Responsible Business Assignment 1 (2000 Words) The purpose of this report is to evaluate and research extensively on ‘Responsible Business’ I will discuss and examine what role the government plays as an influencer or what laws they have implemented for Responsible Business. Furthermore I will review and evaluate the topic of Pressure Groups and what approaches they have taken to influence business on being responsible. I will provide relevant and recent information on events that have occurred from the pressure groups to enforce responsible business. Finally I will give you justification and evidence that I have gathered from the research undertaken to carry out my assignment 2. Briefly consider what constitutes “Responsible Business” Countless studies have tried to reach a definition of Responsible Business. Although it is hard to present a firm definition, much of the research done has identified many kinds of responsible / irresponsible business. The majority of major companies will decide for themselves if they are being a responsible business through the activities that they are doing. Furthermore the theory of Responsible Business is an ongoing developing idea, which means different things to different people. Archie Corroll (1999) observed that: "The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organisations at a given point in time." W.Frederick summed up the theory as follows: “ The Fundamental idea of corporate social responsibility is that business corporations have an obligation to work for social betterment.” As Frederick believes that business have an “obligation to work for social betterment” we cant replay on this theor... ... middle of paper ... ...history of oil spills many of them, which were covered up from the public eye. Gazprom’s equipment is decades out of date, demonstrating this in 2011 when one of their oilrigs sank of the coast of Siberia killing over 50 employees. Yet shell is happy to sign a deal with Gazprom to continue drilling. demonstrating Pressure Groups play a massive role in Responsible Business as they were the first people to actually stand up to the major companies in making them become more responsible weather that is a major oil company like shell to even some of our major food brands like Tesco and Sainsbury’s. They have all been affected in a certain way and all have a role to play in becoming more responsible but thankfully these Pressure Groups are here to stay and work together because there is still a lot more to be done to ensure that change and progress is still being made.
Responsibility is a word used improperly too often in one’s everyday life. It is the state, to which one is acting accountably for something within his or her own power, control, and/or management. It is the ability to comprehend rational thoughts and make decisions within one’s moral compass. Beginning at a young age, we are taught the importance of responsibility on a daily basis. Whether it be on the basis of taking responsibility for foolish past actions, or behaving responsibly to develop one’s aptitude of dependability when tasks must be accomplished, the action of being responsible ultimately leads to adding meaning and value to one’s life. After reading The Responsible Company, by Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley, one can begin to comprehend the true meaning behind utilizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) during business practices. Chouinard speaks about the moments in his career, where a company is encouraged and cultivated passed its ordinary human excellence to become more responsible when dealing with the many diverse environmental issues within the business cycle. Although there are many concepts and moments that Chouinard establishes as important, there are a few moments that seemed to have a deeper meaning and deserved another moment of reminiscence because it increased peoples’ sense of responsibility and capability to act responsibly.
Pressure groups have been around the UK since 1960’s with approximately well over 7,000 associations of various shapes and sizes of pressure group organisations operating in the UK..
According with the textbook and other internet sources, Milton Friedman described in his thesis that the main goal of a business is to generate gains or profits. As a result, several business have been using such thesis as a justification for some of the decisions they made. In the case of “A Civil Action” we had the two companies contaminating the little town water with chemicals used during the elaboration of their products. The use of trichloroethylene was apparently causing some of the children of the place to developed respiratory and other cancerous diseases such as leukemia. After the death of several children, people on town began to worry about the situation and everything pointed out ...
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”.
The article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” is written by a famous economist Milton Friedman. Friedman in this article implies that shareholders are the main drivers of the corporations and he believes that it is to them corporations must be socially responsible to. The goal of any corporation is to maximize profits and return the portion of these profits to shareholders for investing in the corporation. The shareholders can themselves decide which social causes to take part in rather than assigning a corporate executive to decide on their behalf. Friedman argues that a corporation must have no social responsibility to society because its only concern is the increase profits for itself and its shareholders.
So before we go in greater detail on the different perspectives related to social responsibility, one might question the meaning of social responsibility. It is generally agreed that social responsibility is defined as the business obligation to make decisions that benefit societ...
Social responsibility is the part of the framework of an organization or individual which makes up an obligation to act for the benefit of society. There are many different ways act out social responsibility. The social responsibilities of a business can be classified according to the businesses relationships to the general public, customers, employees and investors. The companies that make their product or service with the rooted mindset of benefiting the community and the world around them do this by providing things like scholarship funds, all natural products, biodegradable storage, and or just by treating the consumer as well as the employees as individuals rather than a corporate dollar sign. Businesses may exercise
Pressure groups are also a cause for the change of a product or service. Pressure groups can exert pressure onto an organization by seeking publicity, creating petitions, holding protests, and in extreme cases criminal activity, if they feel strongly against the actions of the organization. For example on 6th October last year, animal rights extremists dug up the grave of a relative of an employee of a medical research farm.
Carroll (1979) states, “business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of organization at a given point in time”.
Milton Friedman presents a compelling argument in “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits” by arguing that businesses need to focus only on increasing their profits and integrating social responsibility will only hurt them as a company. Since “only people can have responsibilities” (Friedman 52), Friedman argues that businesses as a whole do not have any type of real responsibilities because there is not a singular person for these responsibilities to fall on. Corporate executives are people as well and may feel they have social responsibilities to society but these “are the social responsibilities of individuals, not of business” (51). In terms of corporations, the businessmen are the ones that hold the responsibility of the company. Friedman argues that the only responsibility these managers hold is to those who own the corporation, the shareholders. If the individuals themselves want to contribute to social responsibility they must do it with their own money in their personal lives, but they should not use social responsibility in
While the concept of an individual having responsibility is commonly recognized, modern views have lead to the emerging issue of corporate responsibility. Business Directory.com defines corporate social responsibility as, “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.” But such a concept has been much disputed since at least the 1970’s.
It seems obvious that large corporations have a tendency to ignore the negative effects of their actions in favor of profit. This example, although sensationalized, still says to me that with power comes responsibility. It affirmed my belief that a corporation’s goal cannot be just to provide profit to shareholders, but there must also be an element of social responsibility.
However, there can be more definitions about what Corporate Social Responsibility can be. For example, Corporate Social Responsibility can be the commitment which is continuing for a business to behave ethically and bring to economy the development to improve the workforces’ of the whole society and local community and their families’ quality of life. Corporate Social Responsibility is also known as the obligation of a company to serve the society’s interest and of course its own. With the help of the Corporate and Social Responsibility, social and environmental concerns companies can integrate into their business and stakeholders operations.
Business ethics and social responsibility are two concepts many individuals believe go along together for corporations in the business environment. Business ethics are the moral values a company uses to ensure all employees action in a standard manner when completing business functions. Social responsibility is typically a conceptual theory that governments and the general public hold, believing that businesses should not conduct themselves in a manner counter to cultural or societal norms. The connubial of these concepts happens when companies introduce a written code of ethics to demonstrate that the company only acts in its greatest interest so long as it does not damage the company’s social responsibility.
The module has analysed business-society relations through the theories and practices of business ethics and social responsibility and how business ethics has evolved from theoretical frameworks as to how business should be managed.