Accenture Corporate Responsibility Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Corporate social responsibility

The Importance of CSR Implementation

Executive Summary of Accenture Corporate Responsibility

The report presented the corporate responsibility strategy for an organization ‘Accenture’ where the report has highlighted concepts and frameworks which describes three major dimensions of corporate responsibility including the research demonstrating the rigour analysis issues, problems and challenges of the organization. Along with this, the report also discussed the implementation of a corporate responsibility strategy to determine the value of the organization. In addition to this, the report has also provided a theoretical background on the importance of the corporate strategy of the organization. Moreover, the above sections of the report have provided some recommendations using the concepts and theories of corporate responsibility.

Contents

Introduction.

Current CSR strategy of Accenture.

SWOT analysis of the company from CSR perspective.

Economic Responsibility.

Legal Responsibility.

Ethical Responsibility.

Philanthropic Responsibility.

Implementation and recommendations of CSR strategy.

Conclusion.

References

Introduction to Accenture Corporate Responsibility

Corporate responsibility is an important activity of an organization to describe the organization’s commitment towards social, environmental and economic factors that determines the overall sustainability of an organization over the long term. It acts as a major requirement of every organization, where it helps an organization to be recognized as a good corporate citizen of the economy (Rangan, Chase and Karim, 2015). Corporate social responsibility is a plan, where corporate sectors initiate the ideas on developing social and economic concerns. In a nutshell, corporate responsibility strategy is a decision making strategy which concludes benefits for the company and the society (Lahtinen, Kuusela and Yrjola, 2018). The paper aims at demonstrating the strategy of corporate responsibility of the organization ‘Accenture UK’. Moreover, the paper includes the introduction of the company and analysis based on a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) perspective. Along with this, the paper also discussed the implementation part of concepts and theories which is used in the report.

Accenture UK is a global leading company which provides a broad range of professional services in strategy building, consulting, technology and operations. Accenture is the part of both global and local level operations where the corporate responsibility of the company is focused on environmental sustainability and social sustainability. The aim of the company is to take an initial step towards helping the youth unemployment of the economy and bringing the change in the sections where the company works which describes the corporate responsibility, corporate sustainability and corporate ethics of the company. Corporate responsibility has three dimensions that describe social responsibility and care as a citizen towards the society and economy. Corporate responsibility is concerned with the sustainability of the organization ensuring the organizational activities have a positive impact on the society (Unterberger, Vesovic, Mostarac and Sarac, 2018). Corporate sustainability is a method which is applied to the implementation of the company’s strategy that focuses on cultural, environmental, ethical and other economic dimensions of conducting the business operations. Corporate ethics and governance are concerned with the ethical conduct of the business. Moreover, corporate governance of the organization deals with regulations and laws on the basis of which business is operated. It is concerned with the relationships of shareholders and stakeholders of the company (Elgammal, El-Kassar and Messarra, 2018).

Current CSR Strategy of Accenture

Accenture believes that corporate social responsibility acts as a central in their business and company focus on improving the way that world is working today with contributing communities and environment where a company is the hard believer of contributing to the environment and society where they live and work. In the United Kingdom, the company’s corporate citizenship mainly focuses on two core concepts that include environmental and social sustainability. Accenture follows three main pillars to the work for incorporating citizenship which includes the skill to succeed programme, stewardship of environment and volunteering program and making a difference (Hortensia, 2017). The first pillar demonstrates the importance of skill to succeed programme, where program focuses on building and developing the skill set of youth through initiating volunteering programme to help the youth of the society to gain employability skills and entrepreneur skills. Company has set up a target of 3 million people by 2020 to provide the right skills which can help them out to grab employability and entrepreneur skills. The programme aims at supporting youth with improving job skills where the objective is to contributing the economic success and creating an inclusive society (Ashrafi, Adams, Walker and Magnan).

