Corporate Social Responsibility - Essay Example

Reflection Essay on Topic Corporate Social Responsibility Of all the eight topics in the the Corporate Social Responsibility is the area that I found to be more interesting because the lack of it was the primary cause of the recent financial crisis which sent the world into recession. I have to admit that my knowledge about ethics prior to the course was limited. I only knew it was important and my understanding was limited to generalize idea such as “we should always strive for the right thing to do” and being ethical is always desirable. I came to the realization that ethics was important because I was aware that the recent financial crisis that rocked the world that made lives difficult for everybody was rooted in greed and lack of ethical practice in business. This explains why I chose to write about this topic because the exercise affords me the opportunity to examine the ethical aspect of business which is often neglected. I believed that this is important to learn especially when we are still in the academe and still in the process of equipping ourselves the necessary skills and knowledge so that it will be ingrained within us to become better professionals in the future. The lessons that we will learn would guide us when we make our choices in any ethical dilemma that we would confront, and would run business organisations in a corporate responsible manner. I believe that given the recent scandals that rocked the business and financial world, it now becomes an imperative that each individual entering into the corporate and financial industry must have a strong sense of corporate social responsibility or accounting to avoid similar occurrences in the future. It should begin right in the academe where future professionals, employees or entrepreneurs are being trained and prepared. It is now important because the neglect and disregard for ethical practice in business has contributed to the recent financial and mortgage breakdown that stemmed from greed and lack of ethical practice that made life difficult for everybody. The high incidence of unethical practices in modern business has prompted a stream of organizational research about morality in business1. In fact, industry experts such as Ernst & Young has pointed out that unethical business practice is the main culprit that precipitated the recent economic crisis which caused a lot of jobs and homes to be lost that made life difficult for everybody which is why it is now an imperative not only to integrate but also to stress corporate responsibility and audit beginning in the academe when future business professionals are being trained and prepared. The obvious disregard about proper corporate conduct is not surprising as Crane and Matten hypothesized that business in itself has been argued to be amoral that to put ethics in business is an oxymoron because they contradict each other2. Business in pursuit of its profit motive will invariably set aside ethics as it endeavour to make profit. Actions which may be considered unethical such as lying and deception may even become permissible in the business’ pursuit for profit3. This is consistent with the consequential normative ethic theory that “holds that the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right, depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same kind4”. In plain language, a business person may be prompted to choose a certain course of action or inaction based on the benefit or the avoidance of harm that may be derived from such action or inaction. In the case of business, it can chose to shun any propriety in conducting business with the idea that it is more expedient to make profit by disregarding scruples in conducting its operation. Having corporate responsibility does not mean that a business organisation is already shunning the importance of profit. Profit is equally important for without it, business cannot survive. This course however has taught me to widen the sense of profit that there are three bottom lines which should be considered. All of them must be considered and not only the selfish end of the shareholders. Corporate Social Responsibility must temper the sometimes selfish impulse of profit. Corporate Responsibility’s sense of social accounting and its social and environmental auditing must be ingrained in businesses corporate culture so that business will always act responsibly even without the watchful eye of the government nor need be threatened by its punitive laws. It can be said that ethics and sense of corporate responsibility comes in where the law ends because the sense of social accountability cannot always be legislated. If a company is imprudent that will pursue profit at whatever cost such as the case of Enron, no amount of laws can stop it. It will always find ways to circumvent the law in its pursuit of profit. Enron is a classic case where it even made its auditing firm Arthur Anderson conspired to hide its financial acrobatics. In the same vein, a socially responsible company does not need any regulatory body to watch its actions for it will always act ethically. In general, this chapter provided me an internal compass to do what right and a more discerning eye to determine what is right or wrong in a corporate setting. It also made me realize that organizational legitimacy does not only involve following what is prescribed by the government but also acting responsibly towards all of its stakeholders that includes the owners, employees, government, community at large and the environment. Really thinking about it, organizations which are “legitimate” in the eyes of the general public can in fact become more profitable than those who cut corners by doing unethical business practices. It is because they are trusted more and thus, being patronized more. This trust can also command profit because it translates to a positive corporate image that can ask premium prices and yet the customers are still willing to pay for it because they trust the company5. Bibliography Crane, Andrew (1999). Are You Ethical? Please Tick Yes Or No On Researching Ethics in Business Organizations.. Journal of Business Ethics, 20(3): 237-248 Fischer, March; Volckner, Franziska; Sattler, Henrik (2010). How Important Are Brands? A Cross-Category, Cross-Country Study, Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 47(5):823-839. Crane, Andrew; Matten, Dirk (2006). Business Ethics, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2011). Consequentialism. Online. Retrieved at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ [accessed April 12, 2012). Read More