Corporate Social Responsibility and External Stakeholders’ Health and Wellbeing: A Viewpoint

Abstract

In recent years there has been increased interest in the role played by business corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies in promoting the health and wellbeing of internal and external stakeholders. However, the sparse public health research to date has mainly focused on the health and wellbeing of internal stakeholders. This viewpoint article aims to ignite discussion of how CSR strategies need to also target external stakeholders beyond the workplace. Businesses have an opportunity to help address the most important societal challenges, especially the social determinants of health which are the root causes of inequities in health. However, while advancing a new agenda for promoting external stakeholders’ health, businesses need to take into account potential challenges that might arise from ethical conflicts when trying to balance their CSR initiatives against their business operations.

CSR Reporting of Stakeholders’ Health: Proposal for a New Perspective

“…Furthermore, business need to become agents of change by helping to achieve Agenda 2030, particularly Sustainability Goal 3 (health for all and at all ages) by addressing the structural and systemic factors that cause and sustain differences in health outcomes across all segments of the population. The participation in the achievement of the SDGs presents a unique opportunity for business organisations to renew their social contract not only with stakeholders inside the organisation, but also with the communities they serve and the wider society [39].…”

“…For business organisations to make a business case for all stakeholders' health and well-being (through CSR strategies) it is necessary to count with a leader that is committed to the triple bottom line [11]. Integrative responsible leaders are suggested to be more likely to promote CSR strategies aimed at improving stakeholders' health and well-being [38] and that might be both accountable and responsible towards stakeholders [39][40][41]. Regarding accountability, responsible leaders are suggested to be able attend simultaneously to traditional external accountability as well as internally assumed accountability [40,41].…”

The Multiple Stakeholder Approach to Real-world Evidence Generation: the Results of the Jandhyala Method in Observing Expert Consensus on Quality Indicators of Rare Disease Patient Registries (RDRs) by Stakeholder Group

“…The Index score measured whether prompting occurred during the Consensus Round (2). Prompting occurred if the absolute difference between the AI and the CI was ≥ 0.05 (or 5%).…”

“…Such evidence is of the greatest value to its 'consumers', who are de ned by the relevance of the research question as it pertains to them, including the value that the answers will have to them in decision making (1). Evidence-based decision making can be assumed as a risk-mitigating approach by some (2); thus, consumers of evidence may fall into groups on the basis of their common unanswered research questions and the effect that the evidence targeted to answering it is expected to have on an environment.…”

Interfaces of occupational health management and corporate social responsibility: a multi-centre qualitative study from Germany

“…In the last years, research and business practice outside Europe has put particular emphasis on the integration of occupational health and safety (OHS) reporting and measures in CSR, focussing on occupational illnesses, work-related injuries, accidents, and sick days [ 7 – 9 ]. Others tackle the link between CSR and the social determinants of health both for internal and external stakeholders [ 10 , 11 ]. However, WHP and OHM are company-internal offers that go beyond OHS.…”