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A companies view of corporate social responsibility
Importance of business ethics
A companies view of corporate social responsibility
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Many laws have been put into place to make sure corporations act ethically, so they do not harm people or the environment. Corporations have a social responsibility to follow these laws and various other ethical actions; Johnson & Johnson, considered to be one of the most admirable companies according to Fortune, is one company that included their corporate social responsibilities in their code of ethics. Their code of ethics states that executive officers cannot financially benefit from unethical transactions or that their management must be competent and ethical (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). It is important for corporations to act ethically and hold up to their social responsibility, especially within the workplace; ethics are especially …show more content…
important in regards to workplace safety and avoiding discrimination. Corporations have a responsibility to maintain a safe workplace their employees. Companies are responsible to act ethically towards their employees, especially in making sure they have a safe work environment; it is unethical to make employees work in unsafe conditions, and it can also lead to low job satisfaction and motivation.
Management has to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s regulations, or risk getting fined. There are many cases where companies try to cut costs, violate rules made by OSHA, and hide any unsafe conditions or ask their employees to lie about it. Putting employees in danger to make a greater profit goes against their corporate responsibility and makes their company lack integrity. Upper level management should make policies against using unsafe practices and lower level management lying about work conditions. They should also promote that employees report unsafe conditions to management and not penalize employees for “whistle-blowing”. Johnson & Johnson’s credo states, “…working conditions [must be] clean, orderly, and safe” (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). Johnson & Johnson implemented a variety of programs to make sure their employees are safe within the workplace including: machine, electrical, contractor, warehouse, and office safety, hazardous processes, and fall prevention (Workplace Safety, 2013). Johnson & Johnson works to reduce their workplace injuries each year and even gets employees and their families to help come up with new programs to further reduce unsafe situations in the workplace. All this contributes to why Johnson & …show more content…
Johnson was one of the most admired companies by Fortune; their responsibility to their employees and their ethical environment promotes production and job satisfaction. On the reverse side, companies like Walmart have been known for practices like not giving injured employees their benefits, firing employees for trying to get compensation after an injury, or reducing the amount of healthcare they provide (Fefer, 2006). Recently Walmart’s sales, productivity, and job satisfaction have all been going down; this proves that holding up to the corporate social responsibility to its employees and workplace safety, and dealing with workplace safety in an ethical manner is important to the health of the company. Workplace safety is not the only ethical concern for corporations, but also equitable treatment of employees. It is also important that corporations give employees equal opportunity and keep the workplace free of discrimination.
It is unethical to discriminate against surface-level discrimination like: race, religion, age, gender, disabilities, etc. If organizations do not hold up to their responsibility to provide equal opportunity to their employees, the organization can face legal charges, low turnover, employee dissatisfaction, and low motivation. If the public finds out that the company is unethical with their employees, the company’s sales can also go down due to their bad reputation. Upper-level management should make policies against discrimination, hire a diverse workforce, and promote an environment where employees can openly discuss discrimination. Lower-level management should follow and educate employees on these policies, punish employees who discriminate. Johnson & Johnson state in their code of ethics that, “Compensation must be fair and adequate…There must be equal opportunity for employment, development and advancement for those qualified” (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). Johnson & Johnson pays everyone based on skill or performance and gives all their diverse employees the opportunity to advance if they are qualified. Their employees are almost half women, half men, their management is 42% women, and their new hires consists almost 25% each of North Americans, Latin Americans, Europeans/Middle East/Africans, and Asian-Pacific. Johnson & Johnson also have a
“Global Diversity and Inclusion” statement including their goals to incorporate minorities to make give their company an advantage over others (Global Diversity and Inclusion, 2015). Other places like Walmart have been known for discrimination; recently a lawsuit has been filed, Walmart vs. Duke, which involved six women. The women claimed Walmart’s policies results in a nationwide discrimination against women and wanted back pay to compensate (Walmart vs. Duke, 2011). There were other instances where Walmart was accused of discriminating against African Americans and firing minorities without reason or notice. However, it is their corporate social responsibility to provide their employees equal opportunity and job security. Finally, it is a corporation’s social responsibility to maintain their employee’s quality of life. It is unethical to decrease an employee’s quality of life as they are working for a corporation. This includes making employees work excessive amounts of hours within a week, not allowing breaks, not allowing any vacation time, and not allowing leaves for family situations (baby, funeral, wedding, etc.). It is important that upper level management makes policies or enforces federal policies regarding quality of life and it is important that supervisors in lower management follow these policies and schedule employees breaks or allow them to take time off for certain situations. Employees perform better after breaks and are more satisfied with their job when they can recover from any strain the job puts on them, especially when the job is labor intensive or requires a high amount of emotional labor (Robbins & Judge, 2015, pp. 101-102). It is ethical to allow people breaks so they can maintain their basic needs, like eating throughout the day, and so they are not over worked; by law employers must allow employees a break if they work more than six hours at a time, and there is a law that companies must allow expecting mothers a maternity leave. It is unethical to deprive people from maintaining their basic human rights and putting strain on their ability to start a family. Johnson & Johnson states various times in their business conduct that employees and their families are important to the company, in their credo they state, “we must be mindful of ways to help out employees fulfill their family responsibilities” (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). Johnson & Johnson implements programs that help their employees’ quality of life and their families; they have support groups and healthcare for both employees and families of employees. Walmart has been known to deprive their employees of their maternity leave, which is unethical and against the law. This is one reason why Johnson & Johnson is considered one of the best companies to work for and has substantial employee loyalty, and Walmart is considered a repulsive company to work for. Ethics and corporate social responsibility are important in regards to workplace safety and avoiding discrimination. The differences in policies for Johnson and Johnson and Walmart are what make one company admirable and the other undesirable. Ethics and corporate social responsibility should be incorporated into all policy decisions within the company. As demonstrated by Johnson & Johnson, creating policies with ethical beliefs leads to high satisfaction, productivity, and good publicity, and shown by Walmart, unethical decisions and policy making can lead to low productivity, decreased sales, and a lawsuit against the corporation.
