Corporate Social Responsibility Paper Example

Abstract

There has been growing interest in CSR as a management practice across a range of disciplines. In the last couple of decades, many businesses have adopted CSR in their strategic management and stakeholder social reporting. This research focuses on CSR and sustainable initiatives fir companies in wildlife management. The research entailed used of qualitattative interviews to collect data in the case study organization - Abies Hunting, which has operations in Romania and Hungary. The researcher selected 10 interviewees (5 internal and 5 external stakeholders), who are wildlife management engineers through selective sapling. It was established that the company has adopted various CSR initiatives and has modeled its business towards sustainability. However, the major issue that the company faces is deforestation and human-animal conflicts. Therefore, it was recommended that Abies Hunting should involve the locals, as this will make it easier to achieve its sustainable goals, such as curbing deforestation. In addition, it was also recommended that to reduce human-animal conflict there needs to be better fences while more signs in the forest will make it easier to curb fires and manage waste, which will lead to more sustainability.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Wildlife management is the action that people or companies take to achieve the desired objective in the conservation and preservation of wild animals and their ecosystems (Kerlinger et al., 2013; Doak, Bakker, Goldstein, and Hale, 2015.). It is important in that it halts loss of biodiversity and allows for the balancing of ecological demands, including carrying capacity, stopping adverse disturbances in the ecosystem, as well as halting poor environmental practices while also balancing the needs of people and those of wildlife (Allen and Singh, 2016; Dressel, Ericsson, and Sandstrom, 2018; Fryxell, Sinclair, and Caughley, 2014). Wildlife management is vital in keeping human activities in check as they can contribute to both negative and positive influence on wildlife existence (Redpath, Bhatia, and Young, 2015).

Human activities can help in the conservation and preservation of wildlife if the efforts are designed to be sustainable. However, if the human activities are not sustainable, they can also lead to the destruction of ecosystems, decline in wildlife population due to poaching, and loss of biodiversity (Bolvin et al., 2016). This calls for incorporation of sustainability and corporate social responsibility activities by entities that are responsible for wildlife management. The entities that are responsible for protecting wildlife management including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies such as AbiesHunting, which specialize in the preservation and conservation of the wildlife. Besides, according to Stringer and Paavola (2013), there is a lack of community involvement in decision making, as well as a lack of NGOs focusing on environmental conservation. This demands for civil society and solutions for allowing the participation of all levels of governance and adopting a more inclusive and multi-stakeholder approach to meet better economic, social and environmental objectives (Stringer and Paavola, 2013; Kati, Hovardas, Dieterich, Ibisch, Mihok, and Selva, 2015).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a vital component of all businesses, including those involved with wildlife management. CSR has moved from ideology to a business reality paradigm as the spillover effects of the business decisions on the physical and social environment, including positive and negative, have increasingly become clear to the wider community (Moyeen and Courvisanos, 2012).

In essence, answering the question why it is vital to incorporate CSR initiatives, as well as investigating how it affects the perception of the company is worth the effort because the company can only reach an economic target if the wildlife is maintained within the sustainable context (Butchart et al., 2010; Tittensor et al., 2014). Most importantly, developing and maintaining a balance between the necessities of the rural population without harming the wildlife is paramount. Therefore, while wildlife management can be a source of financial income for the company and the rural population, both can reach the economic target if the wildlife is maintained within a sustainable context (Butchart et al., 2010; Tittensor et al., 2014).

Background

There has been growing interest in CSR as a management practice across a range of disciplines (Miles et al 2006; Godfrey, 2005; Daugherty, 2001). In the last couple of decades, many businesses have adopted CSR in their strategic management and stakeholder social reporting (Schwartz, 2011; Daugherty, 2001). Indeed, CSR has emerged as one of the key platforms of stakeholder engagement as well as a way of framing business and society relations. This is particularly important given the widely-held position that in modern society, the survival of any business depends on how it is perceived and relates with key stakeholders (Cornelissen, 2004; Freeman, 1984; Daugherty, 2001). The stakeholders include shareholders/stockholders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), customers, employees, the government, the media and members of the community where the business operates. The importance of CSR has been further strengthened by public activism, globalization and technological advancements (Miles et al, 2006). Wildlife conservation as a business offers global and national benefits of saving species, habitats and ecosystems as well as biodiversity (Clements, John, Nielsen, An, Tan, and Milner-Gulland, 2010). However, the actual cost of conservation is borne more by local communities who often get insufficient and inequitable benefits (Bulte et al., 2008). This has posed various challenges to the management and conservation of wildlife. The balance between costs and benefits of conservation to local communities has led to demands for CSR from wildlife authorities (Blom, Sunderland, & Murdiyarso, 2010).

In addition, there is also the wildlife management issue. The management of wildlife is faced with various challenges, including the escalation of human wildlife conflict, poaching, livestock incursion into national parks and shrinking and degraded wildlife habitats (Rigg, Findo, Wechselberger, Gorman, Sillero-Zubiri, and Macdonald, 2011). Historically, it has been found that the creation of national parks and reserves was largely not preceded by consultation and sensitization of the public nor did it consider the dependence of local people's livelihoods on park resources (Bulte et al., 2008). Neither did the protectionist or fortress approach to conservation consider the needs of the people who bore the costs of conservation. Besides, most national parks and reserves do not cover the entire ecosystem or the geographical range of migratory wild animals (Western, 2003). This implies that wild animals can only survive with safe access to private or community owned land outside national parks and reserves as well as strong law enforcement.

Human wildlife conflic...