Volkswagen AG company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Volkswagen AG company - Essay Example It is also believed that good companies should not only use the resources of the society in which they work, but also give back. So, in addition to driving social progress and affluence, as Werther and Chandler (2010, 4) outline, companies are supposed to include social initiatives into their strategies. This should ensure a better economic performance of the company because consumers and stakeholders of the business are more loyal to socially responsible and socially responsive organizations. CRS, therefore, should be in the basis of all the economic, legal and ethical actions of a successful organization (Werther and Chandler 2010, 8). With this in mind it is interesting to analyze how in particular large organizations fulfill their CSR and sustainability plans and promises. This paper, therefore, will present an overview of CSR initiatives of Volkswagen AG company, and will try to determine how effectively the company fulfills its sustainability and responsibility, as Volkswagenâ €™s website suggests (www.volkswagenag.com), promises. The case for the Volkswagen Group The Volkswagen Group has its main headquarters in Wolfsburg (Germany) and operates 62 plants that produce cars in 15 countries of Europe (The Group). The company views itself as a global player with German roots. Consequently, since Volkswagen sells its cars all over the world, the company’s CSR goals are also global. Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Scania are the brands that support the overall Group’s vision of creating value. The CSR philosophy of Volkswagen Group is that social responsibility can be achieved by means of increasing corporate value. At the same time, Volkswagen believes that stable and sustainable success of the company can be achieved only with the help of social responsibility (Walther et al. 2007, 201). Since 1997 the company started to modify its relations with employees and managed to save 30,000 jobs in the early 1990s after reorganizing the company’s working-hour model (Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs 2006, 310). The business managed to agree with its employees their working longer hours when the company has many production orders, and shorter hours when the number of orders is lower. The company then continued increasing the workholder value – employees of Volkswagen have an ability to invest parts of their wages into â€Å"time asset bonds† that are invested in the capital market (Walther et al. 2007, 202). This allows people to shape their retirement. Volkswagen is also one of 1700 companies (out of 70  000 multinational corporations) that voluntary agreed to comply with the Global Compact principles that encourage business to respect human right, lead non-discriminatory activities, fight corruption, protect environment and so on (Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs 2006, 312). Volkswagen promotes employee rights in terms of min imum standards, non-discrimination, skill enhancement programs (Sinzig 2010, 17). The company offers to its employees training in vocational and international groups. The company has a separate department, AutoUni, which is responsible for knowledge sharing and skills transfer among the 399,381 employees of the organization (The AutoUni 2011). As for the environmental