Corporate social responsibility and the right to employment of persons with disabilities

Abstract

Human rights corporate responsibility goes beyond core company activities and donations to charity, and has to be understood as an integrated part of doing business, based on corporate values included in strategy and daily operations. Moreover, the current financial crisis has shown how business activities solely motivated by the desire for short-term profit can have serious global consequences, while, in order to achieve sustainable practices, business need to be ethical and invest in local communities and economies. The importance of addressing disability as a part of CSR strategies is certainly becoming more visible in the practices of the MNEs and important part of successful CSR strategies and inclusive corporate culture. This notwithstanding, ‘’ still remains a rather sensitive element of CSR for the companies and is addressed differently due to the different levels of understanding the importance and the benefits of such actions. The present paper demonstrates that it is not sufficient that corporate entities address disabilities in their organizational norms and values; they have to incorporate this issue further into corporate culture, HR policies and work environment setting forth a system of corporate governance which take into account these concerns.