The messaging in both the Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA) and Canada’s Health Informatics Association (COACH) Code of Ethics are very similar. They both discuss prioritizing privacy and security, set an expectation of maintaining a professional and collegial work ethic, encourage the continuing of education and building of one's knowledge base and both refer to a focus on the awareness of future developments/advancements within the industry. My initial preference was the CHIMA Code of Ethics as I preferred the phrasing and third person approach, however, upon further review I noticed that CHIMA’s used the word ‘strive’ instead of COACH’s approach of ‘I will’. This to me seems to have less impact then the COACH counterpart.
Which of the six principles in the AICPA Code of Conduct is most related to Article 1.5 of the California Accountancy Act? Explain your conclusion.
The accounting system misallocated motors from the asset manufacturing equipment to inventory. There are issues of honesty, responsibility, and professional ethics.
The first provision of the American Nurses Association’s (ANA) “Code of Ethics” states, “ The nurse, in all professional relationships, practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth and uniqueness of every individual, unrestricted by considerations of social or economic status, personal attributes, or the nature of health problems.” The second provision states, “The nurse’s primary commitment is the patient, whether the patient is an individual, family, group, or community” (Fowler, 2010). As nurses we need to respect the autonomy and allow for the patient to express their choices and concerns. We also need to provide them with support by giving them knowledge and understanding so they
The NASW (National Association of Social Workers) Code of Ethics is intended to serve as a guide to the everyday professional conduct of social workers. This Code includes four sections. The first Section, "Preamble," summarizes the mission and core values of the social work profession. The second section, "Purpose of the NASW Code of Ethics," provides an overview of the Code 's main functions and a brief guide for dealing with ethical issues or dilemmas in social work practice. The third section, "Ethical Principles," presents broad ethical principles, based on social work 's core values, that affect social work practice. The final section, "Ethical Standards," includes specific ethical standards
Many counselors enter into the profession because they are interested in helping individuals and have the desire to enhance human development. Though counselors are guided in culture from their own values and beliefs they have about living, ethics supersedes morality. Ethics are rooted in philosophy and are created by professional associations in order to govern those members of the profession. In the field of counseling there are two individual agencies, American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), that both have several similarities and differences within each specific codes of ethics.
It's difficult not to be cynical about how “big business” treats the subject of ethics in today's world. In many corporations, where the only important value is the bottom line, most executives merely give lip service to living and operating their corporations ethically.
For a company to be successful ethically, it must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture. A corporate code of ethics can be a very valuable and integral part of a company’s culture but I believe that it is not strong enough to stand alone. Thought and care must go into constructing the code of ethics and the implementation of it. Companies need to infuse ethics and integrity throughout their corporate culture as well as into their definition of success. To be successfully ethical, companies must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture.
Within the Code of Ethics document there are a set of rules. One important rule for the workers of Dunkin Donuts to go by is Partnering with others. How the workers of the establishment partner with each other is very crucial. If employees are constant bickering or clashing heads it could disrupt the peace the homely environment that customers enjoy. In the document it states, when management chooses employees to work for the establishment they look for the person to possess basic skills, education, personal qualities, and financial resources necessary to perform and fulfill the needs and requirements of a franchise. It states that the Dunkin’ Donuts industry does not discriminate against race, color, religion, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or any other factors prohibited by law. If a person applying for a position doesn’t obtain the qualities that the employer is looking for, the person applying will not receive the job. Not b...
LEADERSHIP BRIEFING PAPER Leadership Briefing Paper After spending your entire working life in one giant corporation that went down overnight; investing most of your retirement in stock options that plummet to zero; you are suddenly jobless and your retirement money is gone. Yet, perhaps even more threatening; our skilled and managerial jobs are steadily going abroad, due to poor corporate ethics. The crisis of poor ethics has jeopardized public trust, caused an erosion of organizational cultures, created human suffering, caused unemployment, and profit losses. Poor ethics
...ction businesses should be taking and the responsibilities to our society. While Johnson & Johnson’s credo does not prevent problems from occurring the employees and management of Johnson & Johnson take the credo responsibilities seriously in the performance of their duties. Johnson & Johnson credo has obviously assisted their employees and management in operating in an ethical manner and has aided in establishing themselves as an ethical corporation. “To have an effective code that will successfully impact culture, there must be a belief throughout the organization that this culture is actually possible and achievable” (Hartman et al., 2014, p. 167).
In general, most people practice utilitarian ethics and hold themselves accountable for doing the right thing as well as does corporations, businesses, medical facilities, and Public Health service. Therefore, these companies put in writing their company ethics policies and
Business ethics simply can be defined as the application of business values in the business practice of a company (Seawell 2010, p. 2). For a multinational company, business ethics is one of the critical aspects need to be taken into account in business decision-making processes. Failure to give attention on ethics may bring consequences on company’s reputation (Meyer & Jebe 2010, p. 159). The company is expected not only to pursue its own profits but also contributing to the environmental and social welfare of the community where it operates (Svensson & Wood 2008, p. 308).
The Code of Ethics of the professional accounting bodies in Australia and its fundamental principles.
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.