Corporate Communications And CSR Issues Management: A Case Study Of Samsung Australia

Copany: Samsung Australia

The aim of this second report is to extend your knowledge of corporate communications and your ability to apply that knowledge to a real organization. You will particularly focus on CSR issues management, and making realistic recommendations.

The aim of this second report is to extend your knowledge of corporate communications and your ability to apply that knowledge to a real organization. You will particularly focus on CSR issues management, and making realistic recommendations. This means that your recommendations should be both desirable AND feasible.

Theories of CSR and Issue Management

Sustainable growth and overall development are two primary objectives for every organization and with regards to this, it is necessary for the organizations to consider every internal as well as external factor while framing policies and strategies in relevance with fulfilling requirements of every factor. In relation to these factors, corporate social responsibility is considered as one of the primary factors for organizational success and growth. With regards to this, primary focus of the report will determine the main issues related to CSR for Samsung Australia. Along with this, report will also aim over determining relevant measures for mitigating these issues. In relation to this, the first part of the report will focus defining the theories of CSR and issue management and the next section of the report will elaborate CSR issue management. Role of CSR and the role of issue management in the functionalities of Samsung Australia will also be determined in this report followed by determining the role of communication in the corporates like Samsung Australia.

Samsung is one of the giant players of consumer electronic goods industry and along with Australia; organization is present in various other global parts which has made the organization a behemoth enterprise along with huge brand image amongst their customers as well as in the global market (Fooks, Gilmore, Collin, Holden & Lee, 2013). In addition to these sections, the last section of the report will include certain recommendations for enhancing organizational performance along with dealing with the issues related to CSR, communication, etc. (Samsung.com, 2018a)

• CSR Theory: CSR is considered as one of the most essential factors which describe the corporate social responsibility of an organization which needs to be followed for attaining sustainable development and growth. Corporate social responsibility concept is very wide as this covers the requirement of society, individual and group of individuals and this concept addresses issues such as environment and rights of an individual. Thus, it could be said that the major attraction of corporate social responsibility is considered as the main element for attaining sustainability for the organization (Samsung.com, 2018b).

Policies in relation with the CSR are adopted by the organizations with the objective of creating positive impact over the society and every factor included in the broad concept of CSR. Although, corporate social responsibility varies for every organization because a liquor manufacturing company needs to adopt various measures through which environment, society and other factors does not get affected. With regards to this, every organization must follow every policy related to the corporate social responsibility with regards to the attainment of desired goals and objectives. Corporate social responsibility is considered as the external activities which mainly includes the responsibility towards the society. For example, when companies execute their production process, waste generates and companies dispose those wastes in the water or land which leads to generate pollution for the subsequent platforms. This directly affects the society and it affects organizational financial as well reputational goodwill in the market (McWilliams, 2015).

• Issue Management theory: Basic and primary objective of issue management theory is to analyse the issues within the workplace and adopt appropriate measures to mitigate them. Issue management theory helps the organization to analyse the obstacles which affects business’ growth. Significance of issue management theory is very high in business context and for the objective of continuous business growth and development, it is necessary to build an effective brand image amongst the target audience (Samsung.com, 2018c).
• CSR issue management: This theory mainly includes the set of approaches which are effective in terms of managing issues related to the corporate social responsibility. In order to attain desired goals and objectives in consideration to the sustainable growth and overall development of business, it is required for the organization to aim at mitigating the issues which arises with regards to the corporate social responsibilities of an organization. Hence, the significance of CSR issue management could be considered high because it helps the organization deal with numerous issues which act as obstacles in organizational growth (Roy, Roy, Mubeen, Brindha, Abirami, Leve & Mahadevi, 2015).

CSR Issues Management

For the motive of making their CSR policies strong and effective, Samsung has adopted created integrated values. Their sustainability approach not only focuses on creating economic values for the organization, their approaches also focus on creating social values along with taking stronger responsibility for citizens across the globe (Carroll, 2015).

