By: Godfred Amoaful
Provost of the College of Humanities of the University of Ghana, Prof. Daniel Frimpong Ofori, has called on the government to lead the charge in the implementation of the national Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR policy, which was launched in 2016, to guide corporate entities on how to execute CSRs.
He said the government’s failure to guide the use of the policy, has resulted in corporate entities, finding it difficult to execute CSRs, that resonate with their operations. Professor Ofori emphasized that Ghana’s CSR policy has a wealth of knowledge to direct corporate entities and organizations on how Corporate Social Responsibility needs to be carried out.
Speaking at his inaugural lecture on the topic; ‘‘Of Indomie, Kalypo, and Condoms, an intimate conversation about Corporate Social Responsibility in Ghana’’, Professor Ofori, advised organizations to focus on CSRs that feed into their organizational strategy to avoid running at a loss.
Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is also variously referred to as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, sustainability, or corporate philanthropy.
It entails not only what companies do with their profits but also how they make those profits. In effect, Corporate Social Responsibility is about managing relationships in all key spheres of an organization’s influence at the workplace, the marketplace, the supply chain, the community, and the public policy realm.
It goes beyond philanthropy and compliance but addresses how companies manage their economic, social, and environmental impacts. As a result of this multiplicity of emphasis and resolve, ‘Corporate social responsibility’ has become many things to many people because it is being practiced in different ways depending on the context.
Research suggests that CSR when used smartly, confers numerous benefits, such as cost reduction, improves reputation, and has the potential to build a responsible brand. the research also indicates that in Ghana, there is a lack of direction to how CSR is being practiced, and that has led to many corporations engaging in incidental CSRs.
Corporate Social Responsibility has come to stay, just like the organizations. This has led to the realization by organizations that they are required to do more across the entire series of their operations to be more economical, efficient, and productive while attending to issues of responsibility.
Therefore, organizations have no choice as it is no longer a matter of whether corporate social responsibility is to be considered, but rather a studied and deliberate assessment of the type, framework, model, or approach that organizations are to adopt to fall in line with stakeholders’ expectations and their own publics.
