Amazon's CSR And Sustainability: An Organizational Essay.

According to Schermerhorn (2012), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an organisation’s obligation to act in ways that serve both its own interests and the interests of stakeholders, representing society at large. Sustainability is an important social responsibility goal.

Discuss this statement using an organisation to illustrate CSR practices. To do this you should describe, apply and critically evaluate the applicability of relevant theoretical concepts in influencing sustainability practices in your chosen organisation. Consider multiple perspectives: stakeholders will have different and sometimes conflicting interests
 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability practices

Amazon is an American company founded in July, 1994. Amazon is the largest retailer in the world. Initially the company was a book seller. Now the company also sells clothes, electronic devices, DVDs, toys, housewares, grocery and more. In this report the main focus is given on the CSR of the company. The official site of Amazon provides information about CSR of company. CSR of the company represents interest of the company and interest of stakeholders which represents society.  The ability of the company to satisfy stakeholders ensures growth of organisation. It also helps to maintain position in the market as leading online retail company. The company responds to the interest of stakeholders through it’s CSR strategy (Tai & Chuang, 2014). CSR programs and policies satisfy to the changing interest and expectations of stakeholders.  

Amazon practices theories such as classical and modern management theories. The classical management of theory is of three types, scientific, bureaucratic and administrative management.

The classical theory of management is the traditional theory and has been practised by Amazon from years. It is the oldest theory and focuses on the effectiveness and productivity of employees and makes economically efficient. It is basically job oriented approach. It includes scientific, bureaucratic and administrative theory.

• Scientific management: Scientific management focuses on the way of doing a job. Amazon has been using scientific management to increase productivity of it’s workers. It is also used to achieve efficiency, standardisation and specialisation (Wachter & Yorio, 2014).This theory emphasis the productivity. This principle replaced rule of thumb by scientific methods. Amazon has started producing it’s own content, shows like Alpha House. It selects and trains workers according to their capability rather than to train themselves. It is concerned with the individual tasks. The phases of scientific management is explained below:

• Bureaucratic management: Tasks are clearly defined to employees, which makes them specialised in a particular thing. It is used by the company to assign authority and responsibility to employees.  This is characterised by rules, process and requirements.
• Administrative management: This approach focuses on the managerial practices to increase efficiency. It focuses on planning and forecasting to train employees which increase productivity of employees (Donate & de Pablo, 2015).It plays a great role to boost the sales of company.

Modern management theory of management uses updated techniques. Amazon has been able to increase output with the same number of employees through modern theories of management. For maximising the productivity, mangers are supposed to update with the latest practices. Amazon adopts the changes occurring in the world and the way it influences the business (Villar, Alegre & Pla-Barber, 2014). Theories of modern management are:

• Quantitative approach: Amazon makes use of quantitative approach for decision making. Many problems can be expressed in the quantitative terms. It makes use of information, mathematics and statistics for the effectiveness of organisation. This approach increases motivation of employees. It also involves operational research, operations management and management information system.
• Behavioral approach: This approach recognises the constraint while making decision. The behavioral theory was propounded as a result of the failure of classical approach (Booth, 2015).This theory highlights the behaviour of individuals and acknowledges the importance of behaviour at work. It is evaluated from behaviour of employees that the bargaining power of suppliers in Amazon is medium. 

Neo-classical theory is the advanced version of classical theory. It is concerned with employees than production or technology. This is employee oriented theory and emphasis the satisfaction of workers. It satisfies personal security and needs of employees other than the basic needs. Amazon focuses on the physiological and mechanical variables to increase the efficiency of organisation. According to this theory performance is not affected by the human actions. This theory uses behavioural science into management to solve the problems which are caused by classical approach of management (Tzortzaki & Mihiotis, 2014). It is also used by the company to overcome weakness of classical theory. This theory has improved motivation and support employees with in organisation. Amazon has improved it’s productivity by participation of workers in management.

