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2 Corporate Social
Responsibility
(CSR)
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. Describe how different ethical perspectives guide decision making;
2. Explain how organisations influence their ethics environment;
3. Outline a process for making ethical decisions;
4. Summarise the important issues surrounding corporate social
responsibility; and
5. Discuss the reasons for the growing business interests in the natural
environment.
INTRODUCTION
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think
about that, you will do things differently.
- Warren Buffet
Every now and then we hear of managers, CEOs, executives and clerks who were
caught with corrupt practices and ethical related matters. As rightly mentioned
by Warren Buffet, no matter how much you have invested to build your
organisationÊs image and reputation, as soon as you are found and exposed by
the media to be engaged in unethical conduct, you and your organisationÊs
reputation will be tarnished and ruined with immediate effect.
In Malaysia, the business culture of giving gifts especially during festive celebrations
is a norm and treated as a sign of courtesy. However, this act of giving gifts might
also easily be misinterpreted as a form of „bribery‰. Hence, there are always grey
areas whenever we discuss about ethics, especially in business.
Ethical problems and issues in many large organisations are usually rooted from
an individual or more specifically a personal issue. If you have a corrupt boss the
whole operation within the organisation will also be corrupted. The following
Table 2.1 outlines the possible outcomes of lying and telling the truth under
various context in the workplace.
Table 2.1: Telling the Truth and Lying: Possible Outcomes
Reason and
Results of Lying Results of Truth-telling
Context of the Lie
Conflicting It is easier to lie, than address Usually, emotionally difficult.
expectations conflicts. May solve issues/problems.
Quick relief of the issue. Might create conflict.
The underlying problem not No impact in an immediate
being addressed. structure.
Might cause no harm. Builds reputation as an
Need to rationalise action in „honest‰ person.
covering the lies in order to keep
good reputation.
Negotiation Creates short term gain. Creates long term relationship.
Economically good. Creates high integrity
Might harm long term reputation.
relationship. Creates model behaviour to
Need to reason to oneself. others.
Keeping To build confidence. Breach of trust to the
confidence Might maintain long term confiding party.
relationship with the party whose Makes a person appear
confidence is kept. deceitful to all in the long run.
Might project deceitfulness to the Might create impression of
others being deceived. honesty.
Reporting your Advancement in the workplace. Creates integrity reputation.
own performance Creates dishonest reputation. Might not always be positive
within an outcomes.
Keep on continuing the sequence
organisation
of lies to make it look consistent.
ACTIVITY 2.1
By using Google, search corporate crime cases such as bribery
involving CEOs, managers, executives and clerks. Identify whether it
is justifiable for each case to be considered as „bribery‰ or a „gift‰.
(a) Universalism
Universalism refers to an ethical system which considers all people
sharing similar values across society where each individual must accept
similar standards and values in order to function in the society (Bateman
& Snell, 2015).
However you will be acknowledged by all for having the right attitude
which may or may not help you climb the corporate ladder.
(b) Egoism
The ethical system for egoism shows that the behaviour is acceptable only if
it will maximise benefits for the individual. The main focus of the egoism
principle is „Doing the right thing‰, whereby a person should do the act
that promotes the greatest good for oneself. It is believed that by doing so,
you will increase the well-being of the society. This guiding value is quite
similar to Adam SmithÊs (political economist and philosopher) concept of
the invisible hand, whereby if the organisation follows its own economic
self-interest the total wealth of society will be improved significantly
(Bateman & Snell, 2015).
(c) Utilitarianism
Under the utilitarianism principle, the main concern is to do the greatest
good for the greatest number of people (Bateman & Snell, 2015; Lim et al.,
2015). This guiding rule is commonly used in decision making. As a
manager, you have to make decisions every day hence utilitarianism
principle is the best principle to use as a guide in making decisions. Before
you can make a decision, you need to evaluate how many parties will be
affected by your decision, what will be the benefits of your decision, what
will be the cost of your decision to the affected parties which includes your
company, employees, government, society and your customers.
(d) Relativism
The principle of relativism considers other peoplesÊ opinions, cultures,
religions and behaviours in decision making (Bateman & Snell, 2015). As a
manager, you must understand the cultural and religious backgrounds of
your staff because they might look at situations from different perspectives.
Therefore prior to making any crucial decisions, it is best for you to
incorporate views from various employees. By doing so, your decision will
be a collective decision rather than a decision that might be biased towards
any one particular perspective or person. In addition, incorporating opinions
from other members in the organisation will allow the organisation to be
more innovative and creative in solving issues and problems.
