Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a management fashion or just a temporary movement in the business world that no one really believes in? – This is what I asked myself last week and decided to do an online poll about it to find out what the view of other people on this is.
I decided to have the poll run for a week to get enough participants for a meaningful result. And I was pleased to see lots of people participate. In the end we had 141 votes and a lot of comments.
Here are the numbers:
The majority of participants believe that CSR is not a management fad but something more then that (53% and 75 people). But I guess it is even more significant to note that 40% or 56 people believe that CSR is just a management fad and nothing more.
Here are the comments to give you more context of the reactions:
This is the direct link to the poll and the comments if you would to see the results and comments combined:
http://twtpoll.com/acq1ev
So what are the results telling us and what am I taking away as learning from this poll?
The results in my opinion show a very high degree of uncertainty and skepticism on whether CSR is something other then a management fad. This is even more remarkable as it is fair to say that the audience I engaged in this poll knows what CSR is (some even are CSR Managers in different organizations) and are as a consequence more likely to believe that it is not a management fashion.
My Learning
The majority of people participating in the poll do not think that CSR is a management fashion, however I was surprised by the number of people who are still skeptical towards the concept of CSR, even though the audience participating in this poll are most likely to be people involved in CSR in some way or another. I guess it is fair to say that even the CSR community is still unsure as to whether CSR is viewed as an intrinsic part of doing business by those who claim to be responsible.
I think the way I interpret these results is that we still might be a long way from and making it a way of doing business rather than a PR stunt, however we are on the right path and more and more people see the value CSR can bring to an organization’s long-term sustainability.
Do you agree with this assessment? Or do you think there is another interpretation of these poll results?
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