Topic > The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and E-Harmony

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the social responsibility a company must take based on the "right" thing to do with respect to the legal actions he must take. In other words, CSR is a decision-making process that entrepreneurs adopt from all perspectives to decide what they should do versus what they are required to do by law. It's a moral issue that often involves mass customer satisfaction and demands for changes in the way a business works. CSR can also be a decision based on employees and their satisfaction with the company. An example of a customer-based CSR issue would be a request for a food product to make something that is “gluten-free” for its customers who suffer from gluten intolerance. An example of an employee-based CSR issue might involve the minimum wage, where a company does not have to pay its cashiers more than the minimum wage requires, but believes it must to satisfy its employees. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay There are pros and cons to using a CSR template and it all depends on how it is used. A good example of a company's decision to practice CSR would be E-Harmony. E-Harmony was originally founded in 2000 by Dr. Neil Clark Warren, a Christian psychologist and theologian. Warren's original idea as the site's CEO was to use its patented matchmaking algorithm system to connect Christian couples and serve as a convenient way for like-minded people to date and then get married. Over the course of a decade, Warren expanded the website and was proclaimed an evangelist, but he didn't encourage "Christian-only" relationships. After spending up to $700 million on advertising, Warren claims his site has produced results with over 560,000 customers getting married after using E-Harmony (Levy, 2012). The CSR issue within Warren's website has been noticed by gay people. A person was unable to log in or register an account with E-Harmony and proceed to seek a date with someone of the same sex. The “I'm a male looking for…” option was only open to “female” and vice versa. In 2005 the company was sued for discrimination against same-sex couples. Because of Warren's alleged history with the website as a "Christian couples"-based matchmaking site, people assumed that Warren was being strict with his policies, enforcing a heterosexual agenda. It was a fact that as a customer you could not choose the option to "search" for a same-sex partner on the website, and when this lawsuit was brought to light, E-Harmony lost 350,000 customers because of this already mentioned. Warren said that only these people fled because of the principle of the matter. As a public relations representative, Warren also hedged himself with the rebuttal that he was not "anti-gay" but that his patented algorithm program was not suited to same-sex relationships, which he described as "... a different [ type] of matching.” (O'Brien, 2016) In 2009, following a call for equality among E-Harmony daters for same-sex relationships, Warren created a separate website, “Compatible Partners.” This website was the reluctant decision of Warren after pressure from its customer base and employees posing a real corporate social responsibility issue Although Warren claims he is not “anti-gay,” until the gay discrimination lawsuit he had not.