The second pillar of Accenture which is contributing towards corporate citizenship is stewardship of environment and volunteering programme where the strategy focuses more on volunteering programs and 89% of employees says that the job satisfaction at Accenture was enhanced as a result of volunteering programs. Volunteering is the major part of the company’s citizenship offering where the company works with a motto of improving the way how the world works by providing paid leaves for the employees who are volunteering. These volunteering programs include partnering with the charities, education about eco-responsibility, creating learning opportunities and encouraging investment in communities and allowing the workforce to share the skills to the community (Plewa, Conduit, Quester and Johnson, 2014). The company is also focusing on the precautions which help in lowering down the harmful effects to the environment. The company focused on reducing carbon emissions, by taking steps of reduction in air travel of employees (Islam, Ali, and Asad, 2019).The third pillar of the company is making a difference which describes how the employees of the organization improve the way the world works and lives by investing their time and resources. For every fiscal year, employees are provided two days of volunteering. These are the corporate citizenship of Accenture, which enables the company to building corporate responsibility (Alva, Prasad and Bhat, 2018).

SWOT Analysis of The Company from CSR Perspective

Above table describes the SWOT analysis of Accenture from CSR perspective (Laveena, Jindal, Ahuja and Singh, 2015).

Corporate social responsibility is defined as the company’s moral and ethical efforts towards society for the betterment and sustainability of society. Today, almost all the organizations are focusing towards implementing the social investments and policies towards the society, where it helps the company to build a good reputation in the competitive environment of business (Krizanova and Gajanova, 2016). It also allows the company to become responsible for implementing the social policies, investments and ethical efforts, which helps the company to generate the customers. However, the customer is preferring to render the service of a responsible company. CSR initiatives are based on four sorts of groups. Following are the four categories demonstrated:

Economic Responsibility

Economic responsibility focuses on maintaining the balance between business operations, environmental and philanthropic practices. It sets the standards and of ethical and moral principles which ensures the benefit is there for both to the society where the purchase happens and to the business where marketing is done. In simple terms, it refers to the consideration of both the business and the customer. This includes operations and trade for the benefit of the society where it aims at maintaining the equal benefit of both the business and society. Economic responsibility defines the economic activities of the business which is beneficial for the shareholders and the stakeholders of the company. For example, trading is an economic activity, where its objective is to earn profits. Business is earning profits with satisfying the needs and wants of the society, along with this, employees of the company and customers are also benefited with this economic activity, where an employee earns incentives and salary and customer is benefited with his necessity. The main theme of this responsibility describes a win-win situation, where the society and the business are benefited from a particular activity or operation (Hasse, 2017).

Legal Responsibility

Legal responsibility of an organization is also known as a law abiding organization or business. In a nutshell, a responsibility of business which is following the rules and regulations governed by law is known as legal responsibility. As per the existing companies act, 2013, a company is an artificial person which is a legal entity should follow the fair trade principles, rules and regulations within its boundaries permitted. These rules and regulations are imposed to maintain the legal balance between the business and society. For example, a business should pay all the taxes incurred to the government and should maintain the proper record of accounts. There are different laws and policies which are there to follow, when the legal entity (an organization) is incorporated. Company should focus on the labour law, environmental law along with the criminal law to ensure the fair trade (Lambooy, 2014).

Ethical Responsibility

Ethical responsibility defines set of ethical actions and principles where company uses to choose the right decision on the particular criteria. Ethical responsibility includes performing ethical practices in the organizations to ensure fair standards and practices of employees where the main focus of these practices are on welfare of employees, labour, supplier and customer of the organization. Ethical responsibility includes the factors that defines the business should be responsible for ensuring the fair laws in an organization (Elbeshbishi and Ali, 2020). Moreover, an organization should also disclose it trade practices to the society. It helps in building the trust and good reputation in the society (Singh and Singh, 2013). Ethical practices of the organization involves paying fair labour compensation for wages and employees and taking the right decision which is not void.

Philanthropic Responsibility

Philanthropic responsibility is one of the major part of the corporate social responsibility which defines serving the society. We must have heard innumerable business organizations which are participating towards serving the humanity (Gautier and Claire, 2015). Those are the companies who are widely practicing philanthropic practices to be recognized as a corporate citizen and responsible business entity of an economy. For example, Tata sons spends more than 13% of their net profit towards philanthropic activities. This activity helps organization to create trust in the society. Moreover, this activity leads to well recognition of the business in economy as it deals in helping different communities of the society. The activities includes providing free education, donating funds for the poverty line people and the people who are affected by disasters and similar others (Kubickova, 2018).

