A Business Ethical Duty
A Business Ethical Duty: Social Responsibility
Joe McClendon
Western Governors University
A community business has a social responsibility to its local community, its employees have an ethical duty their employer, and management has business responsibility to act in the best interest of stakeholders. Company Q is a small local grocery store chain located in a major metropolitan area. The company is struggling internally with ethical integrity and social responsibility. Company Q’s ethical issues are becoming destructive and causing management to fail to act in the best interest of stakeholders or socially responsible. Currently management seems to exhibit Milton Friedman’s form of capitalism, failing to recognize its customer base demands a business that practices the capitalist form of Adam Smith. Its lack of social responsibility is causing the local community to lose trust in the organization. Company Q must seriously begin the process of dealing with its internal mess of ethical misconduct and public perception of lack of social responsibility or risk the company’s profit margins beginning to decline.
Recently, Company Q closed a couple of stores in higher-crime-rate areas of the city, reportedly because these two stores were consistently losing money. Company Q closing stores that were not financially performing is not socially irresponsible or a form of ethical misconduct, if the company closed underperforming stores and this was a business decisions based on income and expenses. The company holds a financial responsibility to it stakeholders to make savvy business decisions so that it may remain in business and give returns on investments. It may also be argued to company failed to be social responsible because it failed to be profitable. Every business holds the goal of profitability unfortunately Company Q failed to find profitability in higher-crime-rate areas of the city.
After years of requests from customers, all of
Joe McClendon
Western Governors University
A community business has a social responsibility to its local community, its employees have an ethical duty their employer, and management has business responsibility to act in the best interest of stakeholders. Company Q is a small local grocery store chain located in a major metropolitan area. The company is struggling internally with ethical integrity and social responsibility. Company Q’s ethical issues are becoming destructive and causing management to fail to act in the best interest of stakeholders or socially responsible. Currently management seems to exhibit Milton Friedman’s form of capitalism, failing to recognize its customer base demands a business that practices the capitalist form of Adam Smith. Its lack of social responsibility is causing the local community to lose trust in the organization. Company Q must seriously begin the process of dealing with its internal mess of ethical misconduct and public perception of lack of social responsibility or risk the company’s profit margins beginning to decline.
Recently, Company Q closed a couple of stores in higher-crime-rate areas of the city, reportedly because these two stores were consistently losing money. Company Q closing stores that were not financially performing is not socially irresponsible or a form of ethical misconduct, if the company closed underperforming stores and this was a business decisions based on income and expenses. The company holds a financial responsibility to it stakeholders to make savvy business decisions so that it may remain in business and give returns on investments. It may also be argued to company failed to be social responsible because it failed to be profitable. Every business holds the goal of profitability unfortunately Company Q failed to find profitability in higher-crime-rate areas of the city.
After years of requests from customers, all of