According to Steiner, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the corporate duty to create by using means that avoid harm to, protect, or enhance societal assets (Steiner & Steiner, 2009). Particularly, companies that demonstrate their social responsibilities through many aspects which include business profit making, ethical labor practices, environmental efforts, and social and community activities. In compliance with the general principles of CSR, the General Electric in the Welch era, fulfilled one of its duties is to make profit that includesd generating huge profit for the company, creating values for its shareholders, and transforming the company into one of the most successful profitable corporations in the United States. However, in order to achieve the maximizing profit for the company and create wealth, Welch’s strategy went against the ethical labor practices that resulted in harm to others. Under Welch’s management, many employees lost their jobs through layoff, subcontracting, and outsourcing. Moreover, Welch’s attempt to save money and enhance the overall efficiency had negative impact on employees’ performance and work environment due to conflict and pressure. In my opinion, the employee productivity does not only depend on the ability to perform tasks but also depends on the positive employee relationship with the company management and its support. It is obvious that General Electric under Welch management lacked of ethics, understanding, and support from the head leader for its workers and it should have done this better to maintain a positive working environment and improve efficiency without doing harms to its employees.
Among the general principles of corporate social responsibility, besides excelling the first principle which runs for profit and failed to act ethically, General Electric also failed to meet other principles including environmental efforts, bodies of law, and social responsibility. A company should consider that along with success that, a business's achievesment is always the invisible impact on the society. In this case it is the pollution in the Hudson River, resulteding from 100,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) released by General Electric foduring its 35 years of manufacturing. PCBs are tested to be harmful to health because ithey causes cancer and manyother serious illnesses in humans and animals; however, GE rejected its duty for the river cleanup. Eventually the GE paid for the cost but it illustrates that the company was not willing to pay for the societal impact it caused.