Confucian Philosophy and Corporate Responsibility

Since psychological egoism is a claim which states how all humans act but not how they ought to act, it is categorized as a descriptive ethic (Rachels 52). This idea is attempting to put forth that all human actions are a means to an end, meaning that every action that a person takes is an effort to try to benefit oneself in some way, ... ... middle of paper ... ...is not likely to realize that his action is selfish in nature. There are many philosophers that promote the concept of psychological egoism and Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham are two outspoken proponents (ibid). It is important to consider the arguments and views of the two philosophers because of their stature in the philosophical world. Thomas Hobbes was a political philosopher of the seventeenth century whose work still holds significance today.

A corporation is a form of business organization where the firm is a legal entity separate from its owners. As corporations grow and become multinational, their interests and influence extend accordingly. The decisions made by these corporations are always made with a primary goal of increasing profits. Needless to say, the decisions taken by corporations often regard public interests as inferior to their own, so many of their decisions have a calamitous impression on the public. The multinational corporations, Wal-Mart, Nike, and Gap, had negative impact on the world through human rights violations, through their control of the media, and by putting smaller local companies out of business.

While the reasons for company lapses are varied some as result of greed among owners or the need to maximize shareholder revenues, poor corporate governance is usually at the heart of the problem. One of the reasons is because corporate governance entails harmonizing the interests of the corporation and those of the stakeholders some of whom include shareholders, management, customers, suppliers, community, financial institutions, and the government (Eweje & Perry 2011, p. 226). Due to poor corporate governance, some companies engage in unethical means to achieve those

Frequently leaders of organizations are challenged with making difficult decisions. It appears that British Petroleum’s (BP) decision making was focused on cost cutting, and not the employee’s safety, gulf residents, or the environment. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is a result of the systematic failure within a major corporation to be ethically and socially responsible to all stakeholders involved. The priority was corporate profits. A series of cost cutting measures ultimately unveiled a corporate giant that chose to neglect its ethical and social responsibility.

As a result of dubious conduct from personnel and as well as corporate executives has brought about vital queries about improving corporate ethics endeavors and addressing the fundamental reasons for these misconducts, in addition to the growing demand for preemptive social accountable, and supportable business procedures (Barrett, Todd, Schlaudecker & Perrin, 2004). Comprehending the circumstances sur... ... middle of paper ... ...clusion It is still uncertain the importance of corporate governance ratings and how they will effect investors. Certainly, the usefulness of these types of ratings is deteriorated by the ostensible lack of uniformity amid rating agencies. To the degree ratings are comparative; they are likewise becoming unimportant since practices have largely improved with time. Numerous institutional investors have individual platforms for calculating governance and do not depend on outside services to measure those concerns.

Because society is fundamentally based upon performance and profit, it is necessary to impart a sense of corporate social responsibility with regard to modern commerce. The ethical approaches of purpose, principle and consequence are integral components of business social performance; itemizing these contributions involves incorporating the interests of ethics and morality within the corporate structure. These are essential concepts that are often absent from a managerial standpoint. Corporate social responsibility should exist within every company 's infrastructure; however, social integrity is not something that is often at the forefront of modern day business dealings. Ethics, business and society must work in tandem or there is no purpose for any of its existence.

Such interpretation reduced CSR to philanthropy and thus shifting the entire concept of CSR into the realm of moral discretion and the process of profit generation is exempted from moral scrutiny. The modern perception of CSR has moved beyond the initial understanding of philanthropic engagement. While CSR goes beyond Corporate Business Responsibility, that is, a corporation’s responsibility to its stockholders, CSR differs from corporate philanthropy in the sense that CSR concerns those duties arise within the domain of the actual impact of a corporation’s economic activities (Campbell, 2012). However it seems that the voluntariness assumption which derives from the incomplete charitable understanding of CSR has remained pervasive to date . The notion of CSR is, at least within the business community, routinely characterised as voluntary – businesses going beyond the legal obligation that they may have.

They also conclude that CSR functions as parasite because it ‘undermines the protest of stakeholders’. They offer to create more win-win situations, ‘having to alter fundamentally the nature of the corporate form and the dominance of economic rationality’. Focusing on the reduction and transformation of III. Quadrant (corporate social irresponsibility) into IV. Quadrant (enlightened self-interest).

When a person enters employment with a certain company, that company is accepting responsibility for actions taken by the employee that are in accordance with company policy. The corporation should be held responsible by the government, while the corporation should hold it’s own employees responsible for their own actions. In response to the idea of a corporate responsibility, not an individual’s, many argue that if the corporation is not a person, how can it be held to the same moral guidelines as an individual? After all, don’t people make the decisions, and those same people make up the corporations, and should therefore be held accountable. This theory does not exclude the possibility of upper management being held responsible; rather it includes it for the sake of the company’s survival.

A case of USA Introduction We have seen the collapse of the big corporations like Enron, Lehman brothers and WorldCom. They were billionaire companies but they faced bankruptcy due to the corruption and mismanagement. There are some important concepts that those companies were lacking, like CSR, corporate governance and Business ethics, (Taysir & Pazarcik, 2013). By this example, we can see the importance of CSR and Business ethics. As these two dimensions are very important in the business that is why we will try to explore these variables and will find the relationship in-between them.