESS COMMITMENT. Obtained from http://www.compromisoempresarial.com/carrusel/2016/02/las-10-iniciativassociales-mas-innovadoras-de-2015/MARÍN, O. (2015). Obtained from SLIDEPLAYER: http://slideplayer.es/slide/3153463/ MINOLTA, K. (2016). Obtained from Konica Minolta Business Solutions Spain: https: //www.konicaminolta.en / en / businesssolutions / company / corporate-social-responsibility / corporate-social-responsibility-activities.html RESPONSIBILITY. (2016). PROVIDING SUSTAINABILITY. Obtained from http://www.responsablia.com/sobre-nosotros/TORO, FD (2014). SLIDEPLAYER. Obtained from
