Dave Shen

Trust, commitment, and effort on the part of the stakeholders of a firm are essential to the success of that firm as are the competititive advantges and strategic positions of the planning process. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) cannot be separated from firm strategy and they are very much interconnected.

In 2007, Apple had responded to criticism by environmental groups such as Greenpeace who questioned their environmental commitment by taking a position on climate change, improving product energy efficiency, and recycling performance and to eliminate toxic chemicals from their products including: mercury and arsenic from displays and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from internal components. Apple introduced a policy on climate change, product energy efficiency, and overall recycling performance. A “Greener Apple” is an important part of their corporate business strategy. Also having Al Gore, former US Vice-President and active environmentalist — serves as a Director on the Apple board.

Although many companies are being socially responsible, they have found some challenges when taking their products/services to the global stage.  Google’s internal corporate motto “Don’t Be Evil” was said to recognize that large corporations often maximize short-term profits with actions that destroy long-term brand image and competitive position. By instilling a culture of trust and image would outweigh short-term gain. When they were entering China in 2006, they caved into China’s hard-line censorship by allowing the government to self-censor their search engine. CEO Eric Schmidt explained that the term “don’t be evil” was then later replaced with an “evil scale” balancing evils for a greater good — rather than taking a stand on censorship, the Chinese market was too large to ignore and caved into China’s demands.