Ethical Issues Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : business ethics

Responding to Ethical Challenges

Contents

Introduction

People, planet, profits- a more media-friendly message than triple bottom

Dismissal for “window-dressing”

Sustainable capitalism

Correlation between Generation IM’s manifesto and commonly accepted CSR

Challenges

Introducing sustainable capitalism in my company

Conclusion

References

Introduction

In the contemporary era, the ethical or unethical challenges related to business practices have gained considerable attention all over the world. Ethical business can be illustrated as a behaviour wherein a business is associated with the dealings taking place every day with the remaining world or societal belief concerning the suitability or non-suitability influencing the operations of any business (Crane et al., 2019). However, an economy of capitalist can only operate sustainably within the framework of an ethical and fair society. Lack of ethical as well as moral restraints in a capitalist can result in the degradation and depletion f societal and natural resources. This essay is going to discuss some of the issues and concepts related to ethical practices based on a case study of sustainable capitalism.

People, Planet, Profits- a More Media-Friendly Message than The Triple Bottom

Triple bottom line is a kind of philosophical approach capturing an expanded continuum of criteria and values to measure the success of an organization in terms of ecological, economic and social that builds up a case for the firms accounting for the full cost and effect for carrying out a business (Alhaddi, 2015).

“People, planet, profits” can be considered as an alliteration which is generally attractive and can be easily remembered by the audience and also can be recalled. Moreover, the main purpose of every media message is to make the readers or viewers recollect the information and also is incentivized for using it whenever it is appropriate for conducting business.

Hence, the message of “people, planet, profits” can be regarded as more-friendly as well as easier to remember as compared to the "triple bottom line". Moreover, it is effortless for a common man for understanding the concept.

Dismissal for “Window-Dressing”

Window dressing is a term which is popularly used by the corporations nowadays defining various activities concerning the utilization of financial transactions of short term for manipulating accounting values across reporting sates of quarter-end (Connors et al., 2017). It can be considered to be a strategically determined action taken by the organization which is implemented to serve for altering the public opinions by communicating the behaviour of positive social responsibility at the same time discarding internationalization of the policies of CSR.

Based on breach of code of conduct the practice of window-dressing could be dismissed since it is an unethical practice involving the deception of interest of the management rather than the information users’ interest such as investors, owners, and government. Window-dressing can be considered as an illegal practice or fraudulent activity contradicting the accounting standards or law since it makes illegal amendments to charts, numbers, order, and timelines to create the financial image of any firm more appealing to the stakeholders (Hu, Dou & Wang, 2019). The altered financial statements do not present a fair performance as well as the position of any entity that may be misleading to the users and hence this unethical practice should be dismissed.

Sustainable Capitalism

Sustainable capitalism is a kind of framework seeking to increase the economic value creation in the long-term through the reformation of markets so that all real needs could be addressed with the consideration of costs along with the integration of ESG metric in the decision-making process. Sustainable capitalism can be referred to as the conceptual structure of capitalism which based on the sustainable practices seeking to maintain humanity as well as the planet with the reduction of externalities along with accepting the similitude of capitalist economic policy (Kazeroony & Stachowicz-Stanusch, 2014). It is believed that the capitalist economy must undergo expansion for sustaining and finding contemporary markets to hold up this kind of expansion.

The capitalist system is sometimes considered to be destructive for the environment and also to a few individuals with no access to appropriate representation but with sustainability, it only provides a continuation but also reloading of resources. The concept is applied to the complete investment value chain from the entrepreneurial business enterprises to all those large-cap firms that are publicly from the investors offering seed capital to those emphasizing on the growth-oriented opportunities based on late-stage.

Correlation Between Generation Im’s Manifesto and Commonly Accepted CSR

There were numerous changes proposed by the manifesto to the manner capitalist system at present functions. The first action in the manifesto was about identifying and incorporating risks out of the stranded assets that would require the corporations to value items more accurately wherein any kind of considerable changes in the price would affect negatively bottom-line profitability (Terziev et al., 2016). The second was about integrated reporting of environmental, social, and governance performance that generated considerable push back from many huge corporations and argued that the level of maturity assumed within ESG is not in the position yet.

The third action was related to ending default practice of guiding quarterly earnings which were not a new proposal but only awareness for serious consideration. The fourth and fifth action was to address the professed issue of short term management affecting long-term sustainable value creation which further represented a conflict of interests for Al Gore. The fifth action of encouraging long-term investment along with loyalty driven securities was viewed as major damage to sustainable capitalism. Therefore, it can be said that the proposal was far from the actual commonly accepted tenets of CSR

Challenges

The broader acceptance related to sustainable capitalism across the world may have to witness some of the major challenges. The major challenge related to this would be inequality or imbalance within the social system as the system of capitalism has resulted in an imbalance in the social system by failing to adjust itself to the wellbeing of the society.

The most fundamental science shows that unrestrained capitalism cannot be considered sustainable. Every economic value is intrinsically individualistic and hence there is no such economic incentive that can be solely beneficial to anyone else and not assure sustainability for the future generations. Attempts to be made for ensuring sustainability with the assignment of economic values to the costs associated with ecological and social along with the benefits inexorably result in misallocation and under-evaluation of ecological and social resources (Korhonen, Honkasalo & Seppala, 2018).

Introducing Sustainable Capitalism in My Company

I believe that legislation and appropriate leadership would play a fundamental role in the establishment of the industrial revolution gearing up towards the path of sustainable capitalism. I would begin with the establishment of a social mission to make the business more socially conscious. After this, it would be essential for some realistic goals are build aiming to achieve those by not causing foremost disruptions in everyday operations. Moreover, it is extremely important to educate the employees and the entire team by involving and informing them of each step of the process. My next step would be to systematize a team of in-house social-responsibility that should be made responsible for reporting the performance related to social responsibility strategy. Finally, I believe that social responsibility begins from within and hence I would make sure that ethical practices are being followed in the company.

Conclusion

Some organizations are mainly into making more and more money while some organizations believe in the practice of rights things considering their responsibility towards society’s welfare. The organizations must opt for significant programs that are value-infused against of window-dressing to develop valuable and new core competencies. After going through the case study and understanding the basic concept of sustainable capitalism, the message is explicit that the ethical brand related to capitalism demands courageous and strong leadership so that the value-driven companies and leaders could bring in the sustained success for the society as well as the organization.

References

Alhaddi, H. (2015). Triple bottom line and sustainability: A literature review. Business and Management Studies, 1(2), 6-10.

Connors, S., Anderson-MacDonald, S., & Thomson, M. (2017). Overcoming the 'window dressing' effect: mitigating the negative effects of inherent skepticism towards corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(3), 599-621.

Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S., & Spence, L. (2019). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press, USA.

Hu, H., Dou, B., & Wang, A. (2019). Corporate Social Responsibility Information Disclosure and Corporate Fraud—“Risk Reduction” Effect or “Window Dressing” Effect?. Sustainability, 11(4), 1141.

Kazeroony, H., & Stachowicz-Stanusch, A. (Eds.). (2014). Capitalism and the social relationship: An organizational perspective. Springer.

Korhonen, J., Honkasalo, A., & Seppälä, J. (2018). Circular economy: the concept and its limitations. Ecological Economics, 143, 37-46.

Terziev, V., Banabakova, V., & Arabska, E. (2016). Capitalism in Contemporary World. In Knowledge Without Borders, Eight International Scientific Conference (8-10.4. 2016, Bulgaria).

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