Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility refers to initiatives that are put in place by corporations and organizations in order to ensure they abide by the needs of the community (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006). These are activities usually executed in a way that improves the living standard of people in one way or another (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006). The resort selected for this paper is known as Four Seasons Resort. Four seasons is a resort whose original station is in Canada but it has now expanded its branches to several other places (Redman, 2014).
The corporate social responsibility that Four Seasons Resort takes part in is several charity events. The resort assisted the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and it won the greenest games ever title (Redman, 2014). It did this by donating several emission credits to the Vancouver Olympics. The Four Seasons Resort was also to take their members of staff to take part in the revitalization of the Alexandra Canal that is located in Singapore. This initiative saw the Canal beatified by these staff. The staff planted reeds and cattails in the wetlands found along the river. They did this in collaboration with the National Water Agency of Singapore (Redman, 2014).
One of the identifiable strengths of the resort towards corporate responsibility is that it tries a lot to take part in several charitable activities that are spread in several parts of the world despite the fact that the main station is in Canada (Redman, 2014). However, the resort has some weaknesses. For instance, they have concentrated a lot on activities that are done on large scale, and only affect high-class people or institutions in the society. They have not taken part in activities that help in uplifting the lives of people who actually need help. In addition, most of their charitable practices are geared towards seeking recognition rather than helping. This has made them take part in activities that do not matter to the smaller crowd. An example of this is when they donated emission credits for the Vancouver Olympics to win the greenest games title (Redman, 2014). The other example of beatification can also hardly be referred to as a charity that is geared towards improving the quality and value of life. This can be seen as almost irrelevant to the normal person. The effort would have probably been better spent on hunger and poverty eradication or ventures of this nature.
Recommendations for the resort are that they should consider taking part in more activities that are humanitarian. They should not only concentrate on making their name since they are already known internationally anyway. In addition, just because most of their clients are people of high statures, does not mean paying attention to the medium and low class would cost them their business. It may in fact get them more clients because most of the people considered rich like to take part in charity events that benefit the poor and hence will like to be associated with an organization that has the same interests. The Resort should also consider bringing themselves closer to the community through their activities. Therefore, even if they choose to continue with the type of activities they do currently, they should try and bring in the society as much as possible and make them feel like part of the process and hence a part of the company.
References
Luo, X., & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2006). Corporate social responsibility, customer satisfaction, and market value. Journal of marketing, 70 (4), 1-18.
Redman, P. (2014). Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts- Golden Rule is measure of success. The National post. Retrieved from: htp://www.waterstonehc.com/news-events/news/four-seasons-hotels-and-resorts-golden-rule-measure-success