Employees and boards of directors in an organization are linked together by a business manager. The latter acts as the point person when it comes to important matters affecting the operations of a company or business entity. The 21st century business environment has significantly transformed. As a result, there are myriads of ethical issues and dilemmas that managers face on a daily basis.
Needless to say, they are supposed to confront such issues so that their organizations can run smoothly and profitably. It can be a challenge to deal fairly with everyone at workplace bearing in mind that employees are different both in terms of character and work input.
To begin with, the 21st century managers regularly face the issue of ethical responsibility while discharging their duties. The subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has formalized the query about ethics in business. Modern business organizations are duly expected to give back to the communities they serve in a number of ways.
For example, they should not merely focus on profitability at the expense of polluting the immediate environment. Contemporary organizations ought to be responsible to society even if the ideals of the free market economy prevail.
As it stands now, there is a growing push for managers to adhere to corporate social responsibility even if it will cut down their profits. Awareness in regards to ethical issues is a priority for the modern-day managers. This implies that they should be fully conversant with several ethical issues while managing various business portfolios.
In the case of corporate social responsibility, the 21st century managers sometimes find it economically burdensome to conform to the demands of both local communities and government authorities especially when they are compelled to forego growth agenda.
A case in point is the issue of environmental protection. The green energy revolution demands heavy emitters of greenhouse gases to reduce their emission quotas. As much as it is ethically sound to adhere to such restrictions, managers find themselves at crossroads because the revenue base might be concurrently affected (Pomering and Johnson 433).
Non-market issues can be swiftly addressed by various ethical perspectives. Some of the issues include employment practices, environmental regulation and product safety. When corporate social responsibility is addressed using an ethical approach, the role of government on environmental regulation is assumed.
One of the most profound ethical perspectives that can be used to address the above ethical challenge is utilitarianism. Our way of thinking is strongly influenced by this ethical approach. For example, the perspective addresses the social efficiency criteria for corporations that produce in bulk. The benefits of actions and economic costs should be weighed appropriately when any corporate social responsibility is undertaken.
The second ethical challenge for modern managers is discrimination. It is the moral responsibility of managers to address all arising cases of discrimination at workplace. Even in the 21st century, sexual orientation, gender, ethic origin and race are still key launch pads for discrimination in organizations (Tackett, Claypool and Wolf 9). This explains why several lawsuits on workplace discrimination have been heard in courts across the globe.
Worse still, such accusations are usually very serious. In any case, the entire organization may be charged in a court of law for failing to stop issues related to workplace discrimination.
In order for managers to be abreast with such an ethical challenge, they should take proactive steps to learn and avoid every element of discrimination in organizations that they manage. For instance, managers should employ relevant factors such as ability and experience when hiring workers.
The best ethical perspective that can be used to describe this ethical challenge is moral rights as proposed by Kant. This perspective focuses on individual and moral rights. In regards to reversibility of this perspective, it denotes that whatever is done to one person can be comfortably applied across the board without any complaint because it is deemed to be fair.
If everybody is expected to act in a particular way, then the principle of universibility applies (Sharma and Sharma 93). In other words, every individual or employee at workplace should avoid discrimination. The Kantian moral rights perspective also attempts to expound the significance of affirmative action against equal opportunity.
It is vital to mention that workplace discrimination may also be aggravated by affirmative action. Equal opportunity and a level playing ground are prudent in eliminating all elements of discrimination within organizations.
It is indeed true that the primary purpose of laws that govern the corporate social responsibility is to deter major players in the business world from executing certain operations that may be injurious to both the physical environment and human life. One of the main concerns in the operations of business organizations in the modern world is pollution.
The latter has led to environmental degradation coupled with destruction of biodiversity. Pieces of legislations have played enormous role across the globe in ensuring that the corporate world adhere to the set standards of safe operations.
In any case, the legal vein is a common feature that runs through the long history of CSR worldwide. Most jurisdictions have come up with positive law regimes to control or deter negative activities of business organizations. There are rare cases when organizations take voluntary initiatives to either give back to society or preserve the environment in lieu of their profit margins (Pies, Beckmann and Hielscher 269).
