ACCA BT Syllabus B. Organisational Structure, Culture, Governance and Sustainability - Responsibility of Organisations - Notes ^{2 / 3}

The traditional view has been that corporate social responsibility offers no business benefits, and destroys shareholder value by diverting resources away from commercial activity.

Such traditionalists argue that companies should operate solely to make money for shareholders and that it is not a company's role to worry about social responsibilities.

Companies pay taxes to government, and it is governments and charities that should be responsible for social matters.

This traditional view is losing support amongst all sizes of businesses.

The modern view is that a coherent CSR strategy can offer business benefits by enabling a company to:

1. monitor changing social expectations

2. manage operational risks

3. identify new market opportunities

4. retain key employees

By aligning the company's core values with the values of society, the company can improve its reputation and ensure it has a long-term future.

Balanced Scorecard Approach

The Balanced Scorecard approach emphasises the need to provide the user of a set of accounts with information which addresses all relevant areas of performance objectively.  

This information should include both financial and non-financial elements, and the usual balanced scorecard approach is to report performance from four separate perspectives:

1. financial perspective

2. customer perspective

3. internal perspective (internal efficiency)

4. innovative perspective