1. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
Masters Programmes
Assignment Cover Sheet
Submitted by: 1557875
Date Sent: 09/01/2016
Module Title: International Business
Module Code: IB93PB
Date/Year of Module: 2015/16
Submission Deadline: 11/01/2016
Word Count: 3144
Number of Pages: 9
Question: What is meant by Corporate Social Responsibility? Europe is facing a major
economic and social challenge as it struggles to cope with the hundreds of thousands of
refugees winding their way from Syria and across the length of Europe. Should corporate
business acknowledge any Corporate Social Responsibility in relation to this international
crisis. Of course, corporate business has not caused this international crisis but arguably
it is, like expanding foreign trade, a consequence of global change. If so, what if any CSR
strategies might be relevant in this situation.
“This is to certify that the work I am submitting is my own. All external references
and sources are clearly acknowledged and identified within the contents. I am
aware of the University of Warwick regulation concerning plagiarism and collusion.
No substantial part(s) of the work submitted here has also been submitted by me
in other assessments for accredited courses of study, and I acknowledge that if this
has been done an appropriate reduction in the mark I might otherwise have received
will be made.”

2. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
1
INTRODUCTION
From 2011 to the end of 2015, at least half the population of Syrian people have lost
their lives or home due to the civil war in their home country. Those people who kept their
lives are struggling to survive in Syria, or try to make their new home in neighbouring
countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordon. Some of them even take the risks of their
lives to make their way to Europe seeking for asylum. It is deemed as one of the the most
tragic crisis in this century. While the refugees were moving west into Europe, it has also
impacted the European Union in terms of both economics and social stability. German
government has first opened arms to embrace them, and followed by other EU countries.
But apparently, EU and the member countries are struggling to cope with the enormous
number of refugees either because of limited resources or restrained policies. It is
inevitable that these people are also looking forward to the aids from other organizations
besides the public sectors such as non-governmental organizations (NGO) like Red Cross
and enterprises for profit as well.
Of course corporate business has not caused this international crisis. But it is
necessary to recognise that actually in today’s business environment, economic and
social influences of globalism are changing political and legal frameworks worldwide,
linking companies, civil society, and governments together. In other words, they are all in
an interconnected network with no exception. As a result, private sectors are more or less
linked to this refugee crisis caused by the civil war in Syrian indirectly but intimately, as
conceivably it is a consequence of global change with political concerns and oil profit
involved.
Therefore, this essay will be focused on how corporate business can be relevant to
this international crisis in any aspect. By going through the definition of Corporate Social
Responsibility, I will first extract out a core value of CSR to be the backbone of this essay.
Then analyse two types of CSR strategy, embedded and peripheral, with real cases
conducted by firms. As it is still arguable that whether dedicating in CSR initiatives will
benefit companies and also their investors. The possible future impact of corporate’s
operation and the value corresponding to CSR strategies would be the key part of the
analysis. By dividing different strategies into two types, peripheral and embedded, and
adopting the pyramid structure of CSR. I will try to make a clear point to this argument.
Furthermore, summarise if these approaches can be justified with defined core value, and
how the strategies could be helpful for the homeless people while retrieving social stability
and achieving economical benefit at the same time. Last but not the least, conclude
whether corporate business should devote to CSR initiatives.

3. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
2
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSBILITY
Business and Society need each other – Michael Porter
In the past few decades, the very first and main purpose of business is earning money
in order to meet the minimum expectation of investors. So clearly all the operations and
activities of companies should stick to it and utilise the resources properly to generate
revenue or create value for shareholders (or stockholders). Just like the winner of Nobel
Prize in Economics, Milton Friedman, published his ‘Stockholder Model’ in 1962. Stated
the idea that “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.” But, when the time goes by, the business world nowadays is getting
more complicated than ever with ecological and social factors engaged in many aspects,
such as ecological disasters in energy extraction or conflicts between ethnics and religions
in global expansion. Environmental sustainability and social stability have become more
influential and gained their important positions in a successful profile of a corporation
rather than just brilliant operations of its own in the past. The interests once only focus on
stockholders has now gradually move onto stakeholders, a group consist of not only
company owners, but also local communities, suppliers, employees, and customers
(Freeman, 2010).
This innovative idea was then more concisely defined as “context-specific
organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and
the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance” by Aguinis
(2011). While the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ is a concept first raised by Elkington (1997) to
measure a firm’s performance in three dimensions: economic, social, and ecological value.
Besides the traditional measure of corporate profit, it also comprises two aspects as how
companies being socially responsible to people and environmentally responsible to this
planet. According to this definition, CSR can be concluded as a thought for people who
run companies taking the greater good into consideration, focusing on creating both
shareholders value and social benefit rather than just on what goes into investors’ pocket.
But essentially the original purpose of business activities has remained the same —
money earning. Although taking consideration of many different aspects is making
implementing CSR based strategies relatively more complicated, profit is still the first
priority regarding corporate operations as it is the foundation of it (Carroll, 1991). This
proves that Milton Friedman’s ‘Stockholder Model’ is not obsolete at all after all these
years. Instead, his original concept has been broadly adopted in modern theories. From
the perspective of ‘value pursuing’, we can see actually there is no much difference
between CSR concept and ‘Stockholder Model’. CSR could be deemed as an evolved
idea from ‘Stockholder Model’, to adapt to more advanced and sophisticated business
environment under globalisation. The core value has also been shifted from internal value
for corporate business to shared value for both firms and society. Just like the description
from Porter and Kramer (2011), “Creating economic value in a way that also creates value
for society by addressing its needs and challenges.”

4. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
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REFUGEE CRISIS
Syrian civil war, one of the most grieving tragedies in humanity history, began with an
anti-government demonstration because of the teenagers who painted revolutionary
slogans on a school wall were arrested and tortured. The casualty caused by Syrian
government’s violent suppress had infuriated the crowd and therefore made the situation
worse. Numbers of protesters started to arm themselves to against its government. In
addition, the religious clash between Sunni and Shia, political tension between America
and Russia, rebels, and rise of jihadists in extremist group like ISIS, all these factors
getting involved later on had made the conflict grow bigger and bigger like a snowball.
And eventually became a comprehensive civil war with no signs of end.
Although the refugee crisis caused by the civil war started in 2011, almost 5 years
ago, and the refugees have been fleeing from the war and seeking for a safe place to
continue their lives since then. It has not become a worldwide media sensation only until
the heart-breaking photo of the drowned Syrian boy found on Turkish beach was posted
on September 2, 2015 (Smith, 2015). As the refugee issue broke out and spread like a
wild fire, the European Union has been under the pressure to take approaches. The large
amount of arrivals since August has put member states of the EU into public and
institutional difficulties. Among all the countries, German government has shown the
warmest welcome to these fleeing people from Syria. Germany has announced it is
expecting 800,000 immigrants come into the country only in 2015 and looking forward to
accepting 500,000 immigrants each year. Meanwhile, under the pressure of population
boom, United Kingdom would only be able to accept up to 20,000 in five-year time, which
equals to around 4000 people fleeing the war and disaster annually until 2020 (Batchelor,
2015).
PERIPHERAL CSR STRATEGIES
Apart from what intergovernmental organization (IGO) and the states have done,
many of private sectors have also given their helping hands with different amount of
donations to assist these homeless people. The list includes well known companies like
Google, JPMorgan, UNIQLO, Bayern Munich Soccer Club, SAP, and FedEx (U.S.
Chamber of Commerce Foundation, 2015). There are two points of view to support these
financial aids belong to a part of CSR approaches rather than just an affordable charity.
First, the donations are named, which means companies can also receive positive
feedback as growing their reputation. More importantly, while most of the donations are in
the form of cash, it is also delivering a message to investors that company is financially
healthy and have flexibility on its cash flow. Namely speaking, it could be an indicator of a
firm’s financial status. As the perception of general public, in most of the cases, only the
business with excess cash can undertake such initiatives.
In addition to the financial donation to the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), SAP, the biggest software company in Europe based in Germany,
launched a design-thinking workshop. The purpose of this workshop was to come up with
feasible ideas about what the firm can do to help by interviewing refugees and social
workers to clarify their needs, including accommodation, job, language, school, family,
and culture. The outcome was productive with various topics, like utilising company’s

5. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
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properties and employees to contribute to culture sharing or basic language courses. But
most important of all, the team found out the most crucial need from refugees is an
opportunity to find a job. Therefore, they also made suggestions as providing job
searching information and CV writing sessions to help them find a job more efficiently.
(Reich, 2015). Another substantial assistance is from the world leading consulting firm,
Mckinsey & Company. The firm has planned to offer its professional service to support
Germany’s BAMF (Federal Office for migrants and refugees) addressing the
overwhelming number of asylum application. Meanwhile, target to shorten the all process
from seven months to only two months by introducing new streamlining IT system in order
to improve information sharing and conducting few adjustments to internal procedures
(Consultancy UK, 2015).
In these two cases, corporate business contributed their services to refugee issue by
brainstorming workshop from software solution company and the consulting programmes
from consulting firm. The common in these two CSR initiatives, is that they are both what
the company is good at or feel comfortable with. And this is completely logical that
corporations usually implement CSR in the way they are familiar with (Smith, 2014), as it
is a most cost effective way with minimum impact on their internal operations. But what is
the main reason behind this kind of consideration?
At here, I would attribute this concern to that the category of both strategies are under
the peripheral type of CSR. By the definition from Aguinis and Glavas (2013), “embedded
CSR involves an organization’s core competencies and integrates CSR within a firm’s
strategy, routines and operations, and therefore affects all employees. In contrast,
peripheral CSR focuses on the external activities that are not integrated within a firm’s
strategy, routines and operations.” Both of two substantial assistances and the financial
aids mentioned above should all be classified as peripheral strategies. Although they are
value-added to corporations such as obtaining great reputation on their contribution or
building up cohesion and belongingness to its employees during the process of
brainstorming like the workshop held by SAP. Nevertheless, these CSR strategies are
mostly external to the organisations which would not affect neither their operations nor
employees essentially. To be more specific, the strategies being considered here, are
more like affiliations rather than the main structure of what business emphasise the most.
As a result, under the premise of maintaining company’s stability which is crucially
important. The cost concern, both tangible and intangible, would be the first priority to
managers and executives before conducting any CSR approaches.

6. IB93PB International Business Essay
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EMBEDDED CSR STRATEGIES
So how could corporate business take the responsibility more “involved” regarding
refugee issue, as a part of their core operations within organisation which can create
shared value for both society and company itself?
Matthias Mueller, the chief executive of Porsche answered this question simply but
clearly, “With new jobs!” (Klein & Matten, 2015). The same idea has been raised in SAP’s
workshop, but however has only stayed as external assistance. The thought of creating
new jobs also indicates a sign that in Germany, industry is eager to integrate refugees into
the work force. The truth is, among the influx of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees,
many of them are skilled and well-trained workers from middle class families, or even
university-educated specialists in certain fields such as manufacturing and engineering.
By fitting these people into suitable places, they could be transformed to potential work
force. Comparing with any forms of donation, it could contribute to companies more
directly and fundamentally in terms of both economic and social performances which
corresponded to the 'Triple Bottom Line’ of business.
While a research has shown that Germany could only maintain its economic strength
and competitiveness with around 400,000 skilled immigrants added to the working labour
annually (Advincula, 2015), mainly due to the aging population. As the country is in a
shortage of qualified technicians like engineers and IT specialists, as well as health
specialists (Make it in Germany, 2015). It is expected to see a boost of productivity in
manufacturing and constantly economy growth once the integration is successfully
implemented. In other words, this could be a shot in the arm to the dwindling labour force
and stagnant economy for most of the developed and advanced countries like Germany.
Most importantly, the integrated immigrants go into labour and pay taxes, which contribute
to the country’s social system. As a result, the authorities would not only be benefit from
gaining tax income, but also be relieved from the burden of resettlement. Instead of
pouring considerably large amount of resource for the overwhelming number of refugees,
government could emphasize more on the services like language courses and
employment programmes to help them blend in to the society smoothly. Achieving
sustainable social development and retrieving the balance of expenditures and public
sectors’ service.
It has been mentioned before that the foundation of any CSR strategies is still based
on profit. This is an original idea from ‘The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility’
(Carroll, 1991). By breaking down to four levels (Figure 1), the analysis will help managers
and investors to clarify whether the strategies are advisable and logical.

