Human Resource Management, Reflective Report - Essay Example

Thus, this writing is both a reflection of personal experience and also a processing phase where what I have learned during the semester is linked to the situation. The definition of social responsibility has evolved over time. "Concern for business to contribute towards social prosperity has always persisted since the days of Aristotle who reckoned the need for business to reflect the interests of the society in which their operations are based" (Masaka, 2008 as cited in Solomon, 1999). As learned in the lecture, in 1953, Howard Bowen describes it as "the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society" (Bowen, 1953 as cited in Barry).

I can relate this level of social responsibility to what a particular book describes as "doing at least some good" (Kotler, 2005). I can say that it has evolved over time, with an ever increasing responsibility on the part of the corporation. In the 1990's, the definition was notches higher that just doing something good for the community. Carroll says that "CSR at its core, addresses and captures important concerns of the public regarding business and society relationships" (1999 as cited in Barry). . This definition, for me is a more active one.

And this reflects the greater responsbility being passed on to the business industry. This definition also regards employee improvement. Thus, corporations are expected to protect and further the good of their employees.Social responsibility is always associated with the ethical standard that the company upholds. "Ethics is the discipline that examines one's moral standard or the moral standard of the society. It asks how these standards apply to our lives and whether these standards are reasonable or unreasonable, that it whether they are supported by good reasons or poor ones" (Velasquez).

There are various ethical theories: the teleologial, deontological, and virtue ethics. Theological philosophy "derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved" while deontological philosophy "holds that the basic standard for an action's being morally right are independent of the good or evil generated" (Encyclopdia Britannica, 2010). Working at the Dubai World Trade Centre as a Sales Manager made me experience a violation of deontological ethics. My director is very hard to work with and she only wants people to work her way.

She was always rude and arguing on everything which made me feel not confident at all and as a result I decided to move to another department. With the course lesson, I just realized that I made the right decision of leaving the department as my Director does not observe either corporate responsibility or ethics. I would only be consenting to her unethical behavior if I had decided to stay. I observe many companies who are only driven my the profit motive so that they ignore corporate responsibility: both to their employees and to the society. One