Business Management - Assignment Example

Conceptual Analysis: Business Management American Public Conceptual Analysis Content Analysis may be defined as the method of summarizing content through considering all aspects related to this content. This form of analysis facilitates to achieve a more objective oriented evaluation rather than a theoretical expression. The process of Content analysis involves Conceptual Analysis and Relational Analysis to arrive at the inference drawn based on such evaluation (Campiona, Ployharta & MacKenzie, 2014). In this paper, three scholarly journal articles have been selected on the topics of Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance which are closely related to Business Management for the purpose of analysis. Explicit analysis will be done using conceptual methodology to achieve a more qualitative and coherent research outcome. Examination of the Selected Articles Article 1: Moral Degradation, Business Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Transitional Economy (Zheng Luo and Wang, 2013). Article 2: Does Doing Good Always Lead to Doing Better? Consumer Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2005). Article 3: Cross-listing, managerial compensation and corporate governance (Luo, 2014). 1. Level of Analysis – Coding for set of words: Management, Business and Corporate. 2. Concepts to Code: The role of business ethics, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in effective business management. 3. Code for frequency of Concept- – Frequency of management, business and corporate will be analyzed in occurrence of the three articles. 4. Concepts will be coded according to the continuance of the articles and also related subject matters will be included. Words or the group of words having similar meaning will also be counted. In this analysis, the role of internal and external stakeholders in business management is included in the analysis. 5. Translation rules – Uniformity and coherency will be followed to ascertain accuracy. 6. Irrelevant information- Inappropriate data will be disregarded. However, reexamination will be done to derive extra information related to the concept. 7. Code the text- Manual coding will be done to identify the concept variances. a. Article 1 contains “management” 5 times, “business” 20 times, “corporate” 5 times. b. Article 2 contains “management” 6 times, “business” 2 times, “corporate” 9 time. c. Article 3 contains “management” 5 times, “business” 2 times, “corporate” 12 times. Analyze Result Extensive study of the articles revealed a coherent relationship among the three aspects of business management. Article 1 and 2 deals establishes a coherent relationship among business ethics and corporate social responsibility as it is impossible for an organization to exercise its social responsibility if ethical business practices are absent. Though it is difficult to establish a direct relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate governance, business ethics bridges the gap between the two. After reviewing each article, a strong connection between the three has been identified which is important for any business management to recognize and infuse into the business process. As the concept of business management, more specifically business ethics, CSR and corporate governance relies on more qualitative aspects, qualitative research will generate more valuable outcomes rather than strict inspection of quantitative data. Critical Analysis Business Ethics Extensive study of the articles on Business ethics clarifies the concept of business ethics as an integral part of Business Management that leads to incorporate ethical principles into professional arena. Article 1 and 3 explains that business ethics aims at aligning each and every steps of business conduction with standard ethical rules and practices which are applicable for all stakeholders linked with the business process. However, Article 3 reveals that competitive business environment prevailing in this era has resulted into a large number of internal and external issues related to business ethics in business management (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006). The most fundamental issue a business management experiences in terms of business ethics are integrity and trust. Hypothetically, integrity includes conducting business operations with honesty and with a promise for treating every customer equitably. However, incidents of adopting unethical business practices are becoming prominent in recent days which largely hamper the concept of business ethics and corporate code of conduct in recent times. For instance, the allegation brought against Nestle to supply inferior quality of infant formula in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in world, shows unfair measures of trade practices of the company. Business ethics leads to provide equal opportunities for all individuals in recruitment and training process and an identical treatment for career progress within the organization as maximization of employee contribution is the key to success for a business management. However, many incidents portrayed in Article 3 explain that in many times corporate decisions indicate the damage of business ethics. For instance, Wal-Mart’s decision to put a predatory pricing i.e. keeping the prices of products too low to eliminate competition and obtain monopoly power in market signifies unethical business decision of corporate. Hence, ethical business practices must be incorporated for maintaining management relations with all the stakeholders especially with suppliers to ensure continuous production and distribution of products and smooth running of business operations (Zheng Luo and Wang, 2013). Corporate Social Responsibility According to Sen and Bhattacharya (2005), Corporate Social Responsibility is a contemporary corporate approach that enhances safeguarding of the societal and environmental aspects and designs the business practices complying with societal and ecological norms. The article reveals the inclination of big corporate towards their social responsibilities. Those companies who used to contribute a very little amount in CSR earlier such as Apple Inc. are also shifting their concentration towards their social responsibilities. However, Article 