target corporation corporate social responsibilty

Target
IV. Decision Making
A. Decisions. One of the most important parts of ethical decision making is to ensure of two things. The first is that the relevant decision makers understand their role in verifying the ethics of the decisions that the senior management team makes, and the second is that they are given the opportunity to do so.
Starting with the latter, once the organization has defined its ethical character, it can use this as guidance for decision-making. The vast majority of decisions that any business will make are not going to require any ethical analysis, but every now and again somebody in the organization will be faced with a decision that is not 100% clear in terms of its ethics. These are the types of situations where an organization needs to provide some sort of guidance or process for evaluating the decisions. Arguably, this starts with the mission statement, vision statement and a statement of ethics. When an organization defines what it stands for, and what its priorities are, these statements can provide guidance for individual executives, managers and employees to help them make decisions that are consistent with what the organization stands for.
There are a couple of ways to ensure that decision-making in the organization is optimized. First, the right people need to be in the room, or at the very least advising the people who are in the room. Essentially, the decision-making process should be rooted in rational analysis of evidence, and ensuring that subject matter experts are participating in the critical discussions that lead to decision-making. The second element of effective decision-making processes is to actively solicit feedback from the right people. If the people making the decision are doing so without soliciting advice from the people who can provide the best insight, the quality of decision-making will be lower.
B. Culture. Sustainability is always going to be a challenge for any business that wants to enjoy continual growth, and does so by encouraging consumers to buy more things, and buy them from overseas. For Target, the best that it can realistically do is to be more sustainable. In that sense, one of the best ways for the company to achieve that is to define what sustainability means to the company, develop specific metrics that managers can work towards, and then after that to publicly hold itself accountable. One of the unique aspects of social responsibility and sustainability is that companies are free to define these terms any way that they way. Target has its own definitions and quantitative targets, and regularly publishes a social responsibility report where it publicly measures itself against previously published targets. Doing this helps the company to hold itself accountable, because it engages public stakeholder groups in that process.
In order to Target to ensure that different viewpoints and stakeholders are engaged in critical decisions, it needs to have specific individuals who are able to evaluate corporate-level decisions from these different perspectives and lenses. Where there is someone at a high level who is able to filter corporate-level decisions through different perspectives, provide feedback and genuinely influence processes, that is a critical gatekeeping role. That said, the ideal scenario is that sustainability and social responsibility are so ingrained in the organizational culture that the leaders in the organization are also the cultural leaders on these elements. Where that is the case, an organization will be in an excellent position to make the best possible decisions on these different criteria, because the executives themselves will question each decision, and serve as their own filters. When that happens, not only is the culture stronger, but it becomes reinforced through each major decision that the company makes.
C. Stakeholders. The first part of engaging stakeholders in decision making is to understand which stakeholders are relevant for each decision. Once that is understood, Target can ensure that their voices are heard. There are some stakeholders that should be engaged in most decisions – for example the staff – and somebody should represent the environmental interests. Ensuring that there are people who are specifically designated to represent different stakeholder interests is important to ensuring that stakeholder interests are represented in decision-making, and then having a process to ensure that the stakeholder representatives have visibility into different decisions, and are engaged in decision making is the next step.
Target should conduct regular analyses of stakeholders, in order to understand what the most important stakeholder groups are for each major decision. They might vary. But for major stakeholder interests such as the environment and the staff, there should be committees in place that meet regularly. These committees can perform a couple of critical functions. The first is that such committees have the opportunity to define the interests of their groups, and do so for the entire organization. This is essentially a matter of being prepared, with a point of view, evidence, and pathways for contributing feedback on different decisions. Where such committees exist in a formal way, organizations typically engage the committees more than situations where the organization might want to consider, for example, a diversity perspective, but has no formal body to turn to for advice.
The second major role for such committees is to ensure that major stakeholder interests are represented formally in major meetings and decisions that the organization makes. An example would be if Target wanted to expand into a new country, it might have a team assembled to spearhead that initiative. Key functional units would be represented, like marketing, finance, and supply chain. If there are committees and designated members for things like diversity or sustainability, then the designated representative can be dialled into the decision making process, formally. Stakeholder engagement is likely to be much higher in situations where there is a formal unit, a specific person of contact, and specific representatives of that group who can be looped into critical decisions. In a company as large as Target, such formal mechanisms are essential, because without them it would be rather hit or miss as to whether the company even considered things like diversity or sustainability in decision making. But with a formal group and people who are designated to represent that group at high level meetings, there is a formal structure and process in place to ensure those discussions take place. The variability that might otherwise characterize the inclusion of such perspectives is thus reduced, by way of formal process.
