Multinational Companies Committed To Social Responsibility

As a matter of fact, both developed countries and developing coun-tries are benefiting from economic globalization and the uprising of mul-tinational corporations. However, it is accompanied by MNCs'breach of international standards in fields of human rights and labor rights, and countless cases of accomplice in corruption and severe environment de-gradation. In the pursuance of greatest profitability, MNCs have ignored or even infringed upon issues such as human right, labor rights and envi-ronmental protection. It is emphasized that MNCs should undertake cor-porate social responsibility in both literature and practice.Combined efforts from MNCs, governments and nongovernmental organization are needed in order to promote CSR in MNCs. Despite the growing awareness of MNCs that commitment to CSR is ultimately fa-vorable, and its willingness to contribute to the social affairs of host country, MNCs are still troubled by its profit-oriented nature and ineffi-cacy in self-discipline. Therefore, MNCs fulfillment of social responsibil-ities still needs exterior drives. While governments also face many diffi-culties in promoting CSR, nongovernmental organizations are endowed with many advantages including their distinctive missions and features, as well as the ability to mobilize social resources. Therefore nongovern-mental organizations may play a peculiar role in promoting corporate so-cial responsibility. The purpose of the thesis is to explore profoundly this function of NGOs'and give some suggestion for its perfection.The thesis takes logic writing steps of proposal, analysis and solu-tion, and its study approach is a combination of theoretical exploration and empirical analysis, as well as one of literature review and compara-tive analysis. Beside introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of three parts. Part one tries to clarify the connotation and denotation of corporate social responsibility, discusses its historical development, and gives an illustrated introduction to different forces pushing MNCs'com-mitment to CSR. Part two studies NGOs'advantages and three modes in promoting CSR, and then points out their weakness and the necessity of building partnership between NGOs and business community or govern-ments. Part three begins with what happened when business met NGOs in world summit on sustainable development held in Johannesburg, gives a comparative study on two opposing opinions about the partnership be-tween the two sides, and upholds one third opinion that NGOs should balance their roles as inspector and partner. This part ends with a case study of the successful partnership between Asia Foundation and Levi's in promoting CSR, providing some practical support to the theoretical discussion of the thesis.