An Executive Summary - the Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Its Profit

Social responsibility is generally regarded as a duty of an organization’s management towards the benefit and well-being of the society in which it is engaged. The organization must behave ethically considering the social, cultural, economic and environmental issues.

Because corporations are established to profit and shareholders invest money with expectations of a greater return, managers cannot be given a directive to be “socially responsible” without providing specific criteria of checks and balances to which needs to adhere. Therefore, it is imperative to the success of a corporation for managers to not act solely but rather to act within the policies of the shareholders.

Firstly, I would like to explain what Corporate Social Responsibility is. “It is a company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and

Many believe that business entities should have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations look for opportunities to be socially responsible while also creating shareholder wealth.

Chapter 5 in the text, Business, Government, and Society by John F. Steiner and George A. Steiner, corporate social responsibility is defined as the corporate duty to create wealth by using means that avoid harm to, protect, or enhance social assets. General Electric in the Jack Welch Era fulfilled its corporate social responsibility but by marginal measures.

Milton Friedman argues that persons may choose to undertake social responsibilities to their communities, churches, or nations, and devote their own incomes to causes that they deem morally worthy. But, he adds, if corporate executives attempt to take such social responsibilities or to direct the corporation’s profits to such personal causes, without approval from the shareholders, then:

Every business has a social responsibility toward society. That means to maximize positive affects and minimize negative affects on the society. Social responsibilities includes economic-to produce goods and services, that society needs at the price, that satisfy both-business and consumers, legal

Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to enhance its profits. The New York Times Magazine.

Corporate Social Responsibility are actions taken by a corporation that have positive and lasting impact for all stakeholders associated with the organization, seeking to strike a balance between profits and helping to establish lasting investment in the community (Carrol, 2015). In the 1980’s, then President Reagan challenged the business community to take on more responsibility to address social problems (Carrol, 2015). Socially responsible actions can benefit local communities as well as the greater societal good.

Social responsibility is a construct of appropriate ethical behaviors, where two or more individuals, and corporations strive to provide better outcomes for the benefit of society as a whole. With such a set of meticulous structured frameworks in mind, it is fundamental to achieve a harmonious balance between the ecosystem and the developing economy. However, social responsibility is not always first and foremost on the mind of big name corporate companies – such as General Mills Inc.

Mr. Friedman was influenced by Fredrich von Hayek a free-market thinker and believed that the government should stay out of peoples affairs whenever possible letting and that market could solve economic problems more efficiently than government officials could. This idea became known as the “Chicago School” of economics, a concept of free-market capitalism. (Placeholder2)

Corporate social responsibility is an organizations’ impact on society that goes beyond what is ethical. Being socially responsibility, an individual in upper management must realize how the actions might be able to influence the rest of the environment. If a company is socially responsible the company is honest, trustworthy, and display integrity while dealing with others and provides the attention to the stakeholders, build a community by searching for goals that are compatible with and respect individuals and accomplish silent triumphs.

Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician and writer, who had a massive impact on the research agenda of the economics profession. His famous words “the only responsibility of business is to increase its profits” (Friedman, Milton. 1970) led to many controversial debates on whether businesses should have ethics or if profit should be their main goal. Corporate social responsibility has many definitions, as its interpretation is quite loose, so I have chosen one that relates the most to this essay, given by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, in 2000: “Corporate social

Is the deception of consumers worth making a profit? The Ford Pinto, popular car of the 1970s, made a profit off of a vehicle that endangered the lives of hundreds of people. In his essay “Pinto Madness” Mark Dowie, author and Pulitzer Prize nominee, exposed the unethical decisions made by Ford Motor Company. When it came to their customer’s safety and profit for the company, Ford made a decision that led to consequences their customers had to pay the price for. Should the business be held accountable for these actions? In his essay “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profit” Milton Friedman, powerful economist, discusses what a business should prioritize in the economic system. Friedman declares what a business is responsible for and the guidelines they must follow. Due to Friedman’s view, he would not have condoned the actions and decisions that the executives at Ford Motor Company took.

Corporate social responsibility is the voluntary stance or set of actions from a corporation that demonstrate a contribution to a better society and a cleaner environment. Corporations are already required to operate within the law, but laws do not always protect all people or individuals who will be affected by the corporation’s actions. In addition to this, it is very common for special interests to play a part in legal decisions through lobbying efforts, so it is assumed to be an additional effort for a corporation to be socially responsible. Being socially responsible essentially comes down to being considerate and calculated in the decision making process, paying attention to the consequence of every action. In the ethical decision making model, there are two particular steps that I believe to be of greater importance than the others. The first would be that of