Global Society Essay

The world we are in today has seen the end of bipolarity that has been brought about by wars that divided. Every day we see the world grow smaller and people are brought together by common issues and concerns. States become interdependent and connected through globalization. Global actors include along with the state, non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations. These global actors have diverse and divergent, often conflicting, interests that must be met. States, such as the developing countries, need a level playing field in the global arena. The non-governmental organizations are people oriented, and often seeking to improve their quality of life. Multinational businesses are profit and expansion driven. Multinational corporations play a big role in economic globalization. They fuel economies by the investment they bring in that create jobs and allow the exchange of technology through skills and knowledge. MNCs are also seen as having insatiable greed for wealth, which create and dictate markets, displace small enterprises and dislocate people. Corporate Social Responsibility is when business interests are met along with the other interests of society as a whole. CSR has four integral parts, which are: (1) profit generation, (2) observing human rights, payment of taxes, cooperation with the government, promoting health and safety, and supporting workers, (3) doing the right, fair and just thing, and (4) sharing resources and profits to improve lives especially in the areas of education, health and the arts. The UN Global Compact attempts to develop Corporate Social Responsibility globally. The Global Compact provides the mechanism that covers all directions of the social spectrum such as horizontal and vertical, formal and informal, state and non-state. The approach is from all dimensions, diverse, multi-level and a network structure. UN agencies like UNDP, UNHCR and UNESCO partner with many philanthropic foundations in many CSR activities showing that MNCs can both be profit-motivated and socially-responsible. References Fritsch, Stefan. (January 2008). The UN Global Compact and the Global Governance of Corporate Social Responsibility: Complex Multilateralism for a more Human Globalization. Global Society, Vol. 22, No. 1.