7. IB93PB International Business Essay
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Figure 1 (Carroll, 1991)
Economic responsibility lays at the bottom, as being profitable is fundamentally
important to corporates business. To the enterprises eager for the work force, they could
be benefit from productivity growth as long as the cost of labour integration can stay under
control. The following level is legal responsibility, the force to protect the rights of
employees and restrain any business activities from being illegal. Meaning that companies
will have to abide by the rules and immigration policy of the countries located in. Take
Germany for example, the welcoming attitude shown by the authorities would be a positive
force promoting the willingness of integration. Ethical responsibility on the third level is
about being right, just and fair in generally social cognition. In other words, company’s
strategies should be perceived to bring positive effect to the society. While most of the
corporations are motivated by the shortage of local labour force, integrating skilled
immigrants would do no harm to the right of local citizen theoretically. At the top of the
pyramid, philanthropic responsibility is the most implicit and profound as it refers to
psychology and sociology. Which can be matched with self-actualization, the top level of
Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ (1943). They are both a reaction to internal reflection from
outside world. I will only state its result as being perceived charitable and kind in that any
further discussion would be deviated from this topic.
To conclude, the idea of transforming refugees to the work force is very challenging.
As the integration would be involved in corporation’s main structure. In order to fulfil it,
many factors, including considerable large amount of resource, should be considered
thoroughly. This also explains why there are no any related programmes has been
officially implemented so far. Although the risk is relatively high and the benefit of it might
not be received as fast as peripheral type of strategies. But taking a perspective of
organisation’s long-term sustainability, creating more jobs and opportunities for the fleeing
people from Syrian is a brilliant approach of embedded CSR. Under the premise of
collaboration with government policy and containing operation cost under control,
integrated labour force could generate dramatically great value to the country’s economy,
society, and of course, to the profit of corporate business.

8. IB93PB International Business Essay
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CONCLUSION
In this essay, we have seen financial donations, professional services, and an idea to
integrate refugees into working force, various types of CSR initiatives and what are the
possible impacts accordingly. Of course there will always be other ways with regard to
contributing to the crisis. For instance, company could launch supporting programme for
employees whose families are in Syria or in transit to safer destinations by offering
sponsors or releasing jobs to their relatives (Klein & Matten, 2015). Also, apart from the
difficulties of refugees trying to move into Europe, severe food shortage is happening to
the people who stay in Syria. In this case, food industry may come up with another kind
of aids, directly providing goods to the needs.
Undoubtedly, this international crisis has brought great impact to the society. And it
can be concluded that an appropriate CSR strategy could be a decisive force, not only to
the issues related to refugee, but also to private sectors. By devoting to address the needs
of people, institutions, and governments, it is expected that most of the enterprises are
looking forward to acquiring some positive returns. Such as reputational growth or
substantial profits in terms of economic value, even it might take couple of years to harvest
as it is relatively long-term effect. On the other hand, as a proverb goes, ‘A crisis is a
chance’. Crisis can also convert to an opportunity to change. Even though it is the case
that a company eventually decides not to perform any approaches to offer its help, the
process of going over different types of CSR strategy would still benefit the organisation.
Either through the inspection of its financial status or any operational adjustments, the
flaws in system will now have a chance to be found and then rectified. Consequently,
improve the performance of the corporation. From this point of view, business runners, no
matter in which industry, should all take CSR initiative into their consideration as a formal
and influential strategy.
Like German Chancellor Angela Merkel said to all German citizens in her new year
message, “the influx of more than a million refugees should be welcomed as an
'opportunity'”. At this struggling age, the most grieving tragedy could also become the
most promising opportunity.

9. IB93PB International Business Essay
ID: 1557875
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