Overview

Social Responsibilities of Business — what this chapter actually covers

A business does not exist in a bubble. It draws capital from investors, labour from workers,

raw material and land from society, and customers from the very community it operates in — and

in the process it also produces effects on that same society, some helpful (jobs, goods,

taxes) and some harmful if left unchecked (pollution, unsafe products, exploitation of

workers). Social responsibility of business is the study of the obligations a business owes

back to the society it draws from and affects, over and above its duty to earn a profit for its

owners.

The MSBSHSE Std XII Organisation of Commerce and Management (OCM) syllabus builds this chapter

in a deliberate sequence: first the meaning of social responsibility, then the honest

debate over whether business should even carry such a responsibility (the case for and

against), then the specific groups a business is responsible towards, then the closely

related idea of business ethics, then the modern, legally-binding form this responsibility

now takes for large companies — Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 — and finally the specific duty of protecting the environment. MSBSHSE's

OCM syllabus covers essentially the same ground that CBSE/NCERT Class 12 Business Studies covers

in its own "Social Responsibility of Business and Business Ethics" chapter — the underlying

principles (stakeholder responsibility, business ethics, CSR under the same Companies Act, 2013

that applies nationally) are identical, since CSR is a single central-government statute that

binds every eligible Indian company regardless of which state board a student studies under.

This chapter therefore has six moving parts, in the order the syllabus takes them up: (1) the

meaning and concept of social responsibility of business; (2) the case for and against it;

(3) responsibility towards specific interest groups — owners, employees, consumers, government,

and society; (4) business ethics; (5) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a statutory duty

under the Companies Act, 2013; and (6) business's responsibility toward protecting the

environment.