Introduction

In the year 1920, QANTAS (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd.) was founded in Winton. QANTAS developed its business operations in the domestic and international airline segments, enhancing its value offering based on the company’s reputation to offer safety and security, excellent customer service, and reliable operations. QANTAS quickly established itself as one of Australia’s most well-known trademarks. The CEO of the firm wants to keep QANTAS’s identity as a successful yet socially responsible company that maintains the core principles that all Australians share (QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED, 2020). Using the Stakeholder and Shareholder theories of Corporate Social Responsibility, this report will examine the main challenges faced by the company in the market and how it manages the issues to ensure its global success.

Issues Faced by Company

Qantas Airlines is ranked as the most polluting airline company in the transpacific passenger route. This is because the use of Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-400ER.company is not able to manage the required passenger yields and could not contribute positively to the prevention of environment in the country and world. Furthermore, the CEO of the company supports social issues such as Marriage Equality and LGBTIQ that have caused the issue to the company. The company is also facing issues related to managerial ethics that caused challenges to senior management as well as board members (Guardian staff, 2017). The company is also facing the issue related to harassment and abuse against an employee while it has implemented the Whistleblower policy.

Theories of CSR

Businesses in the current era are always examining policies and techniques that might help them better exploit their market position. Because of the presence of uncertainty in the global economy, businesses must adopt policies and implement strategies that will offer a cushion to help them survive lean times. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an effective approach that can open up new doors for a company and offer it a competitive advantage over its competitors. CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, is a wide term that refers to voluntary social efforts undertaken by businesses that go beyond mandatory regulatory requirements.

Shareholder Theory of CSR

The shareholder theory of CSR offers a limited view of a company’s CSR, saying that a corporate organization’s primary obligation is to maximize profits for its shareholders by performing business within the legal framework. If a firm provides goods and services to clients at affordable rates, it is offering a valuable service to society (Argadona, 2011). Shareholders are entitled to a decent return on their investment because they put their money into the firm.

Stakeholder theory of CSR

The stakeholder approach takes a far broader view of an organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. This idea holds that a company owes a responsibility to all of the individuals who have an interest in the company or any claims against it, not just its shareholders and investors. Shareholders, workers, suppliers, consumers, and the community are all part of this equation (Kotler and Maon, 2016).

Campaign of Qantas on Social Issues

CSR policy of the company is based on the stakeholder policy that includes the co-operations of all stakeholders in performing the business activities in an ethical and socially responsible manner. For addressing the ethical and CSR issues faced by the company, management has started campaigning in different ways to motivate the stakeholders to help the company inappropriately mitigating the issues.

Employees: In today’s corporate world, employees are one of the most significant stakeholder groups. An organization’s leadership’s ethical behavior is a key element in recruiting the finest personnel in the business. According to studies, poor employee loyalty and high employee turnover are caused by a loss of trust in an organization’s ethics, values, and leadership (Rühmkorf, 2015). Building an effective corporate culture to increase the bonding between the employees and improve the mutual relationship among them, organizations must devote greater resources to developing a values-based corporate culture based on concepts of equality, fair work, human dignity, concern, trust, and care for workers, as well as ensuring a work environment that guarantees equal respect to all employees (QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED, 2020). In this regard, the firm is engaged in developing to satisfactory workplace policy and a growth-oriented workplace environment that helps in increasing the ethical values of employees and helps them in reducing the level of stress. Through this policy, the company addresses the ethical issues related to the employees at the workplace.

Consumers and Brand Identity: Good CSR and ethical behavior may help a company achieve a substantial competitive edge over its competitors in the minds of customers, resulting in customer loyalty and higher returns. It takes a long time for a company to build its brand name, identity, and reputation, but in today’s global business world and internet age, even a single incident may derail a company’s goodwill. Organizations with a strong ethical foundation are less vulnerable to the harm produced by scandals and other legal or societal issues (Žukauskas, Vveinhardt, and Andriukaitienė, 2018). If an organization’s ethical ideals are strong, it is much simpler for it to deal with a problem openly and honestly. Instead of organizations that do not attempt to address the core cause of the problem, consumers and markets are more receptive to forgiving organizations that have a real intention of fixing the problems properly and ethically. In this regard, the company engages the customers directly in each business practice (Qantas Airways Limited, 2021). Through this, the company’s policy does not only care about their concerns but also includes their feedbacks to meet the required standards for safety and security during traveling.

Potential Investors: Firm uses the global financial and accounting practices to give real information about the financial conditions of the company in the market. With the help of such ethical practices, the company gets the trust of the investors (Freed, 2019). Through trust, it gets money from the open market easily that is used by the company to purchase the new airplanes and develop the operations of the business.

Society and Communities: Because society and the community give resources to businesses and are the source of profits for businesses, it becomes an ethical and moral duty for businesses to advance the interests of society. In this context, QANTAS promotes social issues, for example, Marriage Equality and LGBTIQ that are faced by the societies without caring about its negative impacts on the business activities of the company (Guardian staff, 2017). With the help of such a campaign, the company shares the problems of the societies and tries to find out the solution to the social problem to ensure the benefits of the organization.

Conclusion

As per the above discussion, it concluded that the existing business practices of the company care about the social and ethical issues along with the issues faced by the company in the target market. Further, the company is engaged in making changes in existing business operations to reduce the participation of the company in the creation of pollution. As the dividing lines between the social and commercial spheres blur, the two are becoming increasingly intertwined. Campaigning of the firm for a social cause helped the company that connected with the majority of stakeholders and customers beliefs.

References

Freed, J. (2019). Qantas selects Airbus over Boeing for world’s longest flights. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qantas-orders-idUSKBN1YG2PX
Guardian staff. (2017). Qantas boss tops LGBT leaders list for backing same-sex marriage in Australia. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/26/qantas-boss-tops-lgbt-leaders-list-for-backing-same-sex-marriage-in-australia
Kotler, P. and Maon, F. (2016). A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Pressures, Conflicts, and Reconciliation. Routledge.
Lindgreen, A. (2016). A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Pressures, Conflicts, and Reconciliation. Routledge.
QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED. (2020). Qantus Annnual Report-2020. Retrieved from www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-group/actingresponsibly/our-reporting-approach.html
Qantas Airways Limited. (2021). Caring For Your Customer. Retrieved from https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnect/au/en/policy-and-guidelines/clue-cards-and-quick-reference-guides/caring-for-your-customer.html#:~:text=Customer%20Care&text=We%20aim%20to%20respond%20directly,address%20and%20Frequent%20Flyer%20number
Rühmkorf, A. (2015). Corporate Social Responsibility, Private Law and Global Supply Chains. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Žukauskas, P., Vveinhardt, J. and Andriukaitienė, R. (2018). Management Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility. BoD – Books on Demand.