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Business ethical issues and dilemmas
Business ethical issues and dilemmas
Advantages and disadvantages of social responsibility programmes
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Where profit is concerned, the idea of social responsibility has always been linked hand in hand. Social responsibility is that ‘X Factor’ in which a business or individual goes beyond the requirement of a law to pursue short and long term goals to benefit society. It is having an interest not only in your wellbeing, but taking into account the interests and concerns of the community as well. Friedman tries to prove that by taking into account social responsibility a business will fail in the long run and has no obligation of social responsibility to begin with. There are two major supporting arguments brought up by Friedman which I will address in this essay. First, that “a corporation is an artificial person and therefore cannot be socially responsible”. Second is that “if social responsibility is exercised it is acting against the shareholders, owners of the business”. In summary, their main goal should be to act in their shareholders' best interests and that acting "responsibly" would ultimately harm a business’s profit and in terns its shareholders in the name of being so...
This report summarizes the results of a review of Target Corporation’s sense of social responsibility as discerned by examining three areas: ethics, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability practices. It presents an overview of Target’s historical and ongoing corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, and an evaluation of Target’s CSR efforts based on the corporation's policy, performance stated objectives, key performance measures, and select peers. The report includes recommendations for improvement as well as measures for evaluating improvement. The sources of Target’s policy and performance results are its corporate governance documents and corporate reporting.
First thing let us start with a little overview of what Milton Friedman exposed in his article. It seems that the whole point of his essay revolves around one basic statement which clearly says that the only social responsibility of business is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long it stays within the rules of the game (Milton Friedman, the social responsibility of business is to increase profit).
Over the course of this semester, among all the different perspectives, two that stayed on my mind the most are the social problems perspective and the social responsibility perspective. While both of these perspectives are similar in that they both cover theories about crimes, they differ greatly in the way in which each suggests crime occurs. The social problems perspective provides that people are not actually responsible for their actions, but rather that their actions were the result of a failure of society to prevent the problem. For example, towns often create after-school programs to help keep children off the streets and out of trouble. However, towns that do not have such after-school programs often report higher rates of teenage crime as well as unattended children. Children are naturally curious and even mischievous. After-school programs that help to keep the children busy and involved in activities report to have lower occurrences of vandalism and gang activity.
“There is only one and only one social responsibility of business- to use its resources and engage in activities designated to increase its profits so long as it decides to stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”
Friedman, M. (1970). The Social Responsibility of Business is to make Profit. New York Times
Social responsibility allows for the market system to be centrally controlled by forcing shareholders to unwillingly contribute to social responsibility. While this idea of social responsibility may help companies in the short run, it will ultimately hurt them in the long run. Each person has their own values and responsibilities and “society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form” (55). Businesses, as Friedman understands, are separate from this society since individuals are the only ones who can hold values and responsibilities. Subsequently, businesses are freed of the need to embed social responsibility into their practices and should focus only on creating the largest profit possible for their shareholders
In this essay I will be discussing the role and impact of Corporate Social Responsibility in event management in the 21st Century. I will research and report examples, with supporting evidence. Firstly, I shall begin with defining Corporate Social Responsibility and then I will turn my attention to the challenges of CSR along with, why it is crucial for businesses and what the outcomes are if Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is overlooked. Throughout this essay I will be providing examples of such an fundamental affects and companies who have take CSR and how they are carrying out their responsibilities. Then, later on in the essay I will look into the pros and cons of CSR. Finally to finish off, I will provide a conclusion as to whether it is really worth the effort for businesses to take corporate social responsibility.
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.
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
The first discussion question posed was, “How does Dr. Friedman characterize discussions on the “social responsibilities of business”? Why (Jennings, 2009, p. 79)? Friedman (1970) characterized the discussions on social responsibilities as one hundred percent unadulterated socialism. Friedman (1970) characterized these discussions in that manner because he felt that a corporate executive should focus solely on making profits and not on social aspects. He mentioned how people who conduct and express themselves in this fashion are positively reinforcing and supporting the actions of individuals that have been weakening the foundational blocks of free society. Friedman (1970) posed a question which was the crux of his 1970 article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” where he investigated the true contextual meaning of what responsibilities mean to businesses. Friedman describes how businesses cann...
In the article, The Truth About CSR by Kasturi Rangan, Lisa Chase, and Sohel Karim, the importance that coherence plays in corporate social responsibility (CSR), is emphasized. Throughout the article, corporate social responsibility application, within corporations, is broken down into three theaters. According to the article, many corporations do not focus on their CSR programs, and usually see these CSR actions as a secondary responsibility following the responsibility they hold towards their shareholders. It is argued in the article that in CSR is a key and essential block for corporate success, focusing on CSR coherence throughout all three theaters will bring positive results along the way, possibly making the corporation
When the problem became serious two main views formed: the “narrow” view and the “broader” view, based on different ideas. The “narrow” view is based on the proposition that corporations have no social responsibility and they have only one main purpose, to make a profit (Friedman, 1970). So corporations should remain socially independent and all conflicts must be solved through the individual responsibility concept. On the contrary the “broader” view states that corporations have social obligations as all existing participants of market, persons and entities are tied together and are mutually dependent. So corporations cannot ignore some serious events or problems, which take place, and must help society, as profit is not their single purpose.
Modern society is dominated by multinational corporations. In the past 30 years there has been unprecedented development of transnational corporations (TNC), which is “any corporation that is registered and operates in more than one country at a time” (Transnational). Now, there are more than 63,000 TNCs, while there only 7,000 in 1970. That is more than a 900% growth in TNCs in only a few decades. Even more startling, 70% of all trade, includes at least one of these TNCs (Basic). So, if these multinational corporations have such strong influence, it is their responsibility to activate change in terms of sustainability. Sustainability is the number one problem our society faces today. Sustainability refers to social, environmental, and economic
...can be an arbiter of business responsibility to society through the application of tax incentives or tax credits. In good corporate governance, the management should be able to meet their social responsibilities, these include making sure that their products are not hazardous to people and to the environment, sharing their profits for the good of the community as a natural person or human being would do, donating to social causes, organizing activities to benefit the community.
Friedman’s views are that business’ main responsibility is to maximize shareholders wealth and that in doing so, they are being socially responsible. He also contends that corporations are not people and therefore they cannot be responsible for social issues.