An Analysis of the Invesco Corporate Ethics Statement and Corporate Social Responsibility Statement

Berkshire Hathaway’s code of ethics lacks in the area by not addressing more about their corporate social responsibility. There is no mention of the environment in the code of ethics, which is a bit strange for a corporation which owns many small companies that causes an environmental impact. Their code of ethics does not lack in compliance with any legal mandates. Due to the companies investment nature, they outline the expectations with the compliance of all laws in letter and in spirit. They make reference to their "Prohibited Business Practice Policy" as well. Berkshire Hathaway makes the implication that if there are any questionable issues that arise in any regard that they are reporting you to the proper authorities without hesitation.

Organizations that behave ethically are more apt to earn the trust of their customers, employees, and stockholders. Then there are companies that hide the true value of the company from possible investors, customers, employees, and the public at large showing a lack of ethically behavior. This does not all the time included just one company, but a group effort to hide, steal, and mislead everyone for personnel gains. Everyone that deals with any organization expects the upmost ethically behavior on all levels.

Ethics, ethical values, and social responsibility should all work in unison in a corporate business structure. These key traits are better defined as maintaining overall good business morals, obtaining employees who possess personal ethical values, and finally to behave ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. For a business to better ensure these quality business traits a code of ethics should be adopted by the business. In the cases of Bernie Madoff and Enron, the most well-known financial scandals in history, I feel, gave a major hand in pushing business all across America to have and enforce the code of ethics.

a. Stockholders at first reaped tremendous gains from their investments in Enron stock, because the company’s value rose a lot of quicker than market averages throughout the late Nineteen Nineties. In 2001, because the stock value folded, investors lost $70 billion in value. Each individual and institutional shareholders were hurt. Significantly blasted were Enron workers whose 401(k) retirement plans were heavily endowed in their company’s stock. Even shareholders who failed to own any Enron stock were hurt, as stock costs fell across the board within the wake of the scandal as investors doubted the integrity of the many companies’ monetary reports.

We will look at the Enron Corporation and discuss its application of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or in actuality its irresponsible behavior as related to social responsibility. We will revisit what CSR is and discuss Enron’s philosophy regarding its use and function within the corporation. We will discuss the consequences of Enron’s irresponsible behavior and the far reaching effects it had on society.

From a business ethics stance “corporate social responsibility” (Velazquez, 2007, pp. 23), refers to the social interest an organization manifest in the environment it operates. SoftMagic has not seized opportunities from corporate social responsibility. In the U.S., the use of pro-bono activities to develop networking is fundamental considering that multiple leaders of different firms participate and engage in activities that consequently offer an opportunity to market and increase the awareness of the organization. One more time, the cultural challenge seems to have affected the opportunities for SoftMagic.

The barrier I have selected is the greenwashing mindset. According to the article in “The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics”, “the greenwashing mindset—otherwise known as companies exaggerating trivial environmental changes to products, services, and processes—pervades many discussions of the environment. Characteristic of this mindset is the view that business could never act on values other than profit maximization, and that whenever a company engages in something that looks like it might be good for the environment, people should be deeply skeptical. In reality, this mindset asserts that the company is probably trying to make money, create a public relations smoke screen, avoid some future cost, or engage in other narrowly self-interested schemes.”

Bank of America Corporation, a multinational banking and financial services organization that is the second largest holding company in the entire United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank by capitalization. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the banks serves clients in more than 150 countries and has a business relationship with over 99 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 83 percent of the Fortune Global 400. As of 2010, the bank is the 5th largest company in the United States by total revenue, as well as the 2nd largest non-oil company in the United States, while Forbes listed it as the 3rd biggest company in the world. Its acquisition of Merrill Lynch in 2008 made it the world's largest wealth management corporation. B of A holds about 13 percent of all bank deposits in the United States with a retail footprint that covers about 80 percent of the U.S. population or about 57 million consumers at over 6,000 banking centers making it one of the most powerful banking forces in the contemporary industry (Bank of America, 2011; The Global 2000; Fortune 500).

