Corporate Social Responsibility 2

Corporate Social Responsibility
In the current day, businesses are moral members of a community. Like the rest of the members, organizations too have responsibilities toward the wellbeing of society. In addition to their primary goal of making profits, organizations ought to be responsible members of society. By implementing effective corporate social responsibility efforts, organizations achieve this noble goal. Effective CSR efforts encompass legal, ethical, economic, and philanthropic responsibilities (Brusseau, 2011). Due to the popularity of CSR, organizations rely on them for competitive advantage, and as such, some are just hype and not genuine. Uber and Lyft are among the examples of firms, which are developing effective CSR to gain a competitive advantage. Upon close examination of uber’s CSR efforts, one can see that they are genuine as they encompass all the responsibilities. For example, employing drivers considers the economic aspect of CSR, uber-pooling considers the philanthropic aspect because the action helps reduce pollution of the environment, and availability helps reduce drunk driving which fulfills both the legal and ethical aspects of CSR.

Lyft’s claims to CSR, on the other hand, are just hype. It seems that their CSR efforts are aimed mainly at protecting the environment, which considers the philanthropic aspect, but they do not consider the other aspects of effective CSR. For example, as much as people need a cleaner environment, they need employment, which is the economic aspect, but Lyft does not seem to address this.

Therefore, Lyft’s CSR efforts are just hype because the company is trying to appear caring instead of taking action of helping people.
Even though the two companies have outstanding claims to CSR, their efforts will not lead either or both of them to greater success. Most consumers are more concerned about the pricing and the quality of service as opposed to what the company does that does not affect them directly. I would go for lower prices and higher quality, just like most consumers.

References
Brusseau, J. (2011). The Business Ethics Workshop, v. 1.0. Flat World Knowledge.