Corporate social responsibility from the viewpoint of systems thinking

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an essential topic of both life and sociocybernetics. It requires businesspersons and other decision makers to be broad and hence to apply inter-disciplinarity incorporating many, mutually partly different and therefore interdependent, viewpoints for requisite holism. To do so, they should use systems thinking. But the modern diversity of systems theories, including cybernetics, opens the issue: which systems theory and/or cybernetic should one use? Aims to discuss the dialectical systems theory (DST), its definition of holism and its definition of the seven principal groups of notions making systems thinking possible, when applied in a synergy. This may lead to a requisite holism, and hence to efficiency and effectiveness of the work on and of the CSR; it has often been done so in the 30 years of DST. Design/methodology/approach -Desk research and indirect field research were used. The concept of CSR is a rather soft topic. It demands a holistic treatment and hence a plural theoretical foundation following recent trends in economics (business and environmental), management as well as systems thinking. The problem was investigated empirically from the systems-oriented perspective supported by DST, because it tackles human personality and impacts over it and by it, rather than offers tools for people to use for whatever purposes. Findings -The CSR concept belongs in sociocyberbetics linking cybernetics, systems theory and social aspects of the reality. The definition of CSR requires humans to think, decide, and act on a very broad basis rather than to reduce their horizons to the narrow habit of businesses to find profit only essential. CSR links the hard-systemic and soft-systemic versions of modern systems theories. It could be seen as an attribute of human personality and as a process between humans and organisations. Research limitations/implications -As CSR has many dimensions (economic, environmental and social ones, at least), the research focused on the requisitely holistic performance of an organisation being aware of diversified needs of multi-stakeholders (including its own employees, as well). Practical implicatio...

Institutional context and hotel social responsibility

“…On the other hand it is worth mentioning that when CSR is implemented within the organization, it should be under the guidance of systems thinking due to its complexity and its holistic approach (Šarotar Ž ižek et al, 2013). Hence, these authors recommend studying CSR with a systemic model protected by an adequate systems theory (Knez-Riedl et al, 2006). Having taken all these premises into account, we consider the validated scale of Gallardo Vázquez et al (2013) adequate for the measurement of CSR.…”

“…Connection with the system theory CSR requires decision makers to implement decisions based on inter-disciplinarity and to include various points of view for which the systemic approach is essential. Knez-Riedl et al (2006) suggest that systems of thoughts should be used. These systems can be based on different system theories, therefore these authors suggest that the most appropriate theory must be selected, and in our case, we consider it to be the general system theory (GST).…”

Social responsibility, motivation and satisfaction: small hotels guests' perspective

“…Since hotel services are one of the most important components of tourism and are, therefore, one of the key elements for creating guests' satisfaction, we take the above stated UNEP and UNWTO definition as a challenge for our research theses. SR may be seen as an attribute of human personality and a process between humans and organisations; in both cases it is based on system thinking (Knez-Riedl et al, 2006). Therefore, the aim of our paper is (limited to small hotels' guests only) to explore:…”

General Systems Theory Completed Up by Dialectical Systems Theory

“…Obviously, they reinforce systemic behavior but more or less in terms of a general framework (Knez‐Riedl et al, ). Thus, they can crucially benefit in application from use of DST.…”