Essence of Corporate Social Responsibility and CSR Coursework

Essence of Corporate Social Responsibility and CSR - Coursework Example CSR can be defined a commitment made by a company towards the stakeholder to operate in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable fashion. CSR seeks to integrate workplace culture, communities and human rights to business strategies. In the initial days the many used to treat CSR as arm chair philanthropy, however things have changed drastically. It is treated as an integral part of the overall business strategy. In order to discuss the focal points related to CSR two companies have chosen in the form of Philip Morris and Starbucks. Philip Morris is one of largest tobacco companies. It includes seven leading international brands that include Marlboro, the top most cigarette brand in the world. Starbucks one the other hand is a global coffee chain. They are based on Seattle, Washington. It is also the largest coffeehouse company. It has over twenty thousand stores and operates in over sixty countries. Starbucks shops provide a wide range of products including hot and c old coffee, pastries, snacks, etc. As it can be seen that two companies with distinct product mix and different business model has been chose. The main objective of such choice is to demonstrate the importance and benefits of CSR across various industries. Add to it must be mentioned that as per research the key focal points of CSR activities of both the companies happens to be same, at least to some extent; such as investment in foundations and communities, waste reduction, energy conservation, recycling etc. Here it is needless to say that CSR for Philip Morris is supposed to be a bit trickier as compared of Starbucks keeping the product line in mind (Urip, p. 13). Potential Benefits and Importance of CSR CSR should not be looked upon a leakage of resources. If implemented properly CSR policies can provide an array of benefits such as increase the level of customer retention, enhances relationship with customers, suppliers, stakeholders and other channel partners, differentiates t he company from that of the competitors, improves reputation, generates positive publicity and even helps the companies to get new business. This segement will be of great help to understand how CSR activities benefits Starbucks and Philip Morris to maintain better relationship with the stake holders. Stakeholders include employees, business partners, investors, local communities as well customers. It will also be helpful to analyze the alignment of CSR with the corpora objectives. It will reflect the importance of CSR keeping the overall corporate strategy in mind. Corporate objective can be defined as a realistic objective set by the company that influences key strategic decisions (Heal, p.132). Starbucks views CSR as an opportunity to give something back to the community. As a matter of fact it runs down deep to the company roots. For Starbucks CSR is an approach to fulfill the commitments made to the origins, environment, communities, and partners. Some of the approaches include investments to benefit coffee producers and their families; promoting the concept of recycling, conservation of coffee growing countries; having in store green teams. More than one billion people work at Starbucks. They are not treated as employees; rather they are treated as partners. As a matter of fact the mission statement of the company talks about the commitment to partners. As mentioned before CSR activities for Philip Morris are supposed to be a bit trickier as compared to the other. However the CSR activities of the company are nothing short of impressive. The company actively invests in art

Banking Concept Of Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Banking Concept Of Education - Essay Example Saudi Arabia, many of the students and educators have not realized that system of education is not just ineffective, but to a larger extent harmful. Going to our classes, we all had one goal in mind getting as much information for the test and getting out. Now that I am studying in America I realized how it is. The whole situation seems like feeding us information on a silver spoon. We were expected to stay quiet for the whole 60 minutes. Not knowing that it was wrong, we did what we were told to do. In the essay, The Banking Concept of Education, Paulo Freire argues that modern education is widely recognized as a chance for teachers to feed students with information as the students submissively accept it. In my years as a submissive recipient of information both in the Saudi Arabia and USA, I have come across numerous educators who fit Freire’s cynical description (Freire Paulo, 13). However, not teachers are the same, in that I have also realized a professor whose style of teaching is different from those Freire scorns, and she created a beautiful environment and splendid environment during the learning process. Her meth ods proved that it is very possible to develop a learning environment where students do not suffer from â€Å"narration sickness†.... The class that changed my opinion of education was the chemistry class. The professor, who was as highly educated as the rest of the faculty educators, initially stacked to the idea that she could learn as much from us the students as we from her. Freire demonstrates a number of qualities of the Banking Concept of Education, and argues these qualities are available in each and every classroom, and are reflected by â€Å"oppressive society in general† (Freire Paulo, 75). One of the first qualities demonstrated by Freire is that: the educator educates and the learner is taught. In our chemistry class, the professor had very little to do with the learning process. Every student submitted a new chemistry models every week, and our peers in the class provided with a feedback on our work. The professor was just there to show guidelines and to expound on complex chemistry concepts that we could not understand as a class, and to ask leading questions to prompt discussion. By reading o ur work and having the students explain to her, the professor also learned many things (Freire Paulo, 43). This logic is firmly related to Freire’s second listed quality which states that: the educator knows everything and the learner knows nothing. However, since most of the feedback came from other students, it was usually the opinion of students that was valued highly in the class. According to Freire, knowledge arises only through invention and reinvention, through impatient, restless, continuing, inquiries pursued by human being in the world, with the world and with each other. That is, true comprehension can only be fashioned though questioning, conversation, and