In: Economics
What are the differences in business between the 1970s and today? Social responsibilities and and ethics wise?
Social responsibility is an ethical philosophy in which people are kept responsible for performing their civic obligation, and an individual's acts will benefit society as a whole. In this way, a balance must be struck between economic growth and social and environmental welfare. If this balance is maintained then social responsibility is fulfilled.
Social responsibility philosophy is based on a system of ethics in which decisions and acts must be checked before acting in an ethical way. When the behavior or judgment were detrimental to society or the community, it will then be deemed socially irresponsible. Inherent in society, the moral values create a distinction between right and wrong. In this way, it is assumed (by most) that social justice is in the "right" but this "justice" is missing more often than not. Through individual has a duty to behave in ways that favor society and not just the individual.
The philosophy of social responsibility and ethics refers to capacities of both person and community. It should be integrated into everyday actions / decisions , particularly those which will affect other people and/or the environment. A code of social responsibility and ethics is applied in the broader, collective capacity within that collective as well as during encounters with another community or person.
Businesses have developed a social responsibility system that's tailored to their business environment. If social responsibility is maintained within a business, then the employees and the environment are held equal to the economics of the business. Maintaining social responsibility within a company ensures that it protects the integrity of society and the environment. For personal gain the ethical implications of a decision / action are often overlooked, and the benefits are usually material. This also shows itself in corporations trying to circumvent environmental regulations. When this happens, it needs intervention from the government.
The notion of business ethics can be traced back to the earliest types of bartering, based on equal exchange theory. The subject has been discussed by countless philosophers and economists, from Aristotle and his idea of justice to an attack on capitalism by Karl Marx. But the current idea of corporate ethics dates back to the upsurge in the 1970s of anti-big business activist groups in the USA. With both philosophical and empirical branches the subject gradually became an academic field in its own right. Then, due to government regulation, ethics was introduced into corporations, embodied today in policies and codes of conduct for corporate social responsibility. Business ethics is now more than just a firmly established academic field, it's something businesses realize they need to manage and internalize..
The idea of company ethics as corporate ethics continues to this day. This is part of the mainstream culture and finds expression in the media reporting of business ethical and legal misconduct and business scandals and their implications. Invariably, some journalist or politician would point a finger at business schools and their inability to educate their students in ethics or the inability of business ethics academics