All types of businesses ought to initiate social responsibility programs to enhance their relationships with their stakeholders. Social responsibility generally means an adoption by a business of a strategic focus for fulfilling the four types of responsibilities; economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities.
This paper holds the opinion that out of the four types of social responsibility, economic social responsibility is the most important. This is because any business must have a responsibility to be economically viable so that it can provide a return on investment for its business owners at the same time create job opportunities for the community while contributing goods and services to the economy. Without the economic responsibility, the other three types of responsibility would be meaningless.
Contribution of Etihad Airways towards corporate social responsibly (CSR)
Etihad Airways is United Arab Emirate’s national airline. Etihad Airways serve over 72 main business and leisure destinations worldwide and targets to fly 25million passengers annually to at least 100 destinations by 2020. Due to such huge involvement with various stakeholders, Etihad Airways formulated a concrete social responsibility strategy.
Etihad Airways appreciates its position as an integral part of society and its potential to have both positive and negative impacts on the communities in which it operates. One of the airway’s objectives is to promote its corporate social responsibility through the full range of traditional and new communications channels and in effective reporting.
Both corporate and individual philanthropy is an important part of Etihad’s corporate social responsibility. The airline enjoys a high degree of recognition among its esteemed stakeholders in the United Arab Emirates as well as the communities they operate in. They manage their philanthropic giving and community involvement ethically and with transparency to meet the expectations of the corporate governance and stakeholders.
Etihad Airways has contributed significantly towards corporate social responsibility in various ways. To begin with the staff members of Etihad Airways responded with compassion and energy to several crisis and humanitarian aid. They in 2010 donated money and crisis aid items for distribution to communities in Haiti, Chile, Pakistan and Australia.
In Haiti, the staff donated money and relief items. In Pakistan, the Etihad staff distributed more than 1,000 Eid gift packs to displaced children living in the Razzakabad relief camp in Karachi after the country was hit by disastrous floods. At the same time, the company sponsored volunteers from the Pakistan Flood Relief Dubai agency to distribute donated food, clothing and household items.
In addition to these, Etihad responded swiftly to the devastating flood that engulfed a huge area of Queensland, Australia and affected about 200,000 people. The company pledged AUD 1 million in aid to the Queensland Government. Other than these, and with an aim of continuing with the company’s social responsibility, Etihad Airways is a founding signatory and member of Care by Air, a humanitarian and relief aid initiative from Abu Dhabi.
It provides space at cost price to deliver relief aid to disaster stricken areas around the world. Etihad is a also a registered member of the International Society of Transport Aircraft trading Airlink which provides and promotes a free web-based portal aimed at addressing developmental and emergency humanitarian air transport needs.
Etihad Airways has for sure contributed significantly and has lived up to its Corporate Social Responsibility strategy as observed here above.