Overall+Assessment

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 * Overall Assessment**

Johnson & Johnson is a Social Enterprise for Profit where a portion of its profits go towards CSR application.
====Although the corporation has quite an impressive track record it is ultimately a corporation that answers to shareholders and the bottom line. The fact that Johnson and Johnson has such a broad CSR/Sustainability policy and the fact that it implements it with such fervour counteracts the more typical profit-driven ‘corporate’ behaviour that we come to expect and of which this corporation displays on occasion.====

====Overall, Johnson and Johnson’s strategy is quite impressive for such a large company with so many subsidiaries. There are many avenues mistakes can be made, and have been made, but mitigating accidents or mistakes has been handled quite well. For where the corporation (always its subsidiaries, by design) have made mistakes, errors in judgement or performed unethical practices, Johnson and Johnson has quickly corrected the situation either through financial compensation, or corrective action and subsequent improvement of policies to avoid future occurrences.====

Overall, the company is moving forward and progressing with sustainability practices. These practices are company-wide and are explained within this strategy assessment.
====Johnson and Johnson follows the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) in many of its practices though it isn’t clear from the website whether they apply the guidelines fully or partially. There are few references to the GRI and what version they are adhering to (currently G3.1).====

====The corporate website is complex and difficult to navigate making it difficult to find policies and guidelines that cover all facets of the corporation. After persistent searches it was clarified that Johnson and Johnson does clarify in detail its CSR policies, strategy, mission, objectives quite well but one has to know the exact phrasing and terminology to search for within their website.====

====Being a multi-national conglomerate Johnson and Johnson has an enormous task to adhere to policies and standards. With a minimum of 250 subsidiaries the corporation steadily brings each under its wing of standards but this does not mean that each company is fully adhering to policies and standards set by its parent company.====

====Johnson & Johnson companies support efforts that address local needs (e.g. shortage of nurses in Somalia, the growing number of troubled youth in Pakistan, and the need for support services for children with learning disabilities in Hong Kong). Together with local partners, they support programs that champion health, education, employment, the environment, and culture and the arts.====

====The words ‘Johnson and Johnson ‘supports’...’ is attached to quite a number of initiatives that they wish to give the impression of fully participating in but this wording clearly means that they are giving a nod to its existence, how much they participate is up for debate and in many instances is not clarified on their website. From the standpoint of an uninformed reader it would seem that the company fully participates in a plethora of CSR-related initiatives, which is the impression the company wants to provide to the public but doesn’t necessarily convey in reality.====

====From the list of initiatives and programs that Johnsons and Johnsons supports financially, partners in, or contributes in some substantial way, as well as the aggressive social responsibility that they push (e.g. lobbying government to improve public policy, as well as attempting to influence the FDA and EPA. Lobbying includes such subjects as patent reform, physician payments, Medicare issues and HIV/AIDS policy.====

====On the other side of the coin the company’s partner foundation the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has nationally funded local lobbyists to the tune of $200 million in order to enact smoking bans to bolster sales of pharmaceutical nicotine products such as Nicoderm and Nicoderm CQ, both manufactured by Johnson and Johnson subsidiary ALZA.====

====After examining two of its subsidiaries, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical and Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc. It can be noted that the Credo of Johnson and Johnson is subsidiary-wide. But in points made below particular aspects of these subsidiaries, and the parent, bypass ethics and human rights.====