Running head: CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS & ACCOUNTABILITY 1

Corporate responsibility, ethics & accountability

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Abstract

A short essay on Corporate responsibility, ethics & accountability

 CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS & ACCOUNTABILITY 3

Corporate responsibility, ethics & accountability

For a company, Corporate responsibility or corporate social responsibility is a medium of

contribution towards the development of the society, give necessary growth impetus to investors

and project the humane face of corporates to the world. It is also a way to project the humane

face of the company and to show the world that it is also concerned about the development of

society as a better place to live in. It is further clubbed with the ethical practices and

accountability related to it.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Large corporations or companies earning sizable profits and employing a huge number of

employees are looked upon as exploiting the natural and human resources of their location. They

ha vena image of extracting profit out of every act they do. This makes them an easy target of

public ire and government taxation. These companies, then in the 1960s started contributing to

the development of natural resources and human capital so that they can project a humanitarian

image. Thus the concept of undertaking any social activity to improve the local area and

populace through its activity begun (Demirag, 2018). Many countries have made it an important

activity for every large company to discharge their social responsibility from their profits like in

India. In bigger cities where the headquarters of these conglomerates are located, various social

initiatives like maintaining a children's park, beautification a lake, running vocational training

institutes, distributing food and items of clothing to the needy and poor, donating to charitable

societies, organizing marathons, creating awareness on pollution, and contributing to government

relief funds . in rural areas many companies and banks run farmers training center, seed

collection center, funding of self-help group and providing funds for the education of rural
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people are undertaken as corporate social responsibility. In a way, Corporates can give back to

society which has helped them in their creation.

Corporate ethics

Ethics is part of the class of philosophy dealing with morality in conducting day to day

activities of life within an acceptable social norm. All the objectives of morality like good vs

evil, right vs wrong, vice vs virtue, crime vs justice come under ethics. It can be said that all the

positive traits of morality like goodness, righteousness, virtuousness, and justice are the

foundation of ethics for an organization or a person (Lund-Thomsen, 2005).

Business ethics is the positive traits of morality that have to be followed within the

environment of conducting business. Professional ethics is somewhat the same thing that

encourages organizations to perform their n=business within high standards of honesty, integrity,

trustworthiness, helping attitude in a just manner. Business ethics are defined differently for

different levels namely – at the macro level, corporate level, and individual ethics.

At the Corporate level, the business ethics comprises of – corporate social responsibility,

and the issues of ethics faced by the various private sector and public sector entities.

The corporate ethical rules include- make sure to help others, never be dishonest, always

follow the policies and the laid rules, be respectful of others, have a hardworking attitude and be

loyal to the organization, always do the right thing and follow the right path.

Corporate Accountability.

Every company that can impact society in one way or the other is accountable for its

nonfinancial activities like corporate social responsibility, the sustainability of a healthy

environment, and adherence to corporate ethics (Tilt, 2009).

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Corporate accountability says that a company should not be only focused on its financial

output for the sake of its shareholders only, rather it must actively participate in the improvement

of society and that the community member and ts employees are equally accountable for carrying

out such activities.

To have a clearer picture regarding its corporate social responsibility, companies are

preparing reports of corporate accountability. This has been made a requirement by some private

bodies for the companies to produce in every financial year. The basis of corporate

accountability is to make companies responsible for any acts that prove detrimental to society at

large.

The result of corporate accountability is that we are seeing the printing of the caption “

Smoking is dangerous to health” or “Smoking kills” on cigarettes or chewable tobacco packets

(Lenssen, Arenas, Lacy, Pickard, et al, 2008).

Conclusion.

Corporate social responsibility is self-regulation dine by the companies to contribute to

the society which has helped them in their growth. it is not regulated by the government but in

many countries, corporates are encouraged to undertake various activities under corporate social

responsibility by providing certain incentives to them. Also, corporates have realized the value of

using activities under corporate social responsibility for improving their image and business. The

corporate ethic and accountability have given the shape to the most desirable form corporate

social responsibilities that are now showing effects as government and public are getting its

benefits during various pandemics, disasters, floods and famine. Hence the corporate social

responsibility is the need of the hour.

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References

Odongo, N. H., & Wang, D. (2018). Corporate responsibility, ethics and accountability. Social

Responsibility Journal.

McCall, J. J. (2002). Leadership and ethics: corporate accountability to whom, for what and by what

means?. Journal of Business Ethics, 38(1-2), 133-139.

Lenssen, G., Arenas, D., Lacy, P., Pickard, S., & Albareda, L. (2008). Corporate responsibility,

governance and accountability: from self‐regulation to co‐regulation. Corporate Governance: The

international journal of business in society.

Demirag, I. (Ed.). (2018). Corporate social responsibility, accountability and governance: Global

perspectives. Routledge.

Lund-Thomsen, P. (2005). Corporate accountability in South Africa: the role of community

mobilizing in environmental governance. International Affairs, 81(3), 619-633.

Tilt, C. A. (2009). Corporate responsibility, accounting and accountants. In Professionals'

perspectives of corporate social responsibility (pp. 11-32). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.