Division of labor makes people specialise in particular tasks, which brings efficiency and reduces the producing cost. Amazon has divided labor based on the task, geographical division of labor, gender in societies.  Labor is also divided according to clothing and grocery sections. It can be substituted easily. Basically there are three methods of performing tasks. First is time and motion study which involves proper timing and actions taken to perform a task (Burrell & Morgan, 2017). It improves ability of workers to perform a task. Second is a new method of performing tasks. Rules are used to perform a particular task. As a result the efficiency of Amazon has increased. Third is to carefully select the workers according to their capability which matches the requirement of task. Workers are trained in such a way that it brings efficiency to the organisation. Fourth is to establish a fair performance for a task. After this establish a pay level, which provides reward above the acceptable level. Rewards can be in the form of bonus or incentives.

Application of management theories in Amazon’s CSR practices

Contingency theory: There are too many constraints in the organisation such as internal and external; an organisation leads according to the given situation. There is no best way to manage. Amazon faces constraints in the form of industry rivalry in the online book business. Contingency theory is an integration of classical theory, behavioural theory and system approach and applies them according to the given situation. The company follows multivariate analysis. This technique considers all the factors which affect the situation. It uses leadership approaches to motivate workers. Autocratic style is used to deal with unskilled workers and participative style is used to deal with skilled workers.  

System approach: According to this approach an organisation is made up of sub systems. In this theory organisations are visualised as systems. This approach includes four components, inputs, transformation process, outputs and feedback. Inputs are required at the time of production. Transformation process is used to convert input into outputs. Outputs are the products and services which are produced by the organisation (Moxham & Kauppi, 2014). Feedback is the result related to the Amazon. This approach is goal oriented and cannot survive in isolation.

Ethics have great role in the business of Amazon. Ethics deal with values. It is the state of being right or wrong. It is set of rules governs the conduct of a person. Theory of ethics determines how human actions can be judged as right or wrong and what is good or bad. Amazon has approximately 260 million customers and the company have to consider ethics before launching any product (Lawton & Páez, 2015).   Main theories of ethics are:

Consequentialism: In this moral response is related to the outcome that is rightness or wrongness. It is observed in terms of consequences. The most common form of consequentialism is social consequentialism. According to this one should produce well for the greatest number. This theory is followed mainly by Amazon and this is the reason company has largest number of customers (Weiss, 2014). 

Virtue ethics: Virtue ethics focuses on the moral characters or virtues of an individual. It discusses the nature and definition of virtues. It motivates individuals to develop good character and relationships. These good characters make a person to take correct decision. Employees of Amazon are focused more on virtue ethics (Shafer, 2015). They do not focus on rules.

(Lussier & Sherman, 2014).

Deontology: Deontology focuses on rules. Goodness or wrongness of an action determines the morality of an action not consequences of the action.

Evaluation of relevant theoretical concepts in influencing sustainability practices in Amazon

Social responsibility is an ethical responsibility of an organisation to act for the benefit of society.  It puts positive impact on society. It also improves the quality of workforce as well as society. CSR implemented by Amazon itself is much more effective than the CSR implemented by the government (Cheng, Ioannou & Serafeim, 2014). It is the short term cost that brings social and positive change and it does not provide immediate financial benefit, it is provides later in the future. Social responsibility brings out the positive reputation of business and creates better brand recognition. It increases sales and customer loyalty which brings the better financial performance. All these factors lead to competitive advantage.

Organisational sustainability is the ability of organisation to achieve goals and increase stakeholder values. Amazon achieves it by fulfilling environmental and social responsibilities. The sustainability issues faced by companies can be employees, production, resources and community. Basically organisational sustainability means to achieve success today without compromising the necessities of future. It is more related to cultures than rules and policies.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that management theories, organisational theories and ethics theories have a great role in social responsibility of business. Example of these theories are scientific, bureaucratic, administrative theories, neo-classical, division of labor, contingency theory, system approach, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and deontology. These theories are explained to make difference in society. It creates organisational sustainability. By implementing these theories, Amazon has been successful to serve interest of stakeholders which represents society at large. The company is also gaining popularity from the time, the company considered sustainability as an important social responsibility goal. 

References

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Cheng, B., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), 1-23.

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Lussier, R.N & Sherman, H. (2014). Business society and government essentials.  Routledge, Inc., Taylor and Francis Group

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Tai, F. M., & Chuang, S. H. (2014). Corporate social responsibility. Ibusiness, 6(03), 117.

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Wachter, J. K., & Yorio, P. L. (2014). A system of safety management practices and worker engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 68, 117-130.

Weiss, J. W. (2014). Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.