Many believe that corporations’ main goals are solely to maximize profit. While this may be true, the new trend of Corporate Social Responsibility challenges this common belief by giving corporations a purpose beyond making money. As more and more companies realize that CSR is important to shareholders, more and more companies attempt to adapt to enter this new category as a socially conscious enterprise.

Almost every large corporation has claimed a certain social responsibility nowadays. Whether it is Ben & Jerry’s promoting ethically sourced products or Cisco Systems Inc. pledging sustainability, companies’ social policies play large roles in the corporation’s image. These days it is almost an essential part of any firm.

However, how do we know if these companies’ claims to care are valid? Does intention even matter as long as there is positive impact to society?

https://www.slideshare.net/ravi0704/csr-and-sustainable-development-innovative-possibilities

A company that promises an environmentally friendly impact may not care about the environment at all. Despite this, they will continue to make socially conscious choices in order to uphold an upstanding image in the eyes on the consumers. Therefore, regardless of their true intent, the environment will benefit.

However, is moral monetization justifiable in such instances? Even though there is positive impact, profiting off of issues that the corporation may not be truly conscious of seems quite corrupt. Participating aesthetically in social change should not be grounds for reward.

http://srv-pub-001.cloudapp.net/corporate-social-responsibility/

The main issue with the trend of Corporate Social Responsibility trend is not the benefits to society, it is the inability to differentiate between corporations who really care and those who profit off of it. Although it can be argued that impact trumps intention because ultimately society is positively impacted, we as consumers must consider the implications to society when these corporations decide that their social stance is not profitable enough.

I personally believe that regardless of intent, impact is more important. We should celebrate companies’ efforts to be more sustainable or socially conscious because the CSR trend has positive effects on our society. While the cynicism is valid, promoting CSR can make major positive impacts to the world.

The Comedy Central show Nathan For You stars University of Victoria business graduate Nathan Fielder as he goes around helping small businesses with out-of-box ideas. Nathan For You has quickly become a cult-classic and not just with those interested in business and marketing.

The ingenuity of his ideas as he tries to finesse the system allow for great TV while simultaneously teaching the viewer about marketing and business. The way in which he goes about solving businesses’ problems tackle commercial issues, a recent one being disruptive innovations.

Fielder has been able to accomplish news-worthy results with his ideas. It is not only Fielder’s new take on marketing that is so special about the show, it is also the brief lessons about business he learns from his projects, as was mentioned by this Hit & Run blog.

For instance, a few years prior, Nathan comes up with the idea for a struggling taxi company to offer free rides for pregnant woman. By doing so, he hopes that one will give birth in the taxi and garner large amounts of positive publicity for the company.

However, just a few weeks ago, an episode aired in which Nathan attempts to take down Uber for offering free onesies for women who give birth in an Uber.

Convinced they were stealing his idea, Nathan sets out to take them down by creating a sleeper cell of bad drivers ready to give bad Uber services. In addition, he makes an anonymous threat video asking them to remove their onesie offer.

Unfortunately, Nathan was ultimately not able defeat Uber. At the end of the episode, he states that:

“The free market had again chosen a winner. The real enemy wasn’t Uber. It was progress.”

Not only does this teach the viewer about disruptive innovation, it also teaches how powerless businesses are to disruptive innovations. When there is enough progress in an industry to result in a completely new industry, there is very little a business can do except to adapt and try to keep up with innovation.

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People always want what makes their lives immediately easier. When it comes to maximizing your current, instant happiness, it’s quite easy to disregard the long-term impacts of your decisions.

That’s why available technology such as supersonic planes that are reportedly coming back according to Sabina Popescu’s blog into the mainstream air-travel service may cause more harm than good. The planes, which are extremely fast and heavily reduce travel time, have been under construction to mitigate the noise pollution they caused in the past. Instead, they wish to offer high speed travel without all the previous drawbacks.

http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boom-supersonic-plane-virgin-space-company/index.html

One of the shortcomings of a supersonic plane that is not being avidly talked about is the environmental impact such a plane would have. Regular-speed air travel is already quite detrimental, so can you imagine a plane with double the power?

MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment (LAE) has been tasked with conducting such research about the environmental implications of supersonic planes:

“Areas of scientific and technical investigation will include the potential for ozone depletion from high altitude emissions, the effects of any ozone depletion on human ultraviolet radiation exposure – which increases risk of skin cancer – and the impact of supersonic flights on the climate, including effects on high altitude condensation trails.”

-LAE Website, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3512232/Boom-time-incredible-planes-bring-new-era-supersonic-travel-one-reaching-speed-12-000mph.html

If the results of LAE’s research is found to be negative, I truly hope airplane manufacturers do not continue with the supersonic plane production and subsequent use. Stakeholder theory suggests that the environment is also a factor we must consider in our decisions. The aforementioned health and environmental issues potentially involved are quite serious and permanent, and I feel it would be unwise to overlook them for the sake of efficiency and short-term satisfaction.

It is our duty as consumers to understand the impacts of modern-day innovations before being in favor of them, as often the more serious drawbacks are not what is advertised in news articles and other media outlets. While we all enjoy efficiency, we must place more value on global issues than on individual personal pleasure.

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“Trade deficit is an economic measure of international trade in which a country’s imports exceeds its exports. A trade deficit represents an outflow of domestic currency to foreign markets.”

-Investopedia

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-mexico-trade-deficit/

The Bloomberg article “Trump Hates Trade Deficits, But Which Ones Really Matter?” written by Thomas Black and Dave Merrill discusses the United States of America’s various trade deficits. It suggests that renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an agreement among North America that allows for free trade within the countries, should not be on President Trump’s agenda due to more pressing and impactful trade deficits with other countries.

China is the United States’ top trading partner, and the two nations traded a total of $578.6 billion USD in 2016. The trade deficit, which is 60 points (80% for China to 20% for the USA), is the largest of all the United States’ trade deficits. Due to the large sum of total trades, that means the United States of America imported $347 billion USD more from China than they exported to them.

Upon  my own further analysis, the total trade deficit from the two other NAFTA countries, Mexico and Canada, combined was found to be around 4.7 times less than the trade deficit with China alone (the combined trade deficit of the two North American countries is $73.9 billion USD). After assessing this information, the logical conclusion the Trump administration should reach is to focus less on renegotiating NAFTA and more on mitigating the great trade deficit with China.

The Canadian economy would be greatly affected by a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and it is therefore important to make the case for its relatively smaller impact on the US economy and understand whether the Trump’s insistence on renegotiating it is indeed justified. After comparing numbers, it is easy to see that the United States’ biggest worry concerning trade should be its trade with China, as comparatively, the trade deficits with Mexico and Canada are quite small.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-mexico-trade-deficit/

Although the USA is not a corporation, I believe Stakeholder Theory can still be in some ways applied to this (this is not the first time Stakeholder Theory has been applied as such (Neaves, 2002)). As the President of the United States, Trump has a duty to many groups. His decisions, which sometimes appear to be biased and ignorant of hard facts, has a vast impact on many people. He must put the well-being of his citizens, among others, over those of his own interests.

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Bibliography:

Amadeo, K. (n.d.). What Are the Causes and Effects of a Trade Deficit? Retrieved September 25, 2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/trade-deficit-definition-causes-effects-role-in-bop-3305898

Black, T., & Merrill, D. (2017, February 16). Trump Hates Trade Deficits, But Which    Ones    Really Matter? Retrieved September 25, 2017, from      https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-mexico-trade-deficit/

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, & N. (2008, April 01). North American Free Trade Agreement. Retrieved September 25, 2017, from http://www.naftanow.org/

Momoh, O. (2017, September 07). Trade Deficit. Retrieved September 25, 2017, from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trade_deficit.asp#ixzz4tkPLhyLv

Neaves, Guy (2002). “The Stakeholder Perspective”. In Teichler, Ulrich; Enders, J.; Fulton,       Oliver. Higher Education in a Globalising World. p. 33. ISBN 1402008643.

What is stakeholder theory? definition and meaning. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2017, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/stakeholder-theory.html