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Corporate Social Responsibility

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It is obvious that people have become more conscious of the ethical and social responsibilities of business over recent decades, suggesting that the modern businesspeople should not only consider about profitability but also extent to what they can contribute to the whole society. A quote by Anita Roddick generally demonstrates the spirit of being ethically and socially responsible: “The business of business should not be about money. It should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed.” With the increasing significance of the harmonization of society, the view about whether businesses should be responsible for both ethics and society has been sparked off a heated discussion. From some people’s perspective, it would not exert much adverse impact on a company if it is not aware of its ethical and social responsibilities, since the profitability is the primary objective of running a business. Whereas the counter argument believes that business should additionally take its responsibilities for the moral development as well as the well-being of society. In my point of view, a corporation’s ethical and social responsibilities are positively interacted with financial performance, as well as other key aspects a businessman concerns about. In this essay, along with the general definitions of both ethical and social responsibilities and the benefits for a company, I would also present some business cases of either side of the controversy and provide analyses concerning those completely different results. Apart from it, there would be some recommendations about what measures can be adopted in the next step by both ethical and unethical companies.

Actually, ethical responsibility relates to ethical decisions an organization made that are accepted by employees, customers and society (Ferrell et al, 2013; p30). It can be achieved by several

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