Corporate Sustainability, Communication, and Ethics Essay (Article Review)

The Sustainability Imperative

Article Summary

The article, ‘Products, People and Planets: The Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Imperative’ broadens Brundtland commission’s conception of sustainability to include economic, social, and environmental notions. Media focus and public pressure on the imperative has had to inculcate ‘go green’ sensibility among business enterprises and top organizational management. Many corporations such as Clorox, G.E, Timberland, Toyota among others have adopted a ‘go green’ policy. Clorox for instance adopted the concept through personal protection, cost reduction through re-use, and consumption reduction (Satinder Dhiman). Wal Mat’s people policy is criticized for oppressive tendencies towards its employees through meager salaries slightly above welfare line ups.

Strengths

The article manages to gather enough empirical evidence to support the sustainability thinking among scholars based on practice. The author has succeeded in demonstrating to the reader consequences of not going green. Companies that ignored the green policy like Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco collapsed. The author has managed to connect the sustainability imperative with current green innovations. The article is informative and well researched.

Weaknesses

The article fails to demonstrate the shortcomings of sustainability to the corporate world in terms of cost. It over concentrates on environment-friendly policies and ignores the economic costs of maintaining a green policy. Corporate organizations require enormous resources for research and design. The article has drawn examples from successful companies that went green and ignored non-green ones that were also successful.

Interaction Model and Community Social Pressure

Summary

In the article, ‘Corporate Responsiveness to Social Pressure: An Interaction based Model’ Pia Latola links public relations with corporate communication in managing stakeholder relations to quell social pressure. He argues that corporate management requires a contemplative view of communication management. The article explores how the international business environment through an interaction-based model manages corporate responsiveness to social pressure. The organization has both functional and moral responsibilities which are shaped by social pressure, management competence, and organizational design (Lotila, 2010).

Weaknesses

The article fails to capture an understanding from a community perspective. It fails to introduce three-dimensional examples of the success and failure of the interaction-based model. The case study is unique and its interactions do not reflect context situations. The findings are not universal but can be used as an insight for the future.

Strengths

The article is well-grounded in theory and practice. It has well-researched empirical evidence that supports arguments explored in the article. It gives a critical review of opportunities, gaps, and future reflections. A thorough literature review by scholars provides a rich analysis of the subject. The author provided enough examples to support various arguments in the article.

Organizational Ethics into Practice

Summary

In Organizational ethics from a perspective of praxis, Nielsen (1993, P. 0113) presents “a theory and method of appropriate action for addressing issues and developing ethical organizations”. The article compares how various perspectives of organizational ethics praxis are important and different from perspectives of organizational ethics theory and epistemology (Nielsen, 1993). “Various perspectives differ in understanding of theory and practice of epistemology and ontology” (Nielsen, 1993, P. 0114). Nielson (1993, 0115) notes that “praxis is less developed in the field of organizational ethics”. A dialog method is utilized to illustrate how such a tool can be useful in organizational ethics.

Strengths

The article is laden with facts that aid logical reasoning. It is well researched and easily identifies gaps and areas for further research. The author has managed to identify areas with educational gaps. A review of various philosophical scholars provides rich information for analysis. The author offers a triangulation of both theory and practice to interpret a situation in the organization.

Weaknesses

The article over relies on philosophical abstraction as opposed to practice-based organizational management. The dialogue tool is not enough; the article should have explored a variety of other tools. The real corporate world relies on the interpretation of practice evidence yet the author stresses theory. New models should be explored organizational ethics’ interpretation.

References

Lotila, P. (2010). Corporate Responsiveness to Social Pressure: An Interaction – Based Model. Journal of Business Ethics, 94 , 395-409.

Nielsen, R. (1993). Organization Ethics from a Perspective of Praxis. Business Ethics Quartely, 3(2), 0131-0151.

Satinder, D. (n.d.). Products, People and Planet: The Triple Bottom-Line Sustainability Imperative. The Journal of Global Business Issues, 2(2), 40-50.