perform or not to perform such responsibilities. They may also exercise their freedom for deciding the extent to which they would like to serve various sections of society. In fact, all business people do not feel equally responsible towards society. There has been a debate, for some time now whether business should assume social responsibilities or not.
Some people strongly believe that a firm’s only social Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Whereas it is the responsibility of every form of business enterprise — be it sole proprietorship, partnership, joint Hindu family, cooperative, or a joint stock company to act in a socially desirable manner, the concept of CSR, used particularly with reference to a company, has recently gained popularity. Corporate social responsibility can be defined as achieving commercial success in ways that honour ethical values and respect people, communities and the natural environment. CSR means addressing the legal, ethical, commercial and other expectations that society has from corporates who should take decisions and actions that fairly balance the claims of all the stakeholders (i.e., the people who have interest in the life of a corporate including shareholders, creditors, consumers, competitors, workers, government and society at large) CSR is viewed as a comprehensive set of policies, practices and programmes that are integrated into business operations, supply claims and decision making process throughout the company — wherever the company does business — and includes responsibility for current and past actions as well as future impact. responsibility is towards its owners.
Some others, however, hold an opposite view and argue that the firm has a social responsibility to serve all sections of society who are affected by its decisions and actions. It would be useful to understand the arguments offered both in favour of and against the assumption of social responsibilities by business. . .
Arguments for Social Responsibility (i) Justification for existence and growth: Business exists for providing goods and services to satisfy human needs. Though, profit motive is an important justification for undertaking business activity, it should be looked upon as an outcome of service to the people. In fact, the prosperity