Business Ethics and

Social Responsibility

By
Akash Saxena

By Akash Saxena
 Importance of Ethics
“The best chance you have of making a
big success…is to decide from square
one that you are going to do it ethically”
- Alan Greenspan
Chairman, Federal Reserve Board

By Akash Saxena
 Importance of Ethics
“There is no such thing as business
ethics….There’s just ethics; and we all
have to practice them every day in
everything we do.”
– Peter Drucker

By Akash Saxena
Concept
 Ethics: An individual’s personal beliefs about
whether a behaviour, action, or decision is
right or wrong.
 Ethical behaviour: Behaviour that conforms
to generally accepted social norms
 Unethical behaviour: Behaviour that does
not conform to generally accepted social
norms.
 Managerial ethics: Standards of behaviour
that guide individual managers in their work
By Akash Saxena
Managerial ethics

 The three basic areas of concern for

managerial ethics are the relationships of the
 Firm to the employee

 Employee to the firm

 Firm to the other economic agents

(Managers need to approach each set of

relationships from an ethical and moral
perspective)

By Akash Saxena
Shift to ethics

 Business create problems and should

therefore help solve them
 Corporations are citizens in our society
 Business often has the resources necessary
to solve problems
 Business is a partner in our society, along
with the government and general population

By Akash Saxena
Tools of ethics

 Specialized knowledge (background of the

situation)
 Whistle-blowing
 Ethical code of conduct (P&G)

By Akash Saxena
Corporate Social
Responsibility

By Akash Saxena
By Akash Saxena
 “The message is that whatever we do today
will have an impact on future generations. It’s
not just my kids or your kids or somebody
else’s. It’s future generations. We should not
hope that the walls we build to protect
ourselves will be tall enough to protect our
children. Only with very conscious effort we
can make the world for them a better place to
live…even if we address our most selfish
needs we have to address the needs of the next
generation. That’s what CSR is about.”

By Akash Saxena
“You cannot talk about CSR unless you love
your people and your country”

A student from Moscow, in opening remarks for a meeting on

Russian Future Leaders and CSR.

By Akash Saxena
Social responsibility

The set of obligations an

organisation has to protect and
enhance the societal context in
which it functions.

By Akash Saxena
Areas of social responsibility
 Stakeholders
 Natural environment

 General social welfare

Natural
(Some organisations Stakeholders
Environment
acknowledge their
responsibilities in all three
areas and strive diligently to
meet each of them. Few
others emphasize only one
or two and few do not
General
acknowledge it at all) Social
Welfare

By Akash Saxena
Stakeholders
 Local Government  Owners/investors
 Creditors  Courts
 Customers  Colleges and
 Local community universities
 Suppliers  Foreign government
 Employees  State/federal
government
 Interest groups
 Trade associates

By Akash Saxena
Natural environment
 Depletion of Ozone layer
 Global warming

 Extinction of animal species

 Disposal of industrial waste

 Recycling

 Reusing

 Recreating

(Organisations like P&G and Sony are global

leaders in environment protection)
By Akash Saxena
General Social welfare

 Charities
 Health
 Education
 Public awareness
 Human rights protection

By Akash Saxena
By Akash Saxena