General Electric's Corporate Social Responsability

4. Corporations have a duty to correct adverse social impacts they cause. GE failed the basic elements of corporate social responsibility which is to take voluntary actions that go beyond what is compelled by law, regulations, or other mandates. It not only did not cut its pollution outputs to below the legally permitted levels, it missed minimum allowable levels completely, according to the text. Many of the 39 offenses mentioned earlier, most were from pollution hazards. Additionally, GE failed to correct adverse environmental impact caused by its manufacturing plants. According to the text, GE was responsible for polluting the Hudson River with toxins from its manufacturing plant in New York. As oppose to collaborating with governmental agencies utilizing its financial and corporate positioning to correct or at the very least, mitigate the issue; GE instead spent almost a half of billion to win the fight against the cleanup efforts.

As we have seen an increase in awareness around sustainability and climate change, with the help of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary in 2006, we see organizations moving towards mitigating the effects of climate change in various ways (Al Gore, n.d). As this corporate social responsibility has become more prevalent, organizations are now pushing their green agenda by publishing sustainability reports, doing mass marketing and implementing sustainable business practices to portray the image that they too are working towards protecting the earth’s natural environment all the while focusing on their underlying goal of selling their products and

Companies today are heavily influenced by the demands of customers and stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the social and environmental responsibility policies and practices developed by an organization to increase its positive influence and reduce its negative activity towards society (Parks, 2008). The business approach and corporate philosophy of an organization is easily altered due to economic pressures, technological improvement and stakeholder needs and demands. "Going green" or being eco-friendly is one such demand. Environmental and sustainability concerns originate most often from governments, consumer activists, and the general public (Schlosser, 2008). Thus, organizations must implement sustainability into daily practices. In addition, sustainability alters the nature of competition and drives companies to think differently about products, processes, and technologies (Parks, 2008).

In this article, “The Truth About CSR,” authors Rangan, Chase and Karim stress the importance in aligning a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values (Rangan, Chase, & Karim, 2015, 41). Outcomes of CSR programs should be a “spillover” and not a primary focus of a business, expressing concern towards social responsibility and corporations failing to contribute to society accordingly (Rangan, Chase, Karim, 2015, 42). There is a great deal of importance in companies refocusing their CSR activities on a primary goal and in providing an organized process for bringing consistency and discipline to CSR strategies (42). Rangan, Chase and Karim want corporations to understand why it is important for them to evaluate their CSR activities and refocus them towards the goal of reinforcing the firm’s societal and environmental actions, while also ensuring their actions add to the overall purpose and values of the corporation. According to the authors, even though

“I 'm responsible for this company. I stand behind the results. I know the details, and I think the CEO has to be the moral leader of the company... I think high standards are good, but let 's not anybody be confused, it 's about performance with integrity. That 's what you have to do.” This quote is from Jeffrey Immelt the CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Electric. In this paper I will analyze General Electric’s (GE) ethical, social, and environmental standards and practices. This analysis will include, but is not limited to discussions about GE’s code of conduct, how the organization responds to social responsibility, the environmental standards they employ, and the culture within the organization.

Canadian General Electric Co. Limited (CGE) was incorporated in Canada in 1892 at the same time Edison Electric Light Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company merge into General Electric (GE) which continues to the present day as a major international conglomerate. GE is investing in software and analytics, healthcare, energy, lighting and bio-energy systems, and advance manufacturing and enterprise. With each investment, the company strategy to grow and enhance productivity and reduce environmental impact at a global scale becomes apparent. At GE, research and development has been the cornerstone of innovation for over a century. GE has approximately 36,000 technicians that are used to solve some of the world’s toughest problems

Even though customers are a major key to success of any business, limiting CSR practices to an external group of stakeholder is insufficient. From the customers’ side, the focus is “on the corporate brand and its societal relationships with external constituencies.” (Lacey, Hensel 316). It is undeniable that implementation of CSR can attract the customers and lead them to be a significant are source of a financial gain. That is because CSR changes the way consumers behave in the market and alter their beliefs toward the company standards.” (Lacey, Hensel 316). Nevertheless, extensive focus on the social gains may cause the business to suffer financially. If that happened, the case is considered to be a failure of executing CSR. Again, this is a result of shifting all the business gears to benefit a sole group the stakeholders.

