What is Individual Social Responsibility (ISR)?

What is Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) ? full Essay

The individual social responsibility includes the engagement of each person towards the community where he lives, which can be expressed as an interest towards what’s happening in the community, as well as in the active participation in solving some of the local problems.
Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) is about an individual becoming responsible in his/her actions that have an affect on communities outside his/her immediate circle. The immediate circle being family and friends. There can be an argument about also including family and friends, but it would be rather pertinent to include them as part of Individual Personal Responsibility.

Under community we understand the village, the small town or the residential complex in the big city, where he/ she lives. Each community lives its own life that undergoes a process of development all the time. And everyone of us could take part in that development in different ways, for example:

Individual Social Responsibility

• By taking part in cleaning of the street on which he lives
• By taking part in organizing an event, connected with the history of the town or the village
• By rendering social services to children without parents or elderly people
• The individual social responsibility also
• could be expressed in making donations for social, cultural, or ecological causes.
• There are many ways of donating, as for example donating of goods or donating money through a bank account or online

Individual Social Responsibility

Individual social responsibility is interlinked with corporate social responsibility. An individual (employee) has to contribute his best to fulfill the corporate social responsibility for its economic, social and environmental goals. Without employee contribution, a company cannot achieve its goals.

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Individual Social Responsibility

As an employee you can contribute environmentally to the company by switching off lights when not in use, by switching off computers when you are not working or by using shared cabs and planting trees. Your individual responsible actions will help the company to reduce energy bills and reduce its carbon footprints.

As an individual you can contribute to the companies social commitments by visiting the social camps organized by company social workers for the welfare of people who need your help in sanitary issues, health and education.
You can contribute to the economic development of the company by practicing ethics and moral values and loyalty to the company when it’s a difficult situation. As an individual in the society you can help fellow individuals, care and love them only then one can say that one is a socially responsible citizen.

COCA-COLA: A CASE STUDY

Individual Social Responsibility

Coca-Cola India being one of the largest beverage companies in India, realized that CSR had to be an integral part of its corporate agenda. According to the company, it was aware of the environmental, social, and economic impact caused by a business of its scale and therefore it had decided to implement a wide range of initiatives to improve the quality of life of its customers, the workforce, and society at large.

However, the company came in for severe criticism from activists and environmental experts who charged it with depleting groundwater resources in the areas in which its bottling plants were located, thereby affecting the livelihood of poor farmers, dumping toxic and hazardous waste materials near its bottling facilities, and discharging waste water into the agricultural lands of farmers. Moreover, its allegedly unethical business practices in developing countries led to its becoming one of the most boycotted companies in the world.

Individual Social Responsibility

Notwithstanding the criticisms, the company continued to champion various initiatives such as rainwater harvesting, restoring groundwater resources, going in for sustainable packaging and recycling, and serving the communities where it operated. Coca-Cola planned to become water neutral in India by 2009 as part of its global strategy of achieving water neutrality. However, criticism against the company refused to die down.

Individual Social Responsibility

Critics felt that Coca-Cola was spending millions of dollars to project a ‘green’ and ‘environment-friendly’ image of itself, while failing to make any change in its operations. They said this was an attempt at greenwashing as Coca-Cola’s business practices in India had tarnished its brand image not only in India but also globally. The case discusses the likely challenges for Coca-Cola India as it prepares to implement its new CSR Strategy in the country.

We know that business is an economic activity, which is carried out on a regular basis to earn profit. However, we must have seen businessmen spending money on different aspects, which is not going to give them any profit straightaway. For example, we must have seen businessmen maintaining and developing gardens on streets and squares in the cities. Some businessmen engage themselves in research for improving the quality of products, some providing housing, transport, education and health care to their employees and their families. In some places businessmen provide free medical facility to poor patients. Sometimes they also sponsor games and sports at national as well as international.

WHAT IS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESS?

Individual Social Responsibility

In our daily life, we perform a number of activities, such as brushing our teeth, listening to our parents, showing respect to elders, obeying traffic rules on roads etc. Why do we perform these activities? Is it because we live in a family as well as a society and the members of the family and society want us to do all this. They do several things for us and expect us to do several things for them. The expectations of the family or society becomes obligation for us, which we need to fulfill. For example, taking care of our parents or children, keeping the road clean by not littering etc.

There are also obligations towards ourselves, which we need to fulfill. For example, eating our meals on time, getting the right amount of sleep etc. which keeps us fit and takes care of our health. Now we fulfill all these obligations by performing certain activities which are called our responsibilities. Any responsibility we have, particularly towards members of the society with whom we interact or towards the society in general is called social responsibility.

Individual Social Responsibility

This is true in case of business also. Every business operates within a society. It uses the resources of the society and depends on the society for its functioning. This creates an obligation on the part of the business to look after the welfare of the society. So all the activities of the business should be such that they will not harm, rather they will protect and

contribute to the interests of the society. Social responsibility of business refers to all such duties and obligations of business directed towards the welfare of the society. These duties can be a part of the routine functions of carrying on business activity or they may be an additional function of carrying out welfare activity.

Let us consider an example: A drug- manufacturing firm undertakes extensive research and thus, produces drugs which are qualitatively superior. It also provides scholarships or fellowships to the family members of its employees for studying abroad.
We find in both cases, the drug manufacturing firm is carrying out its social responsibility. In case of the former, it is the part of its routine business function while in the latter case it is a welfare function.

WHY SHOULD BUSINESS BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE?

