New Balance: Developing and Integrated CSR Strategy Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

CONTEXT OF THE CASE

New Balance was founded in Boston in the year 1906, with its operations in the field of American footwear manufacturer. The main focus of the company since its inception had been on Sports shoes. Since then, the company has expanded rapidly by acquiring other branches such as Warrior, Dunham and Brine. The company also entered the Taiwanese and Chinese markets, although it had its operations in the American market. The company is today the fourth largest maker of the Sports footwear in the global market.

Over the past hundred years a great emphasis has been placed over the responsibilities towards the environment, social culture and ethical behaviors. The new concept focused on to finding a balance between profits of the company, people and “green”. This means that the organizations, individuals, communities and societies want more transparency and they demand more organizational communication. This whole concept has been summed up in a single name, as Corporate Social Responsibility. New Balance derived guidance for itself for understanding the corporate social responsibility through the Corporate Citizenship Management Framework. It assisted the management of New Balance in four areas which are operations, products and services, governance and community support.

The company had conducted interviews and surveys related to its social culture practices from its stakeholders which revealed that although the management of the company understood the importance of corporate social responsibility, but it did not have the understanding of what it actually meant and what was the purpose behind it. The mindset of the senior executives was such that they considered corporate social responsibility as a significant cost for the business instead of a value driver for the company. The corporate culture of the company lacked in many areas such as, employee support, transparency, accountability, risk management.

ANALYSIS

The management of the company knows exactly about the importance of corporate social responsibility, but it lacks the understanding of what is actually entailed. Apart from these issues, it was also highlighted that the stakeholders were concerned about the communication of the company with them. The external stakeholders thought that the company was not providing them with adequate information regarding the operations, financial and disclosures of the company. The management of the company also lacked in the development of corporate social responsibility strategy along with its implementation. With regard to the products and services area, the company did not know how to coincide the production and distribution of its existing products and services with the CSR strategy. The assessment had revealed that the company lacked with regard to many impressive initiatives such as reducing the emissions of the volatile organic compunds.

The company placed some emphasis on these issues, but these were not at all aligned with the business strategy and they were not even conveyed to the top management of the organization. The CSR management of the overseas factories was very poorly managed as compared to that of the U.S facilities. This was mainly due to lack of understanding and also because there was no CSR department present in the organization. Apart from that, the company had no one in the top management who could act as a catalyst to develop an integrated CSR strategy. The company had developed a strong community involvement culture, but it was centered on America specifically and the communication was insufficient with regard to the external and internal stakeholders of the company.

Overall, if we combine all the problems the few issues that were hindering the management from implementing a sound CSR strategy were communication, leadership and lack of understanding. The company was lacking a systematic framework to identify the risks associated with corporate social responsibility. There was no specific system to measure the performance of the progress being made with regard to corporate social responsibility.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Implementing a corporate social responsibility program is essentially important for New Balance. This will communicate and ensure that all the stakeholders believe that the relationship between them and the company is based on integrity and trust. However, this all will take time to make maintain trust with the stakeholders of the company.

The company first of all needs to develop a corporate social responsibility department for all of its strategic business units in the domestic and overseas market. This department should not only include a senior executive but it should also consist of different factory workers from different departments. This would spread the understanding................

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"This case focuses on the New Balance - .. A private company, and the fourth largest manufacturer of athletic footwear in the world Founded over 100 years ago, New Balance has a strong social culture of responsibility and mission established by its owners His commitment to employees, for example, it was by maintaining domestic production in the United States (the only major shoe manufacturer to do so at this time) and avoid layoffs in the deep recession of 2007-2009. At the end of the 1990s, the company established a Committee for Responsible Leadership for a solution. human rights issues in foreign factories For many years, private ownership has allowed New Balance risk and make a choice that public companies may not have been able to do at the same time, private ownership also means a lower pressure to reveal the social and. environmental performance of the owners were also very "modest" and do not dare to speak out about social responsibility as a global player, the real challenge for the company was the move of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the next level. - from "do what is right" to fully integrate CSR into business strategies. overall goal case of using the information from a comprehensive assessment of several key areas where New Balance can focus and demonstrate leadership in the industry at the same time to maintain the bottom line. set of key questions included in the end of the article to send students around the discussion of critical issues for the construction of an integrated CSR strategy for New Balance, because of its culture, structure, and the current level of corporate governance of citizenship "." Hide
by Vesela Veleva Source: Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation 21 pages. Publication Date: January 28, 2010. Prod. #: 910M11-PDF-ENG