Corporate Social Resposibility

The concept of a corporate board's "fiduciary duty" has been expanding to include social, environmental and human rights issues that some boards may be ill prepared to oversee. It is very difficult for boards to concern about the new corporate social responsibility and address to their agenda. In the article of “The Socially Responsible Board”, authors Aron Cramer and Matthew Hirschland give an overview and examples of business that develop structures to face the challenge in order to create long-term corporate value. Also, they point out problems with many board committees that ignore corporate responsibility; it is very important to establish committees that can help solve social and other environmental problems.

Business for Social Responsibility defines corporate social responsibility as “achieving commercial success in ways that honor ethical values and respect people, communities and the natural environment.” In other words, it means to address the legal ethical, commercial and other expectations society has for business, wherever the company does business, marking decisions that fairly balance the claims of all key stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility is a thing that needs to be challenged and carefully considered. As companies, they should operate under laws and regulations under any circum-stances. Their jobs are producing quality products and providing excellence service, and represent them in a fair and ethical manner.

Committees focused exclusively on CSR are growing in number. However, forming a CSR-specialized board committee