Fundamentals Of Management: Corporate Social Responsibility At Interface Inc.

The Level of Social Responsibility that is Prevailing in Interface Inc.

Discuss about the Fundamentals of Management.

This research study is a case study based on the Corporate Social Responsibility. This study requires analyzing the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Interface Inc. Company.  is a commercial company that has a specialization in manufacturing of the good grade commercial carpets and flooring. This company is facing with the issues related to the problems of Corporate Social Responsibility and in the implementation of sustainability in the Company. Each year the company produces millions of dollars by the producing and the selling of the carpets. The company uses million of kilos of the raw materials annually that are generated from the earth and millions of litres of water for its manufacturing process. However, even after so much usage and wastage of the raw materials and water and emitting of the greenhouse gases, the company does not produce something that is recyclable. The company now wants to implement some measures to adopt sustainability development ("Interface Global", 2016). The steps and requirement the company needs to do to implement the sustainability development are discussed in this case study.

The third level of Corporate Social Responsibility being prevailed in the company is the ethical responsibility. According to Matten & Moon (2012), the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility as defined by Carroll consists of four levels- Economic responsibilities, Legal Responsibilities, Ethical responsibility and Philanthropic responsibilities. The ethical responsibilities are the responsibilities that are not abided by any law to be implemented in the companies. These responsibilities are taken up by the company owners because they were thinking it to be the right thing to follow. The company owners or the shareholders or any of the employees do not have any obligations to follow these responsibilities (Cariel, 2012). Here, in this case, study too, it is the sole idea of the management of the Interface Inc. company on the analyzing of the processes of the manufacturing and to adopt the process of sustainable development and the ethical responsibilities in the company. (Navi, 2012).

 For example, the management of the company after analyzing the process and the outcomes of it has decided to change the general requirement of water during the process of manufacturing. The company may decide to reduce the water utilization by reducing wasting of water and using only the actual required amount..

As it could be realized from the case study given, the Interface Inc. Company requires developing sustainability and taking up on some ethical responsibilities in the company. The questions that need to be given a thought before taking up the social responsiveness strategies the changes in the production processes of the company are that even though the change is required but how much change is required to be done so that the company could be environmentally friendly even without getting its growth compromised (Pearce, Barbier & Markandya, 2013).

Social Responsiveness Strategy that is to be Required to be Adopted at Interface

According to Christen & Schmidt (2012), the adopting of sustainability responsibilities requires that the product produced could be again made natural and that too without leaving any toxin products behind or the product need to be renewable or recycled. In the case of the Interface Inc. company, the product that is produced is commercial grade carpets and this is neither recyclable, nor it could be made in to anything natural. The way only way to dispose of it is to dump it into the landfill.  This means that one of the main strategies that the company requires to take up is the Change of the Designing Processes. The changing of the designing processes of the present designing and the raw material used for the manufacturing of the carpet would lead to the recyclable products.

The next strategy according to Steurer & Hametner (2013), which could be applied, would be the Change of the manufacturing process. The whole manufacturing process of the company requires being changed. The change in the manufacturing process would help the company to make the reduction of requirement for the petroleum- based raw materials and different other toxic based raw materials. A total new formation of the production system and a new business model of the company that supports and helps in the formation of sustainability- based commerce is required (Dincer & Rosen, 2012)

One of the important strategies that need to be adopted by the company is the Elimination of waste materials. As mentioned by Welford (2013), the company first needs to cut down its raw material consumption level and one of the best way to reduce this is the eliminations of the wastage of the raw materials and any other thing from each and every area of production and business.

Apart from the changing made of the raw material, products and the manufacturing process of the company, the Interface Inc. also requires to Develop sensitize shareholders and other members of the company. The company needs to work on the creation of the culture where there is the usage of sustainable principles and it helps the employees, the stakeholders, customers, suppliers and all other people attached to the company, improve their lives and style of livelihood (Griggs, 2013).

These are a few strategies that the Interface Company could adopt.

