Week 3 Assignment

Business Ethics

JUSTIN DON

NND8

September 23, 2019

WEEK 3

1. Define Corporate Social Responsibility.

Corporate social responsibility is activities that an organization does to the community as a way of giving back to the society which hosts the organization. Social responsibility is ways that organizations use to account for the benefits derived from the community and compensate for the disadvantages that the community members face for hosting the organization. Corporate social responsibilities make the community continue hosting the organization despite the negative impact of the firm (ArAs, 2016).

2. Provide four examples of a corporation’s legal obligations

The four legal obligations of a corporation include payment of taxes to the government of the host nation, registration with the government to help in regulating the numbers of companies in an industry, complying with the regulation requirements as stipulated in the rules and regulations of the nation and maintaining minutes of the meetings of the board of directors to capture all the decision of the management (Yermack, 2017).

3. Define and contrast the instrumental model of corporate management with the social contract model of corporate management.

Instrumental model of corporate management is the approach that the organization hold towards the owners of the firm. The aim of the instrumental model of corporate management to increase the satisfaction of the customers through improved goods and services and increasing the wealth of the shareholders. Instrumental model of corporate management aims at increasing the profit of the organization within a given time frame while social contract model of corporate management strives to meet the needs of the customers and the community members at large (Yermack, 2017).

4. List and explain the five major trends driving CSR

a) Reducing government in social responsibilities. Businesses are a task with the responsibility of meeting the needs of the society because of the minimal government role towards CSR.

b) Demand for greater disclosure. Most firms get pressure from the stakeholders to reveal the social responsibility of the firm to the host community before they start their operations.

c) Supplier relations. The interest of the suppliers has increased in knowing the role of the companies towards the society.

d) Pressure from investors. The desires of the investors have grown in knowing the role of the firms towards the society before making an investment decision in an organization.

e) Customers’ interest. The customers have woken up and desire to understand the role of the business to the society as a compensation for the negative impacts of the firm.

5. Explain why organizations are struggling to adopt CSR initiatives.

Organizations struggle to adopt CSR initiatives because of various reasons. The first reason is that the CSR initiatives require finances to implement but do not have direct gain to the organization. The second reason is that some of the CSR initiatives have negatives impact on the firm which most organizations are not ready to incur (ArAs, 2016).

6. Explain the term “triple bottom line.”

Triple bottom line is an accounting framework that contains environmental, financial and social parts. Triple bottom line is used by the organization to evaluate the performance of the firm through the three areas

Exercise

In this assignment, we shall examine the corporate social responsibility of Walmart Retail Company based in Bentonville, Arkansas. The corporate social responsibility of the organization relies on the three principles of the firm. The first principle is to build a platform where all the retailers can have the opportunity to buy and sell their products. The second principle is to ensure that the operations of the firms are sustainable and operations of the organization are cost-effective. The last principle is to allow all the retailers, suppliers, employees and consumers to meet their objectives in the business. The company has strived to achieve most of the goals of the organization (ArAs, 2016).

Walmart has some weaknesses in its corporate social responsibility. The company focuses more on the external stakeholders of the organization than the employees of the firm. Corporate social responsibility requires the firm to create right working conditions to the employees in addition to looking at the concerns of the suppliers and the customers. The company have had a fleet of court cases with the employees because of the poor working environment, unpaid overtime, and unequal wages for employees, discrimination, among others. The second weakness of the social responsibility of the firm is the provision of the low quality of products. Most of the customers lay more emphasis on the prices of the products that gives the firm the advantage to produce goods of low quality to satisfy the needs of the customers of low prices (ArAs, 2016).

There are some areas that the firm need to focus on in an attempt to improve its corporate social responsibility. The first step is to support the farmers at the lowest level as this will help to improve the quality of the products supplied by the suppliers. Most of the farmers cannot use the modern tool, thus lowering the quality of the suppliers to Walmart. The second area to focus on as a responsible organization is human trafficking in the supply sector. Some of the suppliers involved in human trafficking as a strategy to lower the cost of production, which is supplied to Walmart. Walmart needs to address the issue of forced labour and human trafficking to ensure that all suppliers comply with the labour laws (Yermack, 2017).

Unfair labour practices is another area of concern that Walmart needs to examine to ensure that all the employees of the organization and suppliers work under favorable condition. The managers of Walmart can enforce the laws governing employees and employers by signing a contract with only firms that adhere to all the labour laws as stipulated by the international labour organization. The organization need to terminate the contract with the suppliers who do not adhere to the rules and regulations

References

ArAs, G. (2016). A handbook of corporate governance and social responsibility. CRC Press.

Yermack, D. (2017). Corporate governance and blockchains. Review of Finance, 21(1), 7-31.image1.jpg image2.jpg image3.jpg image4.jpg image5.jpg