Implementation and Recommendations of CSR Strategy

Corporate social responsibility has become an integral part of every organization. Moreover, the reason the organizations are using different strategies of social responsibility is to show the commitment of social responsibility towards the society. Above are the key parts of corporate social responsibility which defines the legal, environmental, economic and philanthropic responsibility of an organization (Kovacic, 2018). To create an effective strategy for implementing CSR, an organization should include the following:

• Disclosing and defining the problems of our economy: The business organization should clearly define the latest problem faced by the economy. For example, people under the poverty line are suffering from lack of sanitizers to fight the pandemic. So the company can focus on the current issue of the economy. It comes under the social and philanthropic responsibility of an organization (Khojastehpour and Shams, 2019).
• Define the solving process of the problem or issue of the economy: An organization should clearly define the step-by-step process of solving the problem and should implement the steps to solve the issue. For example, a company can focus on the slum areas to distribute the sanitizers. Along with this, to create economic responsibility, the company can also be engaged in serving humanity (Sheehy, 2015).
• Involvement of employees and customers is mandatory: Company should also involve its employees towards initiating volunteering programs. For example, using the websites or social media posts, the company can create voting opting through likes and shares that would help the company to know the interested people who are participating in programs (Glavas, 2016).
• Using social media platforms: Most of the active users are found online on social media trolling the posts. The company can upload the posts related to serving humanity to get support from different communities. It helps in seeking publicity (Ali, Jimenez-Zacro and Bicho, 2015).
• Focusing on the three pillar model: The paper discussed the 3 pillars of corporate responsibility, whereas the three pillar model of sustainability describes corporate sustainability towards environment, social and economic pillars (Valentiny, 2019). For example, the environmental pillar suggest to be eco-friendly with the society which recommends to lower down the carbon emissions by reducing travelling. Social pillar defines it should be supported by the stakeholders and shareholders of the company where company should support the communities globally (Purvis, Mao and Robinson, 2018).

Conclusion on Accenture Corporate Responsibility

From the above discussion and explanation, it can be concluded that the corporate social responsibility defines the organization activities that are contributing towards societal goals of philanthropic activities, ethical activities, legal activities and economic activities. Corporate social responsibility also covers the key functions of stewardship towards volunteering and environment programs, practicing fair trade laws in the society and considering ethical principles for taking actions. The report has covered SWOT analysis of company from CSR perspective and different aspects of corporate responsibility demonstrating the social responsibility of an organization. Along with this the report discussed the current corporate responsibility practices of an organization ‘Accenture’ and also demonstrated the concepts of corporate responsibility, ethics and governance. The paper discussed the key categories of CSR, where it also provided the implementation of CSR strategy with recommendations. The paper has used the secondary data of credential resources .org, .net and journal articles to demonstrate the concepts and implementation strategy of corporate social responsibility.

The paper aims at demonstrating the implementation strategy of corporate responsibility of an organization. Moreover, the key focus of the report is to understand the concepts of corporate responsibility of an organization. The impact of proposed strategy will get benefited in terms of building the trust in a society. The above implementations of CSR strategy helps organization to be succeeding in getting organizational buy-in. However, it involves the disclosing and defining the economic problem which provides understanding of different issues and person’s communication style. Involvement of employees and using the social media platforms can gather different questionnaire from the communities, where the information assists company to work on those areas. The company can also work on creating the change by giving proper feedbacks on their work done within the implementation strategy of corporate social responsibility. However, the paper discussed the categories of corporate responsibility which has described economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility of organization where it covers the three pillar model of corporate sustainability. 

References for Accenture Corporate Responsibility

Ali, I., Jimenez-Zacro, A. I., and Bicho, M. 2015. Using social media for CSR communication and engaging stakeholders. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284735260_Using_Social_Media_for_CSR_Communication_and_Engaging_Stakeholders [Accessed on August 06, 2020]

Alva, H., Prasad, K., and Bhat, S. 2018. Accenture – understanding sustainable business strategies. International Journal of Case Studies in Business, IT and Education (IJCSBE), 2(1), PP. 54-63. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3186118 [Accessed on August 04, 2020]

 Ashrafi, M., Adams, M., Walker, T. R., and Magnan G. 2018. ‘How corporate social responsibility can be integrated into corporate sustainability: a theoretical review of their relationships’. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 25(8), PP. 672-882. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2018.1471628 [Accessed on August 06, 2020]

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