V. Impact
A. Community. The ethical and regulatory environment might have an effect on the business, but in all likelihood this impact would not be significant. Target serves a fairly broad constituency in the United States, but ethical issues are not particularly significant for the company. The most important impact is probably internal because of the key differentiators in terms of employment brand for Target is that it has a strong element of corporate social responsibility built into the organization culture. This should, in theory, help the company to attract better people than many of its competitors. The natural result of this would be more efficient operations and better customer service. All told, there is a fairly significant benefit of Target having a strong CSR program, but in general terms there are not that many ethical issues that move the needle in too many aspects of the company – things like supply chain labor or environmental issues are usually brushed aside by the vast majority of the company’s customers.
Likewise, the regulatory environment is not a major factor in the company’s operations. There are certain things, like minimum wage laws, and laws regarding waste, that can impact the business, but Target’s social responsibility policies are generally aligned with even the more progressive laws on these issues. As such, the regulatory environment is less likely to be a problem for Target than for the company’s competitors.
B. Global Environment.
Target’s environment is basically the United States, after the company’s failure in Canada. But Target is among the top retailers in the country. It is much smaller than its closest rival, Walmart, but it is around the same size as two other major retailers, Amazon and Costco. Target is, however, large enough that it can have an impact on the way that the industry operates. For example, if Target does something that is successful, Walmart and other competitors might be forced to adopt that tactic as well. While Walmart is the major driver of change in the industry, Target is probably number two, because of its massive size and operational excellence. Target’s approach to corporate social responsibility, for example is a point of differentiation between it and both Walmart and K-Mart. Where more than one of these companies competes in the same market, there is an opportunity for Target to use its corporate social responsibility as a means of influencing buyer behavior, and generating a response from its competitors.
A good example of Target taking a proactive approach to ethics is when it took a strong stance on gender-neutral bathrooms. Target and Walmart both frame their businesses as catering to everybody, which in essence means that they wish to be inclusive of all types, of all stripes, and not exclude anybody. Walmart has humorously used such messaging in response to things like websites making fun of people who are spotted shopping at Walmart. Using humor to deflect an attempt to harm the company’s reputation is a solid response, but Target’s approach to what is basically the same messaging is baked into its approach to diversity and inclusivity. Target was a leader among major corporations in taking a strong public stand on the idea of gender neutral bathrooms, at a time when the issue was front page controversy. Target faced backlash from certain parts of society for taking a very public stand – and to be fair the company could have implemented its policy without taking a strong public stand. So when Target faced this backlash, it had already anticipated the backlash and was ready to stand by its policy. In that, Target ended up being a leader, and that approach without a doubt influenced many other companies to take a similar stand. If a massive company like Target is prepared to face negative publicity and take a hit on sales in conservative areas, that helps a lot of other businesses to feel that they can do the same.
Thus, there are certain instances and issues where Target has taken a leadership role, and used its massive size and excellent reputation to become an influencer of change in the global business environment. Other retailers take their lead on a lot of things from the industry’s leaders, and Target is one of the most-admired and largest companies in the space. That Target has built social responsibility into its organizational culture so strongly that it can have an influence on the behaviors of firms throughout the industry is indicative not just of the power that Target has, but in the respect that is has earned throughout the industry for its policies.
All told, Target’s influence on the global environment aligns with its position in that market, and in its desire to be an influencer and leader among its peers. Target has a strong set of policies regarding corporate social responsibility. It is willing to sacrifice revenue for its ideals, and uses its position of influence to promote the ideals that are part of the culture. In this, Target has exerted fairly strong influence, and actively wants its value system to become part of everyday American values – it sells to everybody, and therefore has both the means and desire to influence American culture in a positive way.
References
Target (2016) Continuing to stand for inclusivity. Target.com Retrieved April 14, 2019 from https://corporate.target.com/article/2016/04/target-stands-inclusivity
Target 2018 Corporate Responsibility Report. Retrieved April 14, 2019 from https://corporate.target.com/_media/TargetCorp/csr/pdf/2018_corporate_responsibility_report.pdf