Organization believes in creativity and innovation and along with this, Samsung’s core values are related to the fields of economy, environment as well as society and organization also monitor financial as well as non-financial impacts over the society for the process of reducing negative impacts and enhancing organizational positive image amongst the society (Samsung.com, 2018d).

In terms of enhancing organizational image amongst the society, organization has invested in various fields for reducing poverty, health sector, renewable energy, economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, quality education, etc. These sustainable practices have helped the organization to move towards sustainable growth and development and incidence such as reduction in the greenhouse gases with their approaches and reducing the eco level standards till 90% are some of the major achievements of Samsung with their effective corporate social responsibility approaches. Samsung has made huge investments in terms of promoting their green movement. Company’s green movement is mainly designed for their factories in Australia and all the factories are designed with the eco-friendly environment and surrounded by green plans to reduce the impact of CO2 and other harmful gases. With regards to the promotion of sustainable practices, organization has communicated its strategies amongst their workforce so that they could also contribute towards the measures adopted by the organization (Bhattacharya, Korschun, Sen & Routledge, 2017). Samsung has also spread awareness amongst their partners with regards to their strategies and policies of CSR to build a safe, secure, healthy and appropriate economic, social and environment which will ultimately help in terms of attaining sustainable goals and objectives. In relation with spreading awareness to the world, organization has posted their CSR policies over their website through which positive impact could be created over the society and every other aspect of CSR (Samsung.com, 2018e).

Samsung modifies their strategies on regular basis in relation with the CSR which are developed for the eco management. Samsung takes eco management initiatives on regular basis and their initiative includes greenhouse gas reduction, communication strategy for stakeholders, environment friendly product development and other CSR activities in order to maintain transparency in their target audience’s mind-sets. In order to communicate with every stakeholder with regards to the organizational policies of CSR, different communication modes are being adopted and for every stakeholder group, Samsung has adopted different communicate modes and for creating better and positive impact, organization has diverted their focus majorly over digital mediums. For informing their partners, organization uses email (Samsung.com, 2018f).

Role of CSR and Issue Management in Samsung Australia

Organization also executes meetings, interactive sessions and various other mediums for the objective of spreading awareness amongst the stakeholders. Apart from this, organization also conducts annual meetings under which every stakeholder is invited to attend the meeting in order to inform them about the updates in the organizational policies along with providing updates regarding organizational profits to represent organizational physical as well as financial performance (Pedersen, 2015).

The main tool used by the organization is their official website because every stakeholder is linked with the organizational official website and organization also carries various other campaigns to inform community members and other stakeholders with the objective of spreading awareness amongst the teammates, organizational members and other external stakeholders to match up with their expectations. CSR policies plays vital role in terms of attracting investors from international boundaries and it also helps to attain benefits from government in terms of subsidies and rewards to work towards society, environment and economic development. Samsung has incorporated their promotional and advertisement strategies along with effective slogans. Organization has made their slogan as ‘determination and action to put Earth and the environment’. Samsung Electronics laid the foundations of Eco-management as philosophy for the 21^st century in the Samsung Environmental Declaration in 1992. Since their declaration, organization has gone beyond environmental regulations and laws to save environment and to create positive impact over society (Samsung.com, 2018g). Organizational Eco-management offers customer an eco-friendly solutions to their issues in order to move towards sustainable future and behind this idea, organization has used slogan as ‘a healthy environment is essential for future’ (Clapp & Rowlands, 2014).

Samsung has also taken various initiatives for making their CSR activities effective and efficient. Primary aim of the CSR activities is to help the organization to move towards sustainable growth and overall development but without considering environmental and societal factors, organization could attain its desired goals. It is the duty for every organization to work for their surroundings in terms of making positive image for the organization amongst the society. This helps the organization to boost up their performance along with gaining positive outcomes. Organization is also engaged in creating several initiatives like public events in terms of promoting their initiatives and other measures taken for environment, social and economic sustainability. In 2017, organization started a campaign for spreading awareness amongst them regarding benefits of environmental sustainability. With regards to this initiative, organization promoted students to take part in the initiative so that an effective move could be taken (Samsung.com, 2018h).

