Ethical Objectives and Corporate Social Responsibility

1) define

a) Ethics: are the moral principles that guide decision making and strategy.

b) Morals: are concerned with what is considered to be right or wrong, in society's point of view.

c) Corporate Social Responsibility: are responsibilities of businesses that act morally towards thier stakeholders such as thier employees and the local community.

d) Social Auditing: is a way to ensure that socially responsible objectives are being implemented.



2) Give three examples of unethical business behavior.

• financial dishonesty: delibratly misenterpretating a business to make money
• environmental neglect: harming the environment
• exploitation of workforce: mistreatment of staff

3) What are the disadvantages and advantages of businesses who behave ethically?

Advantages of behaving ethically are:

• having an improved corporate image:- enahanced image and reputation of business
• increased customer loyalty:- customers are more likely to be more loyal to businesses that do not act immorally or unethically.
• cost cutting:- possible to reduce certain costs of production through ethical behaviour
• improved staff motivation:- ethical and moral behaviour can boost employee motivation and by doing so increase productivity and loyalty.
• improved staff morale:- ability to recruit high quality staff who are motivated to work for businesses that behave ethically and morally.

Disadvantages/Limitations of ethical behaviour are:

• compliance costs:- refers to high costs of acting ethically
• lower profits:- if the compliance costs can not be charged to the customer using the product then profitability will fall. can also be referred to ethical dilemma.
• Stakeholder conflict

4) How does CSR help a business compete?

Businesses that act in a a socialy responsible way gain a better image as a business and so do thier products. this means that it will result in people buying more of thier products, Ex. The Body Shop. Due to the businesses success the business will then get more investors.

5) Why is a social audit undertaken by business?

Businesses undertake a social audit to make sure thier objectives as a socially responsible business are being met. the social audit is an assessment of how the businesses objectives are affecting the society.