Corporate Social Responsibility Assessing The Erste Bank Group
...is put into practice at Erste Bank Group .
First, the development of CSR over time will be shown. After defining what CSR is about, the concept of the Triple Bottom Line will be outlined.
Based on the authors experience and various internal documents, EBG will then be assessed in how the organisation views, communicates and practices CSR. Finally, recommendations will be given on how EBG may progress in terms of CSR.
2 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The concept of CSR has around for quite some time. Through continuous evolvement, the way we see CSR today differs considerably from how Milton defined it in 1962:
"There is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
After Friedman, the idea of the corporate social contract arose, which today underlies the CSR concept. Given the sometimes negative effects of business decision making on society, this contract spells out society's expectations of business (Bowie, 1983).
From the 1980ies on, aspects derived from the green movements ("greening") became part of CSR as well. At first, the aim was on pollution prevention, whereas these days companies are focusing on clean technology ("eco-effectiveness") (Hart, 2007).
2.1 Definition of CSR
Oppewal et al. (2006) define it as the duty of the organization to respect individuals' rights and promote human welfare in its operations". In that respect, CSR goes farther than the already established concept of corporate governance, which is very common in the banking sector; in other words Businesses not only have the economic responsibility of being profitable and the legal responsibility to follow the laws or ground rules...
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