Business Ethic Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign

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Ethics in the Workplace
Introduction
Businesses are generally set up with the sole purpose of making profits. Anything that does not show a return on investments or is not practical is regarded as something that can be avoided. Kant’s ethics are rule-based and are founded on reason. Similarly, most businesses are rule-based and founded on logical principles. There are several immoral behaviors that spill over into unethical practices, and such practices violate ethical policies, but most of the personal acts are conducted behind closed doors, and only a few employees can consider it to be immoral. Kant explains that moral rules are necessary for creating an ideal society based on the ‘real of ends.’ He further states that individuals should respect one another as a self-determining agent who searches for different individual ends. However, Kant also acknowledges that individuals have different rationality and that we should each respect one another’s rationality (Salazar 46). If that is the case, it might mean that companies should conduct business based on logical reasoning or that morality is important in business. There are a variety of factors that influence a company’s choice to adopt ethics and morality. These aspects lie on the borders of intense competition, technology trends, and cognitive dissonance among other factors. However, most importantly, businesses are forced to uphold ethical values to attract customers and employees. Because companies are mainly set up to make a profit, all other activities that are practices of the company are directed towards profit making. Companies, therefore, do not perform good deeds out of good will but rather to maintain customer trust and make a profit.
Corporate social responsibility campaigns are only used by companies as marketing strategies. In the current business environment, brands that are socially responsible easily appeal to customers as compared to those that do not take any initiative to contribute to the society. This means that the strategy is only to make the business more competitive. According to Pfau, Haigh, Sims, and Wigley, corporate social responsibility campaigns exert considerable positive influence on the opinion of customers (145). However, these actions are not directed toward serving the community. Friedman explains that companies have no social responsibility and that the primary responsibility of the company manager is to fulfill the expectations of the shareholders (75). Moreover, shareholders are mainly concerned with ensuring that the company is more competitive and makes profit. Similarly in Zola’s novel, the wealthy competed for recognition among themselves, and this led to the development of bitterness and different means of gaining wealth to be more recognized. Saccard felt “divine coldness” for Pillerault, Moser, and Salmon mainly because they were more successful regardless of their means of attaining their wealth (Zola 4). Similar to Saccard the need to be on the competitive edge leads companies to adopt strategies such as corporate social responsibility campaigns to please their customers and make profit. Customers also confirm that corporate behavior matters to them and that 70 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from companies that are socially responsible (Pfau et al. 146). These CSR campaigns are therefore based on companies doing good deeds, and then reporting these deeds to the public to gain the favor of customers. However, companies in general do not have social responsibilities, the responsibilities of the company’s manager are to ensure that the operations of the company are in line with the expectations of the shareholders and not of the customers. As explained by Friedman, corporate social responsibility is “preaching pure and unadulterated socialism” (Friedman 74).
The environment can influence ethics and moral values. Kant explains that our actions should be based on goodwill and that prior assessment is important to determine whether our actions are as a result of the right motivations (Salazar 45). Although Kant’s view can be easily implemented on an individual level, it might seem difficult for companies. To begin with, the current business environment presents several challenges for businesses and every decision made by a company is critical in determining its success and failure. Gebauer and Kowalkowski state that companies have changed their structures in order to become more responsive to expanding into the service business or to be more responsive to the customer’s needs (1). This means that customers are highly valued by organizations to the point that they are willing to change the company’s practices to suit their needs. Similarly, in Zola’s novel, Saccard was greatly influenced by his environment. His bankruptcy ...