Corporate social responsibility incorporates environmental, social, and economic dimensions that provide leadership and differentiation opportunities for perceptive organizations. However,

A Code of Ethics is placed to act as a guideline to specific values, ethics, organization objectives, and the responsibilities of the specific organization. The code of ethics acts a guideline and template for the behavior for both internal employees and also towards employees externally. Being the cornerstone of operations, The Star Financial and Tax Solutions Company operations are guided by the following Code of Ethics:

Shared value is a business strategy which focuses on creating overall value while addressing social problems. This concept of management strategy was expressed in the “Creating Shared Value” article by Porter and Kramer. Shared value is not just an aspect of a company’s growth strategy or general business operations. It is well integrated in the way a company operates along with what their goals are as an organization. The value created for a company’s targeted end user also has some sort of social impact which benefits their company purpose. Creating social impact is a company goal and success is measured through creating a shared value network. Porter believes that “The ability to address social issues is integral to profit maximization instead of treated as outside the profit model.” He is addressing that profits are not measured by impact not just monetary gains for the company, we can change our mindset to think of profit in a different way. Profit can be a benefit or some sort of added value. In this approach Porter argues that “Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them.” This relationship is the driving force for a company’s development and future growth, and it goes beyond corporate strategy it also incorporates investments and key stakeholders for each company. Quantifying a monetary figure and amount for social impact may be extremely difficult, however it has progressed with awareness and

The publicly traded company I chose to perform a corporate social responsibility audit on is a company that produces PCs, software, and other services – Microsoft, also known as MSFT on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Microsoft started small, with Bill Gates and Paul Allen as the founders. While Microsoft started off in Albuquerque, the men later moved the company; Microsoft’s headquarters is now located in Redmond, Va., on a road named after the company, Microsoft Way. Microsoft is defined as a multinational company, this means that Microsoft carries out business in more than two countries, in fact, Microsoft has offices in over 200 countries. A typical user would immediately think of the word processor, Microsoft Word when they think of this

The purpose of this report is to examine if the reasoning behind well-known car manufacturer, Toyota’s loss of revenue and leading market position is alone as a result of extensive product recalls following a fatal crash of a Lexus ES 350 on August 28th 2009. The journal article, “Toyota Crisis: Management Issue?” (Yuanyuan Feng 2010) provides an outline of the key factors that triggered the 2009 Toyota crisis, and explores whether the fall in the company’s returns by 19% were caused purely as a result of the recall and safety concerns, or something much deeper.

ITC Ltd has worked exremly hard to start several procedures that have led to compliance of the standards of social responsibility. ITC’s dealings within the tobacco industry have contributed to the increase in company revenues and the company has worked towards following the triple bottom line and giving back to society. Most, businesses pay little attention to their social responsibilities and make it part of their overall strategy, instead they concentrate more on financial benefits from the sales of products. Consequently, managing business in a socially responsive manner contributes to the best combination of business success and societal acceptance, trust and loyalty. Giving back to the community in ways that benefits only society such as planting trees to curb pollution and help the environment or using biodegradable materials in packaging can reap financial benefits to a company by building loyalty among the community. The notion of business ethics and corporate social responsibility is becoming a defining concept in all industries worldwide. ITC believes in the Triple Bottom Line philosophy where the performance and perception of a corporation should not be judged only on the basis of its financial statements or revenues, but its environmental and social performance as well. ITC is one of the only companies in the world to be carbon positive, water positive, and conduct solid waste recycling. ITC provides water to areas where water is very

For the past years, corporate social responsibility also referred, as corporate conscience has been a respected subject for discussion. Corporate social responsibility, unquestionably, contains more viewpoint than simply worried about the ecological impacts of associations. It came in people groups mind at the later 1880, time of essential modern advancement that associations ought to think about the thought of social obligation. Associations that are near to social obligation issues got to be worry about the principled ground of attaining to social commitment. Latter 1880 manifestation of the accountability for society has got soundness however after that period the association started to include in humanitarian force strongly (Adamsson and Johansson 2008). This study hopes to explore the corporate social responsibility and furthermore how and why affiliation its participate in corporate social responsibility. A number of multinational firms offering essentialness to the social and business substance that can give an organization a humane face and eventually it will bring notoriety and moment business advantage as individuals get to be unwavering to this. Thus, this is the reason organizations are taking CSR issue as an unquestionable requirement for getting an additional profit on present exceptionally aggressive world and along these lines happily keeping their buyer group protected from other rivalry.