Advanced Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to understand:

The different goals that companies are trying to achieve.
The types and levels of CSR that companies exhibit.
The shared lessons and common elements of CSR management.
How CSR is managed inside companies.
The business case for CSR.
What is meant by ‘corporate governance’.
The theories and ‘drivers’ of corporate governance.
International developments in corporate governance.
The implications for CSR.
The emergence and development of CSR reporting.
The voluntary nature of the reports and the issues that surround this feature.
The theories which might help explain the practice of CSR and CSR reporting.
New forms of reporting in the coming decade.
Stakeholders as a managerial concept.
The different types of stakeholder and difficulties with the ‘stakeholder’ construct.
The role of stakeholders in defining and implementing voluntary codes of CSR practice and standards.
Stakeholder management.
The evolution of socially responsible investment (SRI).
The main approaches used in SRI decision-making.
The performance of SRI funds.
An overview of the international market for SRI and its development in different regional contexts.
Emerging trends in SRI.
The importance of understanding impact.
The ways we learn about impact and the ways it is assessed.
A framework for understanding the different dimensions to impact.
An overview of the impact of CSR to date.
The challenges of assessing impact.
Why some see CSR as being anti-business or anti-free markets.
How some regard CSR as being too pro-business.
Why CSR has been criticised for failing to deal with major areas of the interaction of business with society.
Why some feel that CSR needs to become more rigorous and tougher in its approach.
The major trends that will affect what is meant by CSR over the coming years.
Aspects of contemporary CSR that may be refined or enhanced.
Evolving types of approach to CSR.