The Role of Communication in Corporate Social Responsibility

It is necessary for every organization adopt appropriate communication strategies in relation with communicating with its stakeholders with regards to the CSR activities. CSR activities helps an organization to deal with economic, social and environmental aspects in an effective manner and as these aspects act as the essential elements for the sustainable development of the organization, appropriate strategies needs to be adopted. Major issues in relation with the CSR activities needs to be addressed for the objective of attaining desired goals and objectives. Manufacturing plants are the direct cause for generating pollution and various other wastes such as emission of unnatural gases, CO2 and other harmful gases which directly affects greenhouse affects. With regards to these issues, it is recommended to the organization to design their CSR activities where appropriate ways could be found for disposition of waste, controlling of harmful gases which generate from the manufacturing process and for making the surroundings environmental friendly (Schwartz, 2017).

Apart from this, organization could also adopt appropriate measures through which emission of CO2 could be controlled; natural resources like water, land could be procured with the objective of making CSR policies effective and appropriate. Along with these initiatives, organization could also launch several campaigns under which underprivileged people could be served with appropriate resources and initiatives. The corporate communication strategy of Samsung has numerous communication modes through which several stakeholders could be targeted and relevant information could be shared with them in relation with the CSR practices (Steenkamp, 2017). As company is already using several communication strategies and modes for spreading information amongst the stakeholders with regards to the development of positive image of the organization in the external world and they are still looking for other options so that other relevant outcomes could also be attained (Suliman, Al-Khatib & Thomas, 2016).

CSR strategies of Samsung are effective enough to position organizational positive image in the external world. Along with these strategies, organization has also adopted appropriate communication strategies with the objective of gaining desired goals and objectives. This has established an effective and strong brand image of the organisation amongst their customers and other sections of the external business environment. Effective communication and CSR strategies has helped the organization to deal with the different sort of challenges and issues and it has also helped to generate a positive image in the target audience and amongst their competitors. Samsung has attained huge benefits from their strategies which have also helped the organization to develop a reliable position amongst their competitors. With regards to these strategies, organization has been able to make their effective brand positioning in the target market which is essential and effective in terms of attaining positive image in the global market. This is useful in attracting investors and getting support from various governmental institutions in terms of subsidies (Tai & Chuang, 2014).

Recommendations for Enhancing Organizational Performance

Although, organizational strategies have been effective still, there is requirement for the organization to add appropriate social media and other digital media tools in their existing strategies in order to improve organizational performance as well as to match up with the expectations. These mediums are helpful in terms of gaining desired goals along with retaining its positive image amongst their target audience. Along with this, organization could also adopt measures such as engaging their employees in the organizational functionalities through which appropriate feedbacks and suggestions could be gained to resolve the organizational challenges and issues. Introducing campaigns for reducing pollution and effect of greenhouse gases could also be adopted in order to cope up with the changing business environmental needs as well as to gain positive outcomes (Weber & Wasieleski, 2018).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that every organization should maintain its CSR policies with the objective of building appropriate brand image in the target market. With regards to this, organization could also adopt CSR issue management strategies and communication strategies for meeting with their desired goals. In this report, CSR policies and the requirement of CSR policies have been discussed with regards to the operations of Samsung Australia. Their strategies has helped the organization to deal with different sort of issues and appropriate suggestive measures have also been recommended to the organization to mitigate the challenges along with gaining positive outcomes. Along with this, the report has also discussed about the significance of corporate social responsibility strategies in the success of the organization. With the help of effective CSR strategies, organizations could easily sustain in the dynamic and competitive business environment for longer run. Apart from this, organization could easily develop reliable and effective brand image amongst the target audience. Reliability is the most appropriate tool for enhancing demand for the organizational products and services which is effective in terms of attaining competitive advantage along with attaining desired goals and objectives.

References 

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