Before social corporate responsibility has become widely adopted by many organizations today, the lack of it before was heavily exploited by huge enterprises. In some cases, regular consumers have been harmed due to the systemic need for organizations to earn more money. These organizations will exploit areas of industry where regulations have not yet been fully developed, or regulations are reactive in their approach.

In the 1970s, the Ford Motor Company had designed and sold the Ford Pinto, a subcompact car that was sought by consumers. While demand for the car was high, people within the company for a while had knowledge of a dangerous and fatal design flaw with the Ford Pinto vehicle design. But due to an analysis of the cost of fixing the design via a recall versus paying off settlements that may arise because of deaths that the flaw may incur. While the flaw was fixable, it was decided that in order to save production cost it would be more profitable for Ford to not fix the flaw. Another major contributing factor that led to Ford’s decision was the lack of proactive regulation on vehicle safety at the time. After almost an estimated thousands of deaths, ensuing a public outcry and a couple of deaths, Ford was forced to recall all Ford Pinto sold from 1971 to 1976.

Many enterprises have paid better attention to corporate social responsibility. To my knowledge, an example of early adopters of CSR among the car industry is Volvo when they opened the design of the 3-point seatbelt harness other manufacturers free of cost. Due to this, and their other achievements in car design. They have enjoyed a good reputation for being the safest cars available in the market today.

Today, many other enterprises have realized that it would be most beneficial to them as a brand to be socially responsible in their business decisions. While some organizations may still try to undermine their social responsibilities. As a future Lasallians business leader, in my own enterprise I believe that it is important to be proactive in safeguarding society by practicing good CSR when we are running our own enterprises. Although it may incur additional costs, by being proactive in approach, the enterprise can ensure that it has a good brand image which will lead to additional sales, just like in the approach of Volvo.