General Electric (GE), established in 1892, is an American based, diverse conglomerate. General Electric is common household name, as well as a renowned name in electric, oil, gas, power, renewable energy, aviation, transportation, and healthcare. In 2015, the Fortune 500 Company had over $117 billion in revenue. The company continues to expand, and even surpasses the yearly goals it sets for its self. As of 2015, GE has 10 research centers, employees over 3,000 engineers and PhD’s between these centers, and filed 3,100 new patents. In the healthcare arm, GE creates diagnostic imaging, clinical systems, and information technology products, as well as participating in drug discovery and other biopharmaceutical technologies. GE provides pivotal technology for healthcare and fuels the healthcare revolution. These healthcare advancements are used to develop healthcare facilities in third-world countries, as well as American healthcare (General Electric, 2016).

It is a viable alternative to apply CSR in Corporate and management strategies to outclass competing companies. An organization by carrying out its ethical principles and convictions in their activities and propagating them via organizational network influences the relationship with shareholders, clients and employees. The application of CSR can lead to social benefits and legitimacy for the firm since it can consider itself as a coalition in which the different stakeholders participate to gain their own benefit. (Freeman, 1984).

In 2005 GE launched its "Ecomagination" initiative in an attempt to position itself as a "green" company. GE is currently one of the biggest players in the wind power industry, and it is also developing new environment-friendly products such as hybrid locomotives, desalination and water reuse solutions, and photovoltaic cells. The company "plans to build the largest solar-panel-making factory in the U.S.,"[31] and has set goals for its subsidiaries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.[32]

It is to a wide extent voluntarily engrained into the corporate strategy. Moreover, it covers the most important areas of CSR – environment and society. How the strategy is really implemented into practice will be discussed in the following parts. However, it shall be mentioned that the strategy “ONE” still makes the impression of a traditional growth orientated strategy. In the appendix three and four two additional figures regarding stakeholder vs. company goals and the CSR key areas can be

General Motors (GM) is America’s one of the oldest automobile manufacturer. Currently, GM employs 212,000 plus employees working in 396 facilities across the globe (GM, 2014). GM offers vehicles ranging from electric cars to trucks. GM offers a large range of vehicles in more than 120 countries across the globe. The General Motors Foundation is involved in philanthropic activities throughout the world. These activities are mostly related to child hunger, education, promote diversity and support vital non-profit organization. Recently GM has gone through tough time due to the quality of the vehicles they have manufactured. Problems arose due to recall of over 29 million vehicles (CBS News, 2014). As a result of recalls, company’s image and the profitability of the company got negatively impacted.

With the spread of social marketing and CSR in the world, organizations tend to not only consider the consumers’ demands and the companies’ profit, but also take the consumers’ and societies’ long-term benefit into account. Hildebrand,D,et,al (2011) demonstrated that the CSR activities can make up the central, special and core characteristics of the company identity, the identification of the corporate can also be aroused due to CSR activities. Moreover, Porter and Kramer (2006) highlighted that CSR can aid companies create the ability to achieve corporate resource so as to build a sustainable and defensible competitive position. So the companies should consciously undertake corporate social responsibility.

Today a big part of customer satisfaction is depending on values which company stands for; and businesses are changing in to values-based business. In a values- based business, values which are co created among CSR, drive the sustain competition for the company in the market. (Enquist et al. 2008) (Edvardson & Enquist 2008) for a company wanting to get financial profits through values, a new strategy should be applied to enjoy the benefits of CSR value making. and CSR would be a part of the business model being integrated with the business strategy. Corporate responsibility is better understood as one dimension of corporate strategy (Enqusit et al. 2008) with this approach CSR is not only charity rather a part of the business model for a values-based business. But even “philanthropy is still a competitive advantage when it is in a proactive way”. (Edvardson & Enquist 2008) companies these days embed their CSR experiences and reports as a highlighted means for advertisement and creating a good image of themselves in public even though sometimes image making of CSR is being missused and companies reputations are not always on the basis of true CRM practices.

The main aim of a business is to earn profit but a business also need to fulfill the social and sustainability need along with its economic need this responsibility is known as Corporate social responsibility. CSR is The commitment of the business to seek after those strategies to settle on those choice, or to take after those lines of activity which are alluring as far as the target and estimation of our general public.(Carroll 1999,p.270) Now a days, relationships with customers depends on the value the company give to the social, economical and sustainable needs. In spite of the fact that executing CSR exercises rightly can prompt great impacts, for example, an expanding of organization 's benefits and a commitment to the social issues with boundless materials, without a significant learning of CSR may bring about terrible impacts, for example, squandering time and cash. According to research "Empirical studies regarding the relationship between CSR and performance are mix’’(shen and chang 2009, p.134) .This paper will talk about the significance of CSR about in meeting economical, social and sustainability needs and after that advantages and disadvantages.