I believe Nike, the world's largest producer of sports wear and equipment, is a shining example because this company holds its operations in more than 140 countries and declares CSR as a “core business objective”.
The most issues the corporation has for the time being are the working conditions and workers’ wage rates in developing countries which leave much to be desired in accordance with mass-media and non-governmental organizations’ critical articles based on the audit reports results.
I could hardly absolutely agree with these critics who suppose that CSR for Nike is just a kind of PR campaign since facts demonstrate that this transnational corporation really improved its reputation in the eyes of international community. But it is true that Nike responds to this criticism in a cost-effective manner. The company participates in CSR meetings around the world and develops remediation plans in order to attract much media attention and streamline own expenses. As a result, Nike spends 10 times less money than if it would decide to increase the workers’ wages.
As far as I can judge, CSR does not have any concise ‘standards’ therefore we can only compare the policies declared by a corporation with their implementation in real life. In this meaning, the best case scenario of the realization of the formula corporate + society = responsibility when a corporation provides the society with the absolute transparency of its business operations, and a local government ensures the control over economic, social and environmental consequences of it to act as a single point of accountability in the face of the nation.
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