Organizational social responsibility, but what does shared mean? Who is the company / organization? Does the sense of responsibility work the same in organizations as in people?
Although in our country, fiscally speaking, organizations can be considered people, which according to the SAT, would be classified as moral persons, they do not have the same attributes as a person, since they do not have the same sense of freedom, personality, character, values, capacity, among others. Therefore, we cannot say that the organization is responsible in the same sense that people can be.
(Argandoña, 2010) explains that if we talk about a company's social responsibility, it seems logical that we accept that organizations can be moral agents, because they can act intentionally, based on interests, ends, reasons, desires and expectations; because they can pursue policies, comply or violate the law, make decisions, create costs and benefits for other agents and because they can also account for their actions. Ultimately, they are communities of people who are organized according to an objective, and this means that both the company and the people who make it up can be responsible from the ethical point of view, in the same way that they are also responsible before the law.
(Avendaño & William, 2013) argue that shared social responsibility is an ethical commitment that translates into attention to the expectations that different interest groups have on their behavior (that of organizations) (stakeholders: employees, partners, customers, local communities, the environment, shareholders, suppliers), with the ultimate purpose of contributing to a socially and environmentally, sustainable and economically viable development.
(Errol, 2009) mentions that social responsibility is a philosophy, an attitude or way of seeing life that implies that we take into account the effect that our actions and decisions have on the physical and social environment. In other words, being socially responsible means being aware of the damage that our actions can cause to any individual or social group. Therefore, corporate social responsibility is nothing more than the extension of individual responsibility that every citizen has towards their physical and social environment, this is what has been called corporate citizenship. The concept of corporate citizenship implies that the company, like the citizen, has duties and rights towards society and must comply with and respect them.
It is then, when we understand that in the first place it is the people who make up the organization who have to have values and principles, to reflect them within the organization and later it is reflected in all external actions that the organization has as a business and "person " within society.
(Mori, 2009) argues that the interventions, from the framework of social responsibility, would reinforce personal, relational and social qualities in the communities, since, by incorporating external aspects, coming from social considerations; economic or political, would be tempted by the social symbiosis of community phenomena that draw the lines of transformation from the communities.
Companies can manage their resources to generate a greater positive impact on the development of a locality, but they cannot replace either the community or the state in this responsibility. Social responsibility implies that the company has as one of its objectives the achievement of improvement in the living standards of the communities in which it operates, carrying out various transfers in services and infrastructure. Transferring these services to the community demands an analysis of relevance and justice that does not hinder the satisfaction of certain essential needs for well-being.
(Avendaño & William, 2013) state that social responsibility actions offer visible benefits for the company, and it is important to communicate the performance of these actions to consumers and the general public, maintaining the balance between their performance and publication to avoid divergences between what is done and what is perceived. Social responsibility has begun to occupy an important space in the relationships between the different economic agents. In this sense, transparency in the performance of companies and in the clear, truthful and timely information about it has become a relevant factor. This is how moral behavior in the company is usually used as a strategy and is accompanied by an improvement in results.
Consulted References
- Argandoña, A. (2010). Shared Social Responsibility. Navarrese. Retrieved from http://www.iese.edu/en/files/2010-02.%20Una%20responsabilidad%20social%20compartida_tcm4-43777.pdfAvendaño, C., & William, R. (2013). Social responsibility and corporate social responsibility: a new perspective for companies. Lasallian Journal of Research, 10 (1), 152–163. Errol, A. (2009). The Social Responsibility of the Companies. Journal of the Faculty of Accounting Sciences, (32). Retrieved from http://sisbib.unmsm.edu.pe/bibvirtual/publicaciones/quipukamayoc/2009/pdf/ a14v16n32.pdf Mori, M. del P. (2009). Social responsibility: A look from community psychology. Liberabit, 15 (2), 163–170.