(e) Does not consider ethics to be a critical factor for organisational survival,
and only considers it as one of the promotional tools;
(f) Does not have procedures in place for handling ethical issues; and
(g) Only focuses on responding to „shareholders‰ interests at the expense of
violating rules and regulations.
As can be seen from the list mentioned earlier, any organisation which opts for
higher short term profits at the expense of ethical conducts will eventually lead
to ethical misconduct and potential long-term losses. Thus, it is a must for every
manager to be an ethical leader, one whose high moral standards can influence
the staff to behave ethically.
Every organisation should have clear corporate ethical standards, ethics codes,
ethics programmes and ethical basis for decision making in place. Let us now
look at some elements that will help create an ethical climate in an organisation.
Besides establishing a code of ethics, Certo and Certo (2012) found that, in order
to create an ethical workplace, managers should be consistent in their actions and
decisions. Their actions and decisions should be guided by the following
standards:
(a) The golden rule – treat others as you would want others to treat you;
(b) The utilitarian principle – an action that will provide the greatest good for
the greatest number of people;
(c) KantÊs categorical imperative – an action under certain circumstances in
accordance with the universal law, or rule of behaviour;
(d) The professional ethic – an action that can be viewed as proper by any
disinterested panel of professional peers;
(e) The TV test – ask the question, „Will I feel comfortable explaining my
actions to the media?‰;
(f) The legal test – check if the decision is legal. Are there any laws that are
considered to have a minimum standard for ethics?; and
(g) The four-way test - if you are able to answer „yes‰ to all the four questions
below, then you are making an ethical decision. The questions are:
(i) Is the decision truthful?
(ii) Is it fair to all concerned?
(iii) Will it build goodwill and better friendship?
(iv) Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
prepared by public listed companies prior to its release to the public. This is to
promote ethical conducts such as maintaining acceptable accounting practices,
executive compensation, monitoring business strategies, mitigating risks and
ensuring company processes and structures that will enhance company
reputation and integrity. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) also protects whistle-
blowing individuals. Whistle-blowing is an act whereby an employee reports any
misconduct or corruption that is occurring in the organisation to the authorities
or media.
There are two types of ethics programmes. They are compliace-based ethics
programmes and integrity-based ethics programmes. Figure 2.1 explains the two
types of ethics programmes.
You must understand all the moral standards and recognise all the moral impact
such as the benefits or the rights being exercised, whether your decision will
bring harm to others, and are there any rights being denied or violated. Once you
have applied these universalism principles, you may define the associated moral
issues or problems. This will help you to determine the economic outcomes,
consider the legal requirements and evaluate the ethical duties. The final step is
to propose a convincing moral solution by considering the financial implications
of your decision. At this stage, you are likely to base your proposal from a
utilitarianism, relativism or virtue ethics system.
ACTIVITY 2.2
If we reflect on societyÊs behaviour, where some people respect and
highly regard those who have big cars, huge houses but disrespect
those who live in small houses with small cars, it indirectly indicates
that we may live in a prejudicial society. Do you agree with the
statement? Explain your answer.
Let us now look at Figure 2.3 which illustrates the process of corporate social
responsibility and decision making, to ensure that the steps taken are socially
responsible.
The following Figure 2.4 depicts the pyramid of global social responsibility and
performance. The diagram shows that philanthropic responsibility is the highest
expectation of global stakeholders towards an organisation. It depicts how well a
business serves the society by improving the economic activities, by upholding
legal requirements, by being ethically responsible as well as taking the
responsibility to perform philanthropic activities.
Do both views need to contradict each other? Well, not really. In fact both views
can be merged. For example, Coca Cola Company had initiated 70 charitable
projects in 40 countries to provide clean water. As water is critical to sustain lives,
those people with access to clean water will be able to survive. Thus from an
economic perspective, they have the potential to be future Coca Cola customers.
ACTIVITY 2.3
In the organisation that you are currently working with right now,
identify which level of corporate responsibility has already been
achieved by your organisation? Is it economic responsibility, legal
responsibility, ethical responsibility or philanthropic responsibility?
Support your answer with the relevant evidence.
More companies are practising the life cycle analysis, a process that analyses all
probable inputs and outputs from the entire „cradle-to-grave‰ life of a product,
in order to determine the total environmental impact of the industry.
SELF-CHECK 2.1
Business ethics comprises the moral principles and standards that are used to
guide business operations and decision making.
There are many strategies that can be used to enhance ethics in organisations
such as establishing corporate ethical standards, code of ethics, ethics
programmes and implementing ethical decision making process.
There are two types of ethics programmes. They are compliance-based and
integrity-based programmes.
More and more organisations have taken an interest in activities related to the
preservation of the environment as it has a direct or indirect effect on
business operations and profitability.