In the words of Giddings, Hopwood & O'brien (2012), any company that has taken up the concept and the process of sustainability development would require an approach of the multi stake holder. However, to make a company sustainable the main thing that is required is the joint effort of the business companies and the government as well. A sustainability program could only be lead to success through the interaction and cooperation of the customers, employees and the workers regarding the changed value model of the business and the changed business model (Hopwood, Mellor & O'Brien, 2012). For the development of the sustainable approach, the issues that need to be considered are present product design and the production processes that have been made without considering the concept of sustainable development earlier. Apart from these the other issues that require being addressed are the recycling level of the product, the amount of wastage management, resources, infrastructure, usage of pollution free and toxic free raw materials, energy consumption and the market condition (Navi, 2012). Then while implementing the sustainable program, it is also utmost important for the company to see that it does not have to make any compromises with the company growth, production, level of output acquired, the demand. If all these requirements and the issues are successfully achieved and addressed by the Interface Inc. Company, then it can be said that the program of adopting the sustainability development in the company is economically viable for the Interface Company (Cariel, 2012).

Economically Viable of Sustainability for Interface

Therefore, it can be concluded that the implementation of sustainable development in Interface Inc. Company is economically viable. 

The SWOT analysis for the Interface Inc. Company could be done as follows:

Strength: The Interface Inc. Company is a Company that would take the concept of sustainability development and produce different recyclable and environment friendly carpets. This is the area where the main strength and the uniqueness of the company lie. The producing of the recyclable carpets is a new and valuable concept.

Weakness: The weakness of the company at the moments is in its process of production which is done without taking the concept of sustainability development in view. There is lots of wastage, usage of petrochemical products and production of toxin products too during the manufacturing of the carpet in the industry.

Opportunity: As this company has decide not to use any more harmful chemical products such as petrochemicals and toxin product for the manufacturing of the carpets, therefore, the company has lots of opportunities awaiting. The competition level for the company would also be les as there are very less companies in this company that does uses environmentally safe technologies.

Threats: The only threat company may face some problems while the implementation of this concept as it is a new concept and the Interface Inc. Company is the first one to implement it.

Conclusion:

The above is a case study analysis of a commercial grade carpet making company, the Interface Inc. Company which is based on the Corporate Social Responsibility that is to be adopted by the management of the company. From this study, it could be concluded that the company has not implemented any kind of concepts of the sustainability development earlier. However, the company is now keen of adopting these concepts. The different strategies are recognised and analysed that would help the company to implement the idea of sustainability development in the company. The adoption of the environmental friendly process for the manufacturing of the carpet may seem a good concept for the society well being however economically the process is expensive as it requires the change of the whole manufacturing process. However, it can also be concluded that the company would reduce the consumption of petrochemical products and water, eliminate any kind of wastage during the manufacturing process and release of toxin products.

According to the study presented above the carpet company, Interface Inc. Company is highly recommended to adopt the sustainable development and the Corporate Social Responsibility approach as soon as possible. It is also recommended for the management of the company to consider the different concepts, approaches and the strategies before implementing all these ideas into the company the financial condition and the position of the company is also recommended to be analysed as the implementation of this concept requires the company to be financially stable because the implementation costs are higher and expensive.

Reference:

Cariel, A. B. (2012). Corporate social responsibility evolution of a definitional construct. Business & society, 38(3), 268-295.

Christen, M., & Schmidt, S. (2012). A formal framework for conceptions of sustainability–a theoretical contribution to the discourse in sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 20(6), 400-410.

Dincer, I., & Rosen, M. A. (2012). Exergy: energy, environment and sustainable development. Newnes.

Giddings, B., Hopwood, B., & O'brien, G. (2012). Environment, economy and society: fitting them together into sustainable development. Sustainable development, 10(4), 187-196.

Griggs, D., Stafford-Smith, M., Gaffney, O., Rockström, J., Öhman, M. C., Shyamsundar, P., ... & Noble, I. (2013). Policy: Sustainable development goals for people and planet. Nature, 495(7441), 305-307.

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Interface Global. (2016). Interfaceglobal.com. Retrieved 15 September 2016, from https://www.interfaceglobal.com/

Matten, D., & Moon, J. (2012). “Implicit” and “explicit” CSR: a conceptual framework for a comparative understanding of corporate social responsibility.Academy of management Review, 33(2), 404-424.

Navi, S. T. (2012). Corporate social responsibility.

Pearce, D., Barbier, E., & Markandya, A. (2013). Sustainable development: economics and environment in the Third World. Routledge.

Steurer, R., & Hametner, M. (2013). Objectives and indicators in sustainable development strategies: similarities and variances across Europe.Sustainable Development, 21(4), 224-241.

Welford, R. (2013). Hijacking environmentalism: Corporate responses to sustainable development. Routledge.