1 has highlighted the fact that dwindling governmental resources and ambiguous regulations lead to decrease in government’s role of pursuing CSR activities. A recent survey conducted by Environics International revealed that almost 20% of the consumers have altered their purchasing decision based on the company’s CSR performance. Still, the incremental demand for corporate disclosure from the stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, investors and other third party service providers obstructs the managements’ initiative of conducting CSR (Zheng Luo and Wang, 2013). Large investors put less emphasis on social activities done by management and try to shift the corporate concentration for expanding production and sales. The Environics International survey also disclosed that more than a quarter of share market investors in America takes into consideration the social and ethical ground of a company before they purchase stock of a particular company. Apart from these external considerations, there exist some internal pressures that contradict management participation on Corporate Social Responsibility. Interest is deficient for the local communities engaged with the corporate houses to participate and contribute towards social activities. Hence, even if management takes decision regarding conduction of such activities, management’s effort becomes futile due to lack of effort given by local parties for making such efforts fruitful at the grass root level. Lack of transparency and absence of adequate efforts from internal sources such as disclosure of information, audit issues, improper utilization of funds excessively affects the Corporate CSR initiatives. Unavailability of well organized Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) through which corporate can channelize their CSR activities, narrow perception of stakeholders towards CSR initiatives, non-availability of well documented CSR guidelines from management and lack of consent on implementing CSR activities from associating agencies fundamentally hurts the CSR hypothesis (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2005). Corporate Governance Article 3 explains that corporate governance refers to the mechanism through which business operations are controlled and directed to identify allocation of rights and responsibilities among different parties involved with the corporation. Such parties include Board of Directors to managers, shareholders, auditors, distributors and suppliers. The article indicates that corporate governance influences modification of rules, guidelines and decisions related to corporate affairs. Hence, strong corporate governance is required for strict supervision of the functioning of firms worldwide (Luo, 2014). In spite of that, both article 1 and 2 indicates certain issues ascending out of corporate governance lead to discrepancies in corporate conduct. The primary challenges encountered by corporate are related to carry out the fiduciary duties as most of the shareholders seek to influence board decision. Rather, emphasis should be shifted to strategic planning, risk management, corporate performance and management development. Article 3 also depicts scandals related to corporate governance takes place when the directory board of a company is dominated by a single senior executive. The article also reveals the possibilities of practicing personal interest and combining such interests with corporate activities also increase as a result of having such non-standard composition of Boards. Financial and audit reports are one of the most critical aspect of corporate governance. However, most of the corporate conflict occurs regarding management accountability related to transparency of such reports. Poor management practices regarding systematic control of over organizational activities and lack of effort to bring uniformity leads to defective business management (Luo, 2014). If more emphasis is given to the quantitative numbers derived from the conceptual analysis, the degree of influence of each determinant on business management can be overlooked. According to Giacalone & Thompson (2006), in order to infuse business ethics into business management, the corporate should strive to achieve optimizing their profit, rather than maximizing it. However, Zheng Luo and Wang (2013) mentioned that negative influence coming from external environment should also be eliminated to in order to comply with the management ethics obtained by the corporate. The study of Sen & Bhattacharya (2005) on Corporate Social Activity revealed that awareness should be increased among the local parties, employees as well as management regarding the importance of CSR activities and corporate may create partnership with various organizations for successful monitoring and implementation of the CSR process. Motivation should be molded by making the business management realize the incremental brand visibility and sales the company can experience as a result of its reputation derived from CSR activities. In terms of Corporate Governance, Luo (2014) emphasis on strengthening central control, promoting innovation, sound risk management and aligning the management practices with the code of compliance will aid the corporate to evolve as a visionary entity in the field of business management. Reference Campiona, M. C., Ployharta, R. E. & MacKenzie, W. I. (2014). The State of Research on Situational Judgment Tests: A Content Analysis and Directions for Future Research. Human Performance, 27(4), 283-310. Giacalone, R. A., & Thompson, K. R. (2006). Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Education: Shifting the Worldview. Academy of Management Leaning and Education, 5(3), 266-277. Luo, Y. (2014). Cross-listing, managerial compensation and corporate governance. Cogent Economics & Finance, 2(1), 1-17. Sen, S., & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2005). Does Doing Good Always Lead to Doing Better? Consumer Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility. American Marketing Association, 38(2), 225-243. Zheng, Q., Luo, Y. and Wang, S. L., 2013. Moral Degradation, Business Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Transitional Economy. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(3), 405-421. Read More