Four approaches to SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

As we have seen, some people advocate a larger social role for organizations, and others argue that their role is already too large. Not surprisingly, organization themselves adopt a wide range of positions on social responsibility. There are four stances that an organization can take concerning its obligations to society fall along a continuum ranging from the lowest to the highest degree of socially responsible practices.Organizations can adopt a variety of approaches to social responsibility. Every organization has it certain levels to approach the society with different degree of social responsibility.

1. Obstructionist Stance is the lowest degree of social responsible practices at all times. For those organizations who fall into this section usually do as little as possible to solve any social or environmental problems. When they cross the ethical or lega line that separates acceptable from unacceptable practices, their typical response is to deny or even avoid accepting responsibility for their actions. They often wanna be invisible to hide from organizational stakeholders and society. For example, Lynas Corporation Ltd. , and Australian rare earths mining company who met all the regulation in Malaysia and choose to run their business recently. There are several association who found Lynas statement is legally and factually incorrect. It goes to show how desperate Lynas is to the point of distorting the truth of its legal challenges in Malaysia. There are several Stop Lynas groups fighting the same cause for strategic reason. It is irresponsible of Lynas to have so grossly misrepresented the fact and misinformed the market to distract its shareholders and investors’ attention from the plant’s real problems and challenges in Malaysia. They should have informed the citizen and notify them about the safety defects and the consequences with it instead of cover it up and avoiding the questions that had been asked by the local. 
2. Defensive Stance One step removed from the obstructionist stance is the defensive stance, whereby the organization does everything that is required of it legally, but nothing more. This approach is most consisten with the arguments used agains social responsiblity. Managers who take in charge in those organizations take a defensive stance insist that their job is to generate profits. The firm would install a cheaper equipment even though it might pollute the environment instead of a higher quality but slightly expensive equipment. Managers rely only on legally established rules to take the minimal position toward corporate social responsibility in order to use the rest of their effort to make more profit under their companies. Tobacco companies take this position in their marketing efforts. In some regions, they are legally required to include warnings to smokers on their products and to limit their advertising contain. Domestically they follow these rules to the letter of the law but use stronger marketing methods in countries that have no such rules. Firm that take this positon are, however, unlikely to cover up wrongdoing, and will generally admit their mistakes and take appropriate corrective actions to make some changes.
3. Accommodative Stance A firm that adopts an accommodative stance meets its legal and ethical obligations but will also go beyond these obligations in selected areas in order to make a balance between the interests of shareholders with those of other stake holders. Some firms voluntarily agree to participate in social programmes. Some listed company in Malaysia will run a donation or others service to schools or the disabled community in order to help them to get through their daily expenses.
4. Proactive Stance The highest degree of social responsibility that a firm can exhibit is the proactive stance. Firms that adopt this approach take to heart the arguments in favor of social responsiblity. They often view themselves as part of the society and proactively seek opportunities to contribute back to the society at all times. An excellent example of this is the Starbucks, their commitment is to contribute positively to the environment. They purchase renewable energy to generate their stores. They try to save the energy as far as possible. They reduce the environmental impacts of their cups by using a recyclable plastic cup and selling Stacbucks tumbler to support go green idea. They force their supply chain to use a sustainable packaging.

In Conclusion:

As you can see how Social responsibility takes part in any businesses, it should be the foundation of any businesses mission. It would be almost impossible to have a successful operation with more profits as apposed to debt. The core principle is to ensure the organizations will run it business ethically and legally under the law restrictions. This makes the business what it is with greater responsible to the society even included their employees. Organizational objectives are not changed so often but sometimes revised. The strategies and practices are revised frequently and more often changed or altered to satisfy the local needs. Social responsibility attitude does bring more convenient and more benefit to the whole society.

Reference:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_four_approaches_to_corporate_social_responsibility