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Essay / The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and e-harmony
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the social responsibility that a company must undertake on the basis of “good” thing to do in relation to the legal actions it must take. TO DO. In other words, CSR is a decision-making process that business owners go through to decide what they should do versus what they are required to do by law. This is a moral issue that often involves mass customer satisfaction and demanding changes in the way a business operates. CSR can also be a decision based on its employees and their satisfaction with the company. An example of a customer-based CSR issue could be a request for a food product to be “gluten-free” for its customers with gluten intolerance. An example of an employee-focused CSR issue might involve minimum wage, in which a company is not required to pay its cashiers more than what is required by the minimum wage, but believes it needs to to satisfy its employees. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay There are pros and cons to using a CSR model and it all depends on how it is used. A good example of a company's decision to put CSR into practice would be E-Harmony. E-Harmony was founded in 2000 by Dr. Neil Clark Warren, a Christian psychologist and theologian. Warren's original idea as CEO of the site was to use his patented matchmaking algorithm system to connect Christian couples and provide a convenient way for like-minded people to date and then get married. Over the course of a decade, Warren expanded the website and proclaimed himself an evangelist, but did not encourage "Christian only" relationships. After spending up to $700 million on advertising, Warren claims his site produced results, with more than 560,000 customers getting married after using E-Harmony (Levy, 2012). The CSR issue on Warren's website was noticed by gay people. A person was unable to log in or create an account on E-Harmony and search for a date with someone of the same sex. The option “I am a man looking for a…” was only open to “woman” and vice versa. In 2005, the company was sued for discriminating against same-sex couples. Due to Warren's alleged past, the website being a matchmaking site based on "Christian couples", individuals assumed that Warren was strict on her policies, enforcing a heterosexual agenda. It is a fact that as a customer one could not choose the option to "search" for a same-sex partner on the website, and when this lawsuit came to light, E-Harmony lost 350,000 customers already declared because of this. Warren said these single people fled due to the principle of the problem. As his own public relations representative, Warren also covered himself in rebuttal by claiming that he was not "anti-gay" but that his patented algorithm program was not suitable for homosexual relationships, which which he described as “…a different [type] of match.” .” (O'Brien, 2016) In 2009, following a demand for equality among E-Harmony daters for same-sex relationships, Warren created a separate website, "Compatible Partners." This website was Warren's reluctant decision after pressure from his customer base and employees, posing a real corporate social responsibility issue. Although Warren says he is not.