Responsabilidad social en america latina

27

2010 Vol. 3 Nº 2

Corporate social responsibility and its role in the Colombian armed conflict saNtaMaRÍa ZaPata, Melissa

Revista de Negocios Internacionales

Revista de Negocios iNteRNacioNales vol. 3 Nº 2. Pp. 17 - 27

dePaRtaMeNto de Negocios iNteRNacioNales luz Maria Yepes Rivera Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Applied to Educational Needs in Latin America Revista deNegocios Internacionales. Vol. 3 Nº 2 - Julio - Diciembre 2010 - Pp. 28 - 39

28

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Applied to Educational Needs in Latin America YePes RiveRa, luz Maria

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Applied to Educational Needs in Latin America
Luz Maria Yepes rivera

Abstract
this paper explores the concept of corporate social responsibility (csR) and how ithas been changing for over the last 50 years. It also considers the importance of CSR and the implementation of social actions in the community, most of all, in specific areas that need more attention such as poverty and education, the last one being the focus of this article. The research method, supported by the author’s own concept, allows us to summarize and simplify the information collectedabout the Latin American companies that belong to the Fortune 500s list. We can identify which of them have social responsibility focused on education and what they do to achieve it. Finally, the article mentions two particular examples of Latin American companies with social responsibility in the education field.

Introduction
Being socially responsible to the needs of the society from thebusinesses side is an idea that arises in the 1930s. The idea of social responsibility of businessmen was introduced in 1953 by Howard Bowen. He gave it a preliminary definition “it refers to the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society” (Bowen, 1953: p.6).Thanks to this work, the author is known as the father of corporate social responsibility (Carroll, 1999: p.270). Despite this definition, the term has become really disputed since then by many authors, and it has been given many different perspectives that have generated considerable controversy. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development1 no universally acceptabledefinition of CSR exists (WBCSD, 2000: p.2) and it will persist due to the lack of an all-embracing definition.

1 WBMSD: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEOled, global association of some 200 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainRevista de Negocios iNteRNacioNales Vol. 3 Nº 2. Pp. 28 - 39 able development.

29

Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) Applied to Educational Needs in Latin America YePes RiveRa, luz Maria

The evolution of the term began to change at the moment that new points of views of each author appeared. For example around 1963, in his book entitled Business and Society (McGuire, 1963), Joseph McGuire added the concept “corporate” instead of “businessman” in his new definition for CSR, arguing that corporations haveso many different obligations, not only legal and economic, but also obligations towards the community, and due to this the CSR should not be for individuals if not for corporations. Corporate social responsibility was seen as an obligation, as something that the companies had to do for society; Milton Friedman (1970) was the first author who tried to refocus the definition in a “non-binding”way, as a voluntary aspect that companies could take on board or not, in his essay The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits (Friedman, 1970). This anaylises raises some aspects that were later refuted and had some antagonistic comments by other thinkers. Friedman (1970) wrote that the only responsibility that corporations have is to make profits; as a consequence, several...