Marketing Strategy – Corporate Social Responsibility of Creating Jobs

Abstract

Today, it is a time of greatest economic challenges the world has even gone through in the recent times. The global markets are in turbulence, economies are struggling to revive growth and political systems face enormous challenges to meet the basis needs of the society. The trend of Outsourcing has increasingly seen the movement of jobs from US to developing economies like China, India, Brazil etc. Compared to addition of 4.4 million domestic jobs & 2.7 million jobs abroad during 1990s, American enterprises during 2000s had cut the domestic jobs by 2.9 million while adding 2.7 jobs abroad. Study of 2000 US companies by Duke University & ORG [7] shows that over 80 percent of large enterprises and 58 percent of medium enterprises are offshoring. The expansion of US MNC into Global markets has led to the drop in US share of R&D from 38 percent (1999) to 31 percent (2009). The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are being increasingly used by the US companies to promote brand and to create a positive impact in the community. The Nielsen Report [10], shows that the 46 percent of the surveyed consumers are willing to pay extra for products and services of socially responsible companies. The CSR initiatives by top 50 CSRI Companies [9] are focused on health & safety standards, recycling & renewable energy, conservation of natural resources, philanthropy & contributions to non-profitable organizations etc.. Very few companies have CSR programs that are targeted to retain or generate jobs. This paper reviews the spending of the top 50 CSRI companies in USA during 2009, 2010 & 2011 and presents the points that the enterprises should focus their CSR spending towards direct and indirect activities that create short term and long term jobs. The CSR initiatives that can create jobs include Entrepreneurship, Local Sourcing, “Made in USA”, Innovation, Education, Vocational Training, Global Placements and Community Funding.