Currently, in this changing and globalized world, the different organizations and institutions that make up society have a common challenge: How to contribute to improving the conditions of the environment where they are located?
To achieve this, they must develop within them values that help and commit them to society.It is for this reason that social responsibility is very important, now, to understand this issue more clearly, we must start by mastering the meaning of the value of responsibility.
Conscious attitude assumed by the person who commits it to a certain fact or action performed.
To assume this definition, we must analyze responsibility in two aspects:
As can be seen in the graph, we analyze responsibility from the point of view of imposition and we refer to it when it is assigned to a person or organization through the authorities and established parameters, without prior analysis and awareness. on the part of the individual or institution, although we do not deny that in this aspect there is consciousness, but it is not the usual since it is not assumed but imposed. The other is totally different, there organizations and people assume it based on their values, beliefs, ideas and raise awareness in greater depth, this type of responsibility is the one that lasts the longest and the one that achieves the greatest positive impact in society, and therefore that which must be promoted and promoted in order to achieve a much higher quality of life.
So far, we have seen responsibility as a definition and we are in a position to understand more clearly what is social responsibility?
Many answers have arisen to this question and several have been the analytical approaches, many have points in common, but the truth of this is that the answer you adopt must be defended and put into practice, because otherwise it makes no sense. Based on this idea, for us social responsibility is:
Voluntary attitude assumed by different people or Organizations in order to improve and meet the needs of the environment where it is located at a given time.
Now the definition can open another question:
Is it only with attitude that the environment where we live can be changed for the better?
Of course not, for this it is essential to plan a set of actions with measurement criteria that allow evaluating the work done in the future, but what can not happen is that you develop an impressive plan of activities and that behind them you do not There is a commitment, an awareness of what you want to achieve, why else you will be doomed to failure.
It is important to highlight that in order to exercise correct social responsibility, it is first necessary to know, understand and master the needs that society faces, and then direct efforts towards the correct impact destination and not fall into the trouble of working for work without being know where we want to go, and what we want to achieve.
Social Responsibility becomes effective when an organization develops a complex and holistic awareness of itself, its environment and its own impact on its environment. It presupposes the overcoming of a self-centered, instrumental and reductive approach and access to a global and integrated organizational consciousness (includes both people and the ecosystem, both workers and customers and suppliers) that is capable of 'infecting' the entire institution (everyone in the organization must be able to access that level of consciousness).
To exercise social responsibility, it is important to analyze the figure below:
As you can see there is a larger circumference that is made up of several circles that make it up, if we transpose this image in the sense that we want to express it means:
The largest circumference means society in a general sense and the smallest circles are: Social institutions, the community, the family, social and mass organizations, state institutions, religious institutions and organizations, business sector, etc., that make up society.. Now, each one of these circles has a function towards society and to the extent that they can exert their influence, a greater and faster impact will be achieved in a general sense, the work of each of them will impact the other and so on to achieve continuous improvement and with it a higher quality of life for human beings, also keep in mind that the same person is in more than one circle, that gives you the idea that when that person works from one sector to influence another,He is also working for the benefit of himself and the rest of society, and as the latter improves, man will feel more contented, stimulated and therefore will work with greater desire and will and will reach a higher level of consciousness than others. needs of the environment where it resides.
The key to success is to understand the dialectic that is generated within society, since all these sectors interrelate with each other to form a single whole. That is why it is important to work with people, develop an inclusive culture in them, show them that there is only one world and that it is for everyone, and that the more we take care of it, the more it will last, while we do not achieve this way of thinking, we are far from achieving a better world.
From this analysis, we are able to understand the different paths through which social responsibility transits and which so many researchers have addressed, such as:
- Corporate Social Responsibility University Social Responsibility Social Responsibility of Civil Society State Social Responsibility Social Responsibility of Religious Organizations, among others that can be found.
It is true that all these social responsibilities exist and although it is not the objective of this work to conceptualize them, it is necessary to specify that they all have to have a common objective: continuous improvement of society, based on the fact that no concept is separated from the other, since the only that differentiates them are the activities they carry out and their field of action; but at a certain moment they have to interrelate to achieve the common goal.
Social responsibility has two fundamental dimensions that help to understand this topic and they are: the internal and external dimension.
Another link in the interpretation of Social Responsibility and that tends to confuse is that it must be clearly understood that one thing is the Institutions or Organizations and another is the activities they carry out to exercise Social responsibility, which in the end are these that achieve the impact on society. From this reflection a question arises that every Organization should ask itself:
Are we in a position to carry out activities to exercise correct Social Responsibility?
The answer is obtained through the application of an institutional diagnosis that reflects in what conditions we are in to develop Social Responsibility, which elements we must promote and in which to improve within the Organization to achieve success. The following graph reflects the logic of this step:
We have prepared a methodological guide to carry out the diagnosis, in which several questions are collected that respond to internal indicators that, in our opinion, it is necessary for the Organizations to know in order to exercise correct Social Responsibility.
Human Resources
- Characterize the people who work in the organization in terms of:
Marital status, composition of the family nucleus, place of residence, attitude and aptitude, motivational level, knowledge of SR, among other things.
This first part gives us the idea of what potential workers have and under what conditions they are to exercise proper Social Responsibility.
Organizational culture
- Identify values, beliefs, customs, habits, level of commitment, creativity, organizational capacities, among other things.
Here we obtain a characterization of the culture that exists in the Organization and giving us a notion that if there is the idiosyncrasy of working Social Responsibility.
Projection
In this step we analyze whether Social Responsibility is taken into account within the mission and vision of the Organization, as well as in the work objectives.
Infrastructure
Here we analyze the availability in terms of technologies, material and financial resources, the structure created to develop social responsibility.
Image
At the end, the conjugation of the previous parameters plus the analysis of how the community views the Organization, provides a fairly clear idea of the image that is generated, an aspect that also contributes to exercising correct social responsibility.
So far the different parameters to which we respond with the diagnosis and which we call the internal dimension of Social Responsibility which gives us a vision of the current situation that the Organization presents and the conditions they have to face social responsibility to which are called by society and from there enter into the planning of the activities to be developed, but it is important to always keep in mind our internal situation so that the activities have the desired effect, because otherwise it could not be achieved the commitment that is needed.
Now, once the internal situation is diagnosed, then we are in a position to look outside the Organization, towards society and analyze according to the conditions we have towards which sector or sphere of society we are going to take as the impact destination of our actions and it is what we call the External Dimension of Social Responsibility.
This stage is characterized by identifying the problems, concerns, needs and interests that exist in the field of action that has been determined and from them draw the lines of work.
So far a synthesis of our theoretical research and which we have applied and obtained very positive practical experiences, which will be the subject of analysis for another article.
Below we present a graph as a conclusion that summarizes the ideas that we have raised previously and that reflects the dialectic that exists in this topic of Social Responsibility.
The internal dimension represents the Institution, analyzing itself, once achieved, it is in a position to choose towards which sector or sphere of society it will take as its destination. Now the broader and more diversified its actions, the greater the speed and impact it will achieve in society, which brings with it a renewed society with better living conditions, this improvement becomes a stimulus for the Institution's workers, since they begin to receive the benefits and motivates them to continue working in order to improve their environment, and so on, the cycle repeats itself, always seeking that all the Institutions and Organizations follow this logic.
