Closing Case: Nicolo Pignatelli and Gulf Italia

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.

There are conflicting expectations of the nature of a company’s responsibilities to society. However, those companies that undertake what may be termed ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ must decide; what are the actual social responsibilities of these companies? I will present a possible paradigm. Also, I will look at the benefit to the business that employs proper management as compared the business with poor management. This research paper describes my view of corporate social responsibility and compares the social responsibilities of Delta Air Lines and Spirit

The second choice that Alistair has to consider is to keep silent and overlook the bribe. This would lead to the situation staying the same (as stated in the case study) and would secure the happiness of the greater good which include: the director, the relief organisation, the drivers and the people receiving the medicine. The board of directors would not know about the bribe, so there would be no unhappiness to consider.

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.

In this paper I am going to discuss and explain my opinion on why a company Q is or is not socially responsible in the following areas company Q close a couple of stores in high crime areas, company Q started offering a very limited health conscious an organic products, company Q was approached by the local food bank for donations of day old food and company Q declined the donation request from the food bank and started throwing the food away, and company Q suspected possible fraud among its employees.

I would personally suggest that Pignatelli should look the other way from bribes for something more ethical choice. In additional, Pignatelli should ask his partners to pressure law-makers and government officials to grant the two needed permissions for his refinery. In the case if it doesn’t proceed as planned, than he should manage the as is for now until gaining more government authorization. It will take some significant time to get proper authorization and clearance in order to proceed with the plan but at least he will successful operate a multi-million dollar refinery without any legal loopholes to wiggle through or any personal obligations to own. Also, following the long legal route can prevent any public backlash that could hinder

Although companies must create a social benefit to be called social responsibility, society has also benefited from various services and actions ⑤(Gina -Marie,

Obviously Pignatelli is on a very tough position and I would hate to be him but if I was in that position then I am convinced that I would play it straight and try to gain government authorization. There is a lot of reasons why I would play it straight but the main one is because I believe in the Moral Rights approach, like stated before. I take into consideration the steps in process into doing an action and I don’t believe that bribing or paying somebody to bribe government officials is the right thing to do. if you think about it, maybe yes bribing the government officials or paying the consultant is the fastest resolution but on a long run it can bring awful consequences, one being that government officials are always going to want more

“Businesses are an integral part of the communities in which they operate. Good executives know that their long-term success is based on continued good relations with a wide range of individuals, groups and institutions. Smart firms know that business can’t succeed in societies that are failing—whether this is due to social or environmental challenges, or governance problems. Moreover, the general public has high expectations of the private sector in terms of responsible behavior. Consumers expect goods and services to reflect socially and environmentally responsible business behavior at competitive prices. Shareholders also are searching for enhanced financial performance that integrates social and environmental

According to The United States Department of Justice, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act “was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business”. Therefore, Mike O’Brian is facing both an ethical and legal dilemma. If O’Brian is to provide $100,000, plus a “ten percent commission on future parts-and-service revenues”, and agrees with this stipulation, he will be committing an illegal act to both obtain and retain the sales business in Africa. O’Brian has limited options as to making a decision and how he will do so. By keeping the contract offer in place, O’Brian will face ethical dilemmas and will need to determine who he will carry out the sale while obtaining his commission.

BP is a powerful mega-organization, with a business model that reports “their belief of achieving sustainable success as a group, is to act in the long term-term interest of our shareholders, our partners and society”. I would just like to note that society is the last rung on the bottom of the ladder. “They aim to create value for our investors and benefits for the communities and societies in which we operate, with the responsible supply of energy playing a vital role in economic development.” (bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/company-information/our business model.html).

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

Exxon-Mobil is the world’s largest privately owned multi-national oil and gas company (Skjaerseth 2003). For companies as large as ExxonMobil, which possess considerable capital resources and are able to exert considerable power and influence, society is increasingly demanding that they behave in a socially responsible manner (Diara, Alilo, and McGuire 2004). There is a growing expectation that companies will adopt a business approach that illustrates responsibility to society above and beyond the economic function and legal performance of the firm (Gibbs 2009). This expectation can be understood as an implicit social contract. One of the underlying

The executives were involved in the company’s decade long bribery scheme in Argentina. The officials engaged in bribery in order to maintain their 1 billion euro contract that they had with the government to produce national identity cards for the Argentine citizens (Posner, 2009 p 101-103). The corruption scheme lasted from 1996 to early 2007. In the early 1990, the Argentine government developed a plan that would see it give every Argentine citizen an electronic ID card. Siemens, in order to obtain the contract that was 1.26 billion us dollars, bribed some Argentine officials with an estimated 70 million U.S dollars. The government in 1998 finally signed the contract with Siemens (Posner, 2009 p 101-103).

Companies with extensive responsibilities even argue about the system in pursuing social responsibility of business. According to Ulrich Steger, the company should prioritize the shareholders’ incessant interest but they should also be concerned of their social responsibilities, morals and environmental goals that the public expects them to be. Without a doubt, companies’ primary goal is to earn a profit. Emphasizing on profitability affects the fundamental values in the company, its morality. Companies ignore the ethics just to earn a mountainous income. This often causes extensive repercussions in the companies.