Scenario
You are the CEO of Carpeteria, a successful carpet manufacturing company headquartered in Alabama. Carpeteria competes head-to-head with Interface, the Georgia carpet manufacturer that 5 years ago embraced corporate social responsibility and began a program to reduce the environmental impact of its business. Your customers have begun to tell you that they are concerned about CSR. They are asking your sales people questions about Carpeteria’s environmental impact and about other CSR-related issues such as fair wages, community involvement and supply chain activities. As the CEO, you have decided that it is time for your company to begin the implementation of a full-blown CSR effort. Realizing that this will be a major culture change in your company, you determine that the first step is to sell the idea to your Board of Directors.
Your assignment for this final paper is to write a report to the Board of Directors that explains your CSR strategy, outlines why it is important to implement such a strategy, and tells how you are going to do it. Assume that your board is not familiar with CSR, so you must both explain what it is and describe the scope and complexity of the subject. Your report should answer, but not be limited to answering, the following questions:
1. What does it mean to take a stakeholder perspective versus a stockholder perspective, and why is it important?
2. How will this change impact the corporate culture, and how could the resulting culture evolve to become a competitive advantage
3. What changes are occurring in customer expectations and in the global marketplace that makes this change desirable?
4. What internal organizational changes are necessary in order to successfully implement this cultural change?
You will need to conduct research in order to complete this paper; both your textbook and Internet resources will provide material. Be sure to include some analysis of your industry and the changes that are occurring both in the United States and in the global marketplace. Be persuasive in your arguments for implementing your CSR strategy, because you will need the full support of the Board of Directors and the Senior Officers in your corporation for the implementation process to succeed.Your paper should be 10 to 15 pages in length (2500 to 3750 words) and should follow the guidelines provided on this page. Be sure to follow accepted research approaches and citation format (APA).