What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and how do corporations benefit from it?

Social responsibility is defined as a theory that requires individuals and groups to act in a way that benefits the society as a whole.
In business terms, it means that a company can be defined as socially responsible if it’s main processes, practices and objectives not only respect laws and regulations, but also contribute to the growth and well-being of the community.
I would consider CSR as a strong branding tool if done with the right intentions and a real disaster if done with the wrong intentions, good examples to look into within the recent years would be the BP oil spill disaster and Nike's recruitment issues.

CSR is the process of assessing an organisation's impact on society and evaluating their responsibilities.
CSR begins with an assessment of a business and their: - Customers - Suppliers - Environment - Communities - Employees.
Good CSR policies drive corporate change.
With well defined objectives and measurable targets, your CSR policy will provide the foundation for steps towards running a more sustainable and ethical business.
The process of writing a CSR policy begins with an assessment of every aspect of your business and its operations.
We look at your organisation's impacts on employees, suppliers, clients, and communities.
After defining your organisation's impacts, we set targets for improving them.

Successful corporates tend to think of their brand as a real life person, and as successful this person is in his industry and life more people will be his fans and loyal friends, shaping the personality of this brand has an emotional side which is the more important than the rational one, try to think of it as you think of your car mechanic, or dentist, he might not be the best in the industry, but you feel comfortable with him, and he knows how to treat you.
So; going further with the brand persona needs to show people how he "the brand" contributes to the society they live in, taking his image in their hearts to higher level and building stronger emotional bonds.
When you see Pepsi organizing an orphans day, you will tend to believe that Pepsi is a kind person "since this is how you visualize their brand in your mind", and he is a good guy, so your loyalty and advocacy to him rises and/or gets stronger :)

Corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business/ Responsible Business is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model.
CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms.
CSR is a process with the aim to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.

There are several definitions and annotations of corporate social responsibility. This is due to several philosophical and perspectives of the CSR. However, one should select the widely adopted in practices and literature of CSR which is the definition of Carrol. Accordingly, the CSR is to be profitable, compliant with the regulations and laws, ethics and give back to society and communities. It is not an easy job to reflect the CSR into the operations of the company. The corporations need to integrate it with its business model otherwise it will only a matter of marketing and deceiving stakeholders.

Corporate might benefit from the  CSR in different ways. First, it improves its reputation and image, get legitimization of its  operations and  business  in that economy and society; sustainability of prosperity in the society, sustainability of the business... etc.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a by-law practice of corporates in some countries.
According to Investment law in countries like in Egypt major corporates are to indulge them sleves in activites that help upgrade the community they are investing it.
Thus the entity does not only care for its profits, assets and investments (as of course it has all right to do) but also cares about the wellbeing of this community.
In my view point I consider it as a win-win practice because the more the entity develops and upgrades the community in which it is running its bussiness, the more oppourtunity it will have to expand and enlarge its investments and the more successful the community will be which in turn ensures the sucess and bussiness continuity of this entity.
Examples of CSR activities are many but let's here mention something like the  activities of Vodafone, pepsi or Cocacola in Egypt.
They knew the weekness points of this community( education and health) and could work on.
I am so proud to be working in this field in a place like Alexbank.

Dear all CSR is a self imposed resposibility,by big corporates,to demonstrate and fulfill social committment to the community around and all Stake holders.It encompeses enviournment, education to neibours,providing potable water , generating self employment, vocational training to unemployed youth,providing means of non conventional energy systems etc.Safety of employees, community around, off site emergency plans to protect people around, over development of employees and famlies also fall within the perview of CSR,Public sectors have done omen work in CSR.
Amongst private sectors TATA Iron and Steel stands first.
Regards Prof TAREEN Formerly VP-HR of KALYNI STEEL< DUNLOP etc