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Ethics and CSR in business
Importance of ethics in business sustainability
Importance of ethics in business sustainability
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be defined as the "economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time" (Buchholtz, 2014, p. 32) The basic principles of corporate social responsibility consists of organizations that has the moral, ethical, and philanthropic duties to not only to earn a profit for investors, but they must also comply with the laws and standards set for businesses as well. Today’s CSR requires organizations to assume a much broader spectrum of their responsibilities that includes not only the stockholders, but employees, suppliers, customers, the local community, state, and federal governments, special interest and a variety of environmental groups as well. (Sharma, 2014) Corporate social responsibility is in many ways is tied to the values and ethics that a business believes in. While CSR encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities of organizations, business ethics usually focus on the moral judgments and behavior of individuals and groups within organizations. In their text, BUSINESS AND SOCIETY: ETHICS, SUSTAINABILITY, AND STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT, Carroll and Buchholtz's give a four-part definition of CSR that incorporates the multi-faceted nature of social responsibility. The expectation that businesses will produce goods and services that are needed and desired by customers and sell those goods and services at a reasonable price, is the key to the economic responsibilities that are cited in their definition. Organizations are expected to be efficient, profitable, and creative to keep shareholders welfare in mind. In the western corporate structure, fair competition in the marketplace is not only the leg... ... middle of paper ... ...'s after-tax profits to charitable causes, contributing more than $1.5 million in cash and in-kind donations to community organizations. In 2013 Outerwall also succeeded in mobilizing 28 percent of employees to participate in company-sponsored volunteer events, continuing to build momentum toward its goal of engaging one-third of the workforce in volunteerism by 2015. "At Outerwall we believe in cultivating an inclusive work environment where employees are empowered to take an active role in CSR initiatives," said Nicole Trimble, Outerwall's senior director of corporate responsibility. "We work to help provide employees with access to opportunities that will support their personal and professional development while enriching our communities and protecting the environment. In doing so, we're also able to advance our business objectives." (Wall Street Journal, 2014)
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the way a corporation achieves a balance between its economic, social, and environmental responsibilities in its operations so as to address shareholder and other stakeholder expectations. In general, when firms hold this wider encouraging role on the public by being engaged with stakeholders, a variety of profit can be produced for both company and the stakeholders. A key inclination is the combination of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the organization strategy, culture, mission and communications. By incorporating corporate citizenship into the company it is no longer an additional “nice thing to do” or something made to obey laws or regulations. Instead, corporate responsibility has become something business leaders and workforce want to engage in, frequently because executives who believe in the long-term see business profit. The four types of social responsibilities a...
Social responsibility can be defined as “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large” (Mallen Baker, 2004). In addition, social responsibility has been defined differently by various corporate leaders that provide guidelines which impacts how one manages the core business. Social responsibility is an essential part of a business. If managed correctly should strengthen the competitive spirit of the company and provide prosperity to society.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a movement that aims to promote a greater awareness of how business activities and decisions influence corporate environment, stakeholders, and society in general. Adam Lindgreen and Valerie Swaen’s article “Corporate Social Responsibility” addresses this broad topic in a more narrow direction of CSR implementation as it discusses the most important stages of this process. While this article relies only on the previous research, it provides unique insights into CSR and even challenges the common views of this concept as the authors thoroughly analyze their secondary sources.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) invaded the corporate world over the last few decades. This concept has become an essential need for competitive advantage unlike its original role as a nicety. The companies have seen the business benefit of the initiative and stakeholders have appreciated the initiative. This has led to the wide application in the firm’s operational agenda.
An organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drives them to look out for the different interests of society. Most business corporations undertake responsibility for the impact of their organizational pursuits and various activities on their customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment. With the high volume of general competition between different companies and organizations in varied fields, CSR has become a morally imperative commitment, more than one enforced by the law. Most organizations in the modern world willingly try to improve the general well-being of not only their employees, but also their families and the society as a whole.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the set of regulations that an organization makes to protect and increase the society in which it functions. There are three areas of social responsiblity: Organizational stakeholders, the natural environment and general social welfare.
According to Mike Peng, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the consideration and response to issues beyond the narrow economic, technical, and legal requirements of the firm to accomplish social benefits along with traditional economic gains the firm seeks. CSR is a way in which a company seeks to achieve a balance between profit, environmental concerns and social imperatives. This is known as the ‘Triple-Botto...
