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Ethics and CSR in business
Ethical aspects of marketing
Ethics and CSR in business
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According to Grayson (2003), there is a rising trend amongst the academicians as well as the professionals about social responsibility and ethics in marketing. The marketers and MNCs operating in different spheres and regions all over the world have started realizing the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethics in marketing along with their role in carrying out the business that takes care of the community’s interest at the same time maximizing the profit levels of their companies (Matten & Moon, 2004). Moreover, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the ongoing commitment of the business to perform ethically and play a part in economic development at the same time enhancing the quality of life of the staff members and their families and of the local community as well as the society as a whole. Here society implies towards people and customers at large. It is basically an expression employed to illustrate what some view as an organization’s responsibility to be responsive to the requirements of all the stakeholders associated with its business operations (Labbai, 2007). Additionally, in simplest words it implies “what company does, how it does it and when and what people say. Ethics and Social responsibility are combined together and applied in a number of disciplines of management like HR, computer, Finance and many others etc (Grayson, 2003). Further, taking the above discussion into consideration this particular paper attempts to throw light on the concept of social responsibility and ethics in sustainable marketing.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Ethics in Marketing
When talking about Social Responsibility and Ethics with respect to marketing, the marketer needs to properly understand the...
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...olutions in a socially responsible manner are the most expected to be successful.
It is highly believed that an effective marketing is undoubtedly the ethical marketing. Effective marketing is all about developing and satisfying a long-term link with the consumers. Caring about the customers not just leads to higher levels of profits (or attaining company’s goals if a company is not-for-profit Company) it is the highly ethical thing to carry out. Deceiving consumer might aid a company’s profits during the short-run, however is not the means for building a successful business. Further, the same is applicable for social responsibility. An organizations needs to care about and give importance to all its stakeholders including customers, staff members, suppliers, distributors, local communities within which they perform business, the environment and lastly, the society.
Lahdesmaki (2005) argued that marketing can be an ethical contract between businesses and their customers. Therefore businesses are morally obliged to inform their customers about the products in store and provide all the information necessary via marketing strategy so the customer can make informed decisions about their purchase.
The abovementioned process is influenced by the commoditisation of products and blurring of consumer's own perceptions of the companies' offering. In order to differentiate and position their products and/or services today's businesses employ advertising which is sometimes considered not only of bad taste, but also as deliberately intrusive and manipulative. The issue of bad advertising is topical to such extent that organisations like Adbusters have embraced the tactics of subvertising - revealing the real intend behind the modern advertising. The Adbusters magazine editor-in-chief Kalle Lason commented on the corporate image building communication activities of the big companies: "We know that oil companies aren't really friendly to nature, and tobacco companies don't really care about ethics" (Arnold, 2001). On the other hand, the "ethics and social responsibility are important determinants of such long-term gains as survival, long-term profitability, and competitiveness of the organization" (Singhapakdi, 1999). Without communications strategy that revolves around ethics and social responsibility the concepts of total quality and customer relationships building become elusive. However, there could be no easy clear-cut ethics formula of marketing communications.
In response to the brief presented case study, Company Q has stores in high crime areas, and has chosen to close these stores citing above average losses because of shrinkage or theft by both customers and employees.
...ned with solving problems in the most amicable manner. One of the consequences of unethical practices in business world is that they solve short-term problems and pave way for mistrust. To regain the trust back from the public is not easy and this is costly to the company than anything else. Therefore, the issue of ethical advertising should be very critical in any organization especially if the company has to project and implement its long term goals. It is trust that is going sail the organization through to the attainment of long term goals. This is due to the fact trust creates consumer loyalty and this loyalty ensures a steady and growing market. Finally, though there is a proposal that law should be instituted to control unethical advertising, more should be invested in building the morals because it is these morals that lead to instillation of ethical values.
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.
Marketing is a system of business activates designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products, services and ideas to customers in order to achieve business objectives. Consumer law protects consumer’s rights in the marketplace as well as fair trading, competition and accurate information. On the other hand, ethical aspects of marketing are about making marketing decisions that are morally right. However, consumer law and ethical aspects of marketing have a lot of advantages and disadvantages in the marketplace, which impacts business 's sales and growth like it happened to: Harvey Norman, Nurofen, apple, etc.
Holistic marketing also incorporates social responsibility marketing and understanding broader concerns and the ethical, environmental, legal, and social context of marketing activities and programs. The business will tend to adopt ethical behavior in its marketing strategy and will ensure that proper and true information will be provided to the concerned parties(Homburg, Stierl & Bornemann 2013).
In order to generate sales, marketers often promote aggressively and uniquely, unfortunately, not all marketing advertisements are done ethically. Companies around the globe spend billions of dollars to promote new products and services and advertising is one of the key tools to communicate with consumers. Conversely, some methods that marketers use to produce advertisements and to generate sales is deceptive and unethical. Ethical issues concern in marketing has always been noted in marketing practice. According to Prothero (2008), ethics itself has a profound, varied and rich past. It emphasizes on questions of right and wrong or good and bad.
In today’s fast paced business world many managers face tough decisions when walking the thin line between what’s legal and what’s socially unacceptable. It is becoming more and more important for organisations to consider many more factors, especially ethically, other than maximising profits in order to be more competitive or even survive in today’s business arena. The first part of this essay will discuss managerial ethics[1] and the relevant concepts and theories that affect ethical decision making, such as the Utilitarian, Individualism, Moral rights approach theories, the social responsibility of organisations to stakeholders and their responses to social demands, with specific reference to a case study presenting an ethical dilemma[2], where Mobil halts product sales to a garage, forcing the garage owner to stop selling solvents to young people. The second section of this essay will focus on advice that should be given to any manager in a similar position to the garage owner with relevance to the organisational strategic management, the corporate objective and the evaluation of corporate social performance by measuring economic, legal, ethical and discretionary responsibilities. It will address whom to think of as stakeholders and why the different aspect could cost more than a manager or an organisation could have imagined.
The notion of ethics deals with people’s behaviors within a company. Social responsibility involves a company’s moral obligations and the manner in which the organization makes its decisions. Although ethics and social responsibility are similar on a conceptual basis, each has its own unique characteristics that express their differences and its independence of the other. Ethics and social responsibility have to be present and coincide with one another for a business to be ethically sound.
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.
Marketing is defined as follows: Marketing is the process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products or services. In this essay, I am going to address the concept of “social marketing” and how does social marketing differ from “societal marketing” or “socially responsible marketing” in the first part, and in the second part, I am going to provide examples of each of the three approaches to marketing and analyse how these represent a departure from traditional marketing practice.
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...
Young, D. (2012). Green Marketing & Marketing Ethics, Room 009, Block 17, Middlesex University Dubai. (25th March, 2012)
In the current time of growth and progression, individuals should know that how a business not only flourish but sustain itself. Making profit is one of the main targets of every corporates but it must not be the only one. When an individual builds a company in order to do business, they should be well aware of their contribution towards the society as well as their business and employees in it. It is total strategy of all. We should be able to realize every increment contributes of it. One of the major factors that affect a business is how well it participates in Corporate Social Responsibility. According to (Werther & Chandler, 2006) corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to a business practice that involves participating in initiatives that benefits the society. In authenticity, there is a whole lot to argue about it. There are no major guidelines that decides either a business is participating in Corporate Social Responsibility; what might be considered a Business practicing CSR to some, can still not be accepted for it by others. CSR may be restrained a term which his highly flexible. This paper will discuss about Corporate Social Responsibility and its