During the better part of the 19th century, most corporate organizations adopted a trend whereby individuals used business institutions to benefit themselves at the expense of communities. A lot of emphasis was laid on the optimization of profits regardless of the devastating impacts.
In any case, the concept of corporate social responsibility is a rather new development that came into existence after several laws were introduced. Legislative chattering paved way for social corporate responsibility in the business world.
The assertion by John R. Boatright cannot be doubted. In recent times, business organizations have blatantly hijacked the concept of social corporate responsibility in marketing their respective portfolios (Arnold 102).
In addition, John R. Boatright’s position can be supported by the fact a corporation exists within the confines of the law. Therefore, its operations are guarded by the law. Unless certain deterrent measures are put in place, business organizations might easily go against safety precautionary measures (Byrne 501).
Responsibility is vital in the operations of business organizations. The wider society and key stakeholders usually expect corporations to abide by the set laws and regulations when running their businesses. Hence, a socio-legal approach is required whenever addressing the issue of corporate social responsibility.
The challenges faced by the modern globalized world may be reduced substantially if business organizations stick to certain standards. This explains why legislation is enacted to make sure that these organizations stick to safe operations.
There are two unique ethical perspectives of corporate social responsibility. These include the business roundtable and Milton Friedman theories. According to Friedman, profit maximization should be the main focus of business organizations. However, the same corporations ought to adhere to primary rules of society. Second, principals of an organization are the shareholders (Svensson and Wood 303).
On the other hand, agents are represented by the shareholders. They are usually supposed to optimize the wealth of shareholders. Besides, social good is only possible through the gains made by an organization. Hence, social corporate responsibility should be implemented through the profits made by an organization.
The process of making and maximizing profit margins should fall within the best interests of the communities being served. It is also undemocratic for managers to utilize organizational resources in promoting societal goals.
In the case of business roundtable ethical theory on corporate social responsibility, it is proper for a business organization to make private profit alongside serving the public’s interest. Since corporation is a lawful entity, there should be rules governing its operations (Arnold, Beauchamp and Bowie 67).
From the above discussions and ethical theories, it is evident that laws are established to deter corporations from infringing the basic rights of communities they serve. For example, business organizations are supposed to adhere to strict environmental laws and regulations when it comes to the generation and disposal of waste materials.
It is also crucial to underscore the fact that corporations are established through legal provisions and that is why their operations are within given legal frameworks. For managers in the 21st century era, it is necessary for them to learn how to cope with the emerging ethical issues at workplace so that their organizations do not lose public reputation or run into losses.
Works Cited
Arnold, Denis, Tom Beauchamp and Norman, Bowie. Ethical theory and Business. New York: Pearson, 2013. Print.
Byrne, Edmund. “Business Ethics should Study Illicit Businesses: To Advance Respect for Human Rights.” Journal of Business Ethics 103.4 (2011): 497-509. Print.
Pies, Ingo, Markus Beckmann, and Stefan Hielscher. “Value Creation, Management Competencies, and Global Corporate Citizenship: An Ordonomic Approach to Business Ethics in the Age of Globalization.” Journal of Business Ethics 94.2 (2010): 265-278. Print.
Pomering, Alan, and Lester Johnson. “Advertising Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives to Communicate Corporate Image.” Corporate Communications 14.4 (2009): 420-439. Print.
Sharma, Richa, and Malvika Sharma. “Some Reflections on Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Asia Pacific Journal of Management & Entrepreneurship Research 3.2 (2014): 89-96. Print.
Svensson, Goran, and Greg Wood. “A Model of Business Ethics.” Journal of Business Ethics 77.3 (2008): 303. Print.
Tackett, James, Gregory Claypool, and Fran Wolf. “Economic Versus Moral Based Pedagogies for Business Ethics.” Journal of Business and Educational Leadership 3.1 (2011): 3-14. Print.