Notes on Business Ethics in accordance with the OCR Religious Studies specification. The notes provide information, scholars, ideas and quotes compiled from various resources from both within and outside of the curriculum.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Friedman
- ‘there is one and only one social responsibility of business- to use its
resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profit so long
as it engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.’
Friedman
- argues CSR is simply ‘hypocritical window dressing’ that doesn’t achieve
anything for business. It is disingenuous marketing
- CSR politicises business, ‘preaching pure and unadulterated socialism.’ It
is ‘political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate
way to determine the allocation of scarce resources.’
- it is unfair to the stakeholders in the corporate as ‘the corporate executive
would be spending someone else’s money for a general social interest.’
social responsibilities:
- should businesses be allowed to produce something unhealthy so long as it
passes health code violations
- do human rights need to be upheld
- is transparency necessary in a business or can the consumer be kept in the
dark
Case Study: Arconic executive knew cladding used in Grenfell could burn, led to the
2017 event. They weren’t truthful about the regulations an difference of cladding in
order to get a greater profit
Patagonia’s CSR:
1. Fair Trade program, 87% of Patagonia’s line is Fair Trade Certified
2. Fair Labour Association
3. Regenerative Organic Certified Programs, more sustainable cotton used
4. Factories, Farms and Mills program addresses working conditions
5. Living Wage program attempts to not fall back on minimum wage
- 50% of consumers care if a product is sustainable
- customers are willing to pay more for an ethical product
Whistleblowing
- the choice to speak out and reveal something that the company an employee
works for is doing that is morally wrong
- in UK law employees are obligated to highlight illegal activities
Case Studies
‘The Facebook Files’ leaked by Frances Haugen because it showed that Instagram
acknowledging them making body issues worse for 1 in 3 teenage girls and the
algorithm promoting posts that caused anger/outrage
Wigand Tobacco Industry: in 1996 Wigand whistle blew on the tobacco industry
using a chemical additive that make cigarettes more harmful
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