Social responsibility is a voluntary effort on the part of a business to take various steps to satisfy the expectation of different interest groups. The interest group may be owners, investors, employees, consumers, government and society or community. But the question arises why the business should come forward and be responsible towards these interest groups. Let us consider some points:

Individual Social Responsibility

PUBLIC IMAGE

The activities of business towards the welfare of the society earn goodwill and reputation for the business. The earnings of business also depend upon the public image of the activities. People prefer to buy products of a company that engages itself in various social welfare programmed. Again, good public image also attracts honest and competent employees to work with such employers.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION

To avoid government regulations businessmen should discharge their duties voluntarily. For example, if any business firm pollutes the environment it will naturally come under strict government regulation, which may ultimately force the firm to close down its business. Instead, the business firm should engage itself in maintaining a pollution free environment.

SURVIVAL AND GROWTH

Every business is a part of the society. So for its survival and growth, support from the society is very much essential. Business utilizes the available resources like power, water, land, roads etc of the society. So it should be the responsibility of every business to spend a part of its profit for the welfare of the society.

Individual Social Responsibility

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Besides getting good salary and working in a healthy atmosphere, employees also expect other facilities like proper accommodation, transportation, education and training. The employers should try to fulfill all the expectation of the employees because employee satisfaction is directly related to productivity and it is also required for the long-term prosperity of the organization. For example, if business spends money on training of the employees, it will have more efficient people to work and thus, earn more profit.

CONSUMER AWARENESS

Now-a-days consumers have become very conscious about their rights. They protest against the supply of inferior and harmful products by forming different groups. This has made it obligatory for the business to protect the interest of the consumers by providing quality products at the most competitive price.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY LAWS & HOW IT IS IMPLEMENTED IN INDIA

Individual Social Responsibility

CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT, 1986

Industrial development in the field of manufactured goods has led to the influx of various consumer goods into the Indian market to cater to the needs of the consumers and a variety of services such as banking, financing, insurance, transport, housing construction, entertainment have been made available to the consumers.
In order to protect the consumers from exploitation and to save them from adulterated and substandard goods and deficient services. The Consumer Protection Act came into force on 15th April, 1986 and it applies to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Objects of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986

The preamble to the Act states that the Act is legislated to provide for better protection of the interests of consumers and for that purpose to make provision for the establishment of consumer councils and other authorities for the settlement of consumer’s disputes and for matters connected therewith.
The basic rights of consumers as per the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) are:

• The right to be protected against marketing of goods and services which are hazardous to life and property.
• The right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods, or services so as to protect the consumer against unfair trade practices.
• The right to be assured, wherever possible, access to variety of goods and services at competitive prices.
• The right to be heard and be assured that consumers’ interests will receive due consideration at appropriate forums.
• The right to seek redressal against unfair trade practices or restrictive trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers.
• The right to consumer education.
• The CPA extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir and applies to all goods and services unless otherwise notified by the Central Government.

Individual Social Responsibility

RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS DIFFERENT INTEREST GROUPS

After getting some idea about the concept and importance of social responsibility of business let us look into the various responsibilities that a business has towards different groups with whom it interacts. The business generally interacts with owners, investors, employees, suppliers, customers, competitors, government and society. They are called as interest groups because by each and every activity of business, the interest of these groups is affected directly or indirectly.

i. Responsibility towards owners

Owners are the persons who own the business. They contribute capital and bear the business risks. The primary responsibilities of business towards its owners are to:

a. Run the business efficiently.
b. Proper utilization of capital and other resources.
c. Growth and appreciation of capital.
d. Regular and fair return on capital invested.

Individual Social Responsibility

ii. Responsibility towards investors

Investors are those who provide finance by way of investment in debentures, bonds, deposits etc. Banks, financial institutions, and investing public are all included in this category. The responsibilities of business towards its investors are

a. Ensuring safety of their investment.

Individual Social Responsibility

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY V/s INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY

Corporate Social Responsibility seems to be the term of the day for an emerging corporate India. As corporate citizens, people seem to be more than willing to come up with innovative models for the up-liftment of society, using their own resources.
Starting from teaching the underprivileged children, to sharing resources with flood victims, to green planet fundamentals and to whatever else the organization feels it can give back to the society, everything is being done today.
So, now, a natural questions arises: Why were we not responsible towards the society, as individual citizens, earlier? Were all the people who pull up their socks now, and work towards the aim of corporate social responsibility not responsible as individuals earlier?

Individual Social Responsibility

A few people who felt responsible earlier were contributing to the up-liftmen of society using whatever little means they had. Some of them donated money to NGO’s that helped underprivileged students, while others took classes over the weekends to help the NGO’s in the field of education.
And that was not all, there were people who tried to help others by doing whatever little they could, in whatever form they could, while the rest continued to enjoy living a life of ease and comfort.

The important question, however, still remains: Why are we not individually responsible to live as socially responsible citizens? Do we always need a collective cause to pull us towards responsibility?
There’s a proverb which says, “For a nation to prosper, each citizen has to be accountable to his task rather than communities being accountable to their task”. Communities here refers to various groups of people, and in our current context we can consider organization, companies etc as communities.
So, to really take a country forward whatever we do in the name of the organization has to be carried out individually too.

Individual Social Responsibility

The best place to start is home. If we accept the responsibility of being moral citizens in all the activities of our day to day life, it will automatically be reflected in our offices, and then on the nation as a whole. Working collectively for higher benefits to the society is commendable, but working individually towards the good of all is even better.
So, pause for a moment and think. How many of are ready to be individually responsible for the activities we carry out and be a socially responsible citizen, rather than have a collective pull through Corporate Social Responsibility.

Individual Social Responsibility