In recent years, companies are becoming socially responsible and now stakeholders almost expect a company to have CSR policies. Therefore, in twentieth century, corporate social responsibility (CSR) became an important development in public life (Barnett, ND).Corporate social responsibility is defined as “the ways in which an organisation exceeds the minimum obligations to stakeholders specified through regulation and corporate governance” (Johnson, Schools and Whittington, N.D cited in March, 2012). Stakeholders can be defined as “those individuals or groups who depend on the organisation to fulfil their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends” (Johnson, Schools and Whittington, N.D cited in March, 2012). There are many purposes for this essay, the first purpose is to descried the key principles of corporate social responsibility and explain their importance for stakeholders. Secondly, is to show how far this company follows those principles in order to be accountable to at least three of its stakeholders. In this essay, three stakeholders, environment, customers and employees will be evaluated respectively and the key principles of the stakeholders will be examined.
I begin this essay by defining CSR, there are many definitions for this term by various different theorists, and EU says that CSR is "A concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis." On the other hand, Sloman et al. define it as "The concept in which a firm takes into account is the interests and concerns of a community rather than just its shareholder". Davis and Blomstrom (1966), say it "Refers to a person’s obligation to consider the effects of his decisions and actions on the whole social system". These definitions differ from one another in many ways but they agree that CSR involves taking the environment into account and therefore, one must look take social responsibility.
The problem that was investigated consisted of a question that Milton Friedman posed in one of his articles, which was featured in The New York Times Magazine in 1970. The question was, “What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities” (Friedman, 2007, p. 173)? Friedman (1970) elaborated on how businesses cannot have assigned responsibilities. Furthermore, he described how groups or individuals should be the only ones that can hold responsibilities, not businesses. He stated that associating responsibilities with the word business is too ambiguous. I will examine three discussion questions and three compare and contrast questions which Jennings (2009) posed in a case study that is related to Friedman’s (1970) article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.
Business organizations regularly run into demands from various stakeholders groups when conducting day-to-day business. These demands are generated from employees, customers, suppliers, community groups, governments, and shareholders. Thus, according to Goodpaster, any person or group of people that can shape or can be shaped by attainment of the objectives by an organization is considered a stakeholder. Most business organizations recognize and understand their responsibilities to these groups and endeavor to honor and fulfill them. These responsibilities are often communicated to the public by a statement of principles or beliefs. For many business organizations, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential and integral part of their business. Thus, this paper discusses the two CSR views: the classical view and the stakeholder view. Furthermore, I believe that the stakeholder view has brought ethical concerns to the forefront of businesses, and an argument shall be made that businesses would improve both socially and economically if CSR, guided by God’s love, was integrated into their strategic planning.
A company has an economic obligation. It must earn a favorable return for its stockholders in the restrictions of the law. But, corporate social responsibility means that organizations have also ethical and societal responsibilities that go past their economic responsibilities. CSR needs organizations to develop their documentations of their responsibilities to include other stakeholders such as workers, customers, suppliers, local societies, state governments, international organizations, etc. Ethics could be seen as a fundamental component of individual and group activities at the heart of organizations’ errands.
Masaka, D (2008) Why forcing corporate social responsibility is morally questionable, Electronic Journal of Business ethics and organizational studies, 13, 1 pp. 13-21
Corporate Social Responsibility is an organisation’s obligation to serve the company’s own interest and the one’s of the society. Moreover, Corporate Social Responsibility has a definition of a concept where the companies integrate social and the environmental concerns into their own business operation and also on a basis of voluntary with their interactions they have with the stakeholders. Corporate Social Resp...
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is refers to the enterprise to create profits, bear legal responsibility to shareholders, while also taking into account the impact on the result of the various stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility is an important way towards sustainable development, it is consistent with the reasonable expectations of the business community as a whole, not only will not divert energy companies, but also improve the competitiveness of enterprises and reputation. As a supplier of energy to approximately 5% of Americans and more than 40% of Californians, PG&E is the investor-owned utilities company, which provide natural gas and electricity and focus on Hydroelectric, Nuclear, Fossil fuels and Solar power. (PG&E, 2014) PG&E has a long-term strategy in environmental sustainability to addressing the climate change issue. Their economic vitality sustainability programmes focus on bringing economic benefits to the communities as part of corporate social responsibility. Like the PG&E company channelled $2.5 million to economic development charitable commitment in 2013.( PG&E, 2013)