How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility

Paper Info
Page count 2
Word count 540
Read time 3 min
Topic Business
Type Essay
Language 🇺🇸 US

To begin with, there is no unique definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but it is usually understood as a need for a business to care about its impact on society. CSR has two aspects: improvement and protection, meaning that entrepreneurs should think about how their company makes community relations better and how it protects from dangerous consequences. According to Epstein (1987), protection in CSR means that businesses avoid negative impacts, such as environmental pollution, various discrimination, or unsafe products. Moreover, other scholars highlight that CSR includes satisfying society’s expectations concerning ethics and philanthropy (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). In other words, businesses are expected to follow some norms that are adopted by society and not necessarily codified into laws.

Analyzing Amazon as a company also responsible to society, one may claim that it satisfies CSR expectations successfully. Firstly, Amazon pays attention to society’s protection; for instance, it seeks to eliminate any sort of discrimination. There was an interesting case in 2014 when Amazon, one of the leading companies in the area of e-commerce, created a biased algorithm that was adopted and used in its hiring strategy (The AI Recruitment Evolution – from Amazon’s Biased Algorithm to Contextual Understanding, 2020). The AI-based algorithm was trained by the company’s previous recruitment data and, therefore by an error, became discriminative against women. However, Amazon drove with apologies and started elaborating a new HR algorithm that pays attention to the semantic aspect of the CV. Thus, Amazon demonstrated its hiring strategy as a part of the protection aspect of CSR, meaning that the company cares about equity and tries to make workplaces accessible to all.

Moreover, concerning the responsibility to improve community life, one may see Amazon’s aims on its official website. According to the page devoted to Amazon’s impact on society, the company actively invests in creating working places and fighting against unemployment, which is a severe social issue worldwide (Amazon. Our Impact, 2021). It is claimed: “Amazon’s investments have supported nearly 1.6 million indirect jobs in fields like construction and hospitality” (Amazon. Our Impact, 2021, para. 1). Although businesses are not obliged to fight against hunger and help poor people, according to existing legislation, Amazon does so and therefore can be claimed to be an ethical company. For instance, it is written: “We also actively work to help communities by responding to the urgent needs of reducing hunger and homelessness and investing in education for children and young adults” (Amazon. Our Impact, 2021, para. 1). In other words, Amazon satisfies society’s expectations over ethics and philanthropy though it is not obliged to do this.

Summing up, nowadays, businesses are not enough to supply goods and provide society with services; they are also expected to be socially responsible: protect communities from negative impact and improve people’s lives. Being a leading company in its industry, Amazon successfully satisfies CSR needs. Amazon is not only ready to admit its mistakes but also learn from and avoid them. Now, this company protects employees from discrimination, using an algorithm based on semantics in the hiring strategy. It also invests a lot in the fight against unemployment and hunger and helps poor and homeless people, which can be claimed to be the right decision in terms of ethics.

Reference List

Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of management, 38(4), pp. 932-968.

Amazon. Our Impact (2021).

Epstein, E. M. (1987). The corporate social policy process: Beyond business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate social responsiveness. California management review, 29(3), pp. 99-114.

The AI Recruitment Evolution – from Amazon’s Biased Algorithm to Contextual Understanding (2020).

Cite this paper

Reference

EssaysInCollege. (2023, March 6). How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved from https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/

Reference

EssaysInCollege. (2023, March 6). How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/

Work Cited

"How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." EssaysInCollege, 6 Mar. 2023, essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.

References

EssaysInCollege. (2023) 'How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility'. 6 March.

References

EssaysInCollege. 2023. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.

1. EssaysInCollege. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.


Bibliography


EssaysInCollege. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.

References

EssaysInCollege. 2023. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.

1. EssaysInCollege. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.


Bibliography


EssaysInCollege. "How Amazon Maintains Corporate Social Responsibility." March 6, 2023. https://essaysincollege.com/how-amazon-maintains-corporate-social-responsibility/.