Business

The stakeholder relationship model illustrates how organizations forge relationships with entities such as the community, the government, the suppliers and the customers, among others, as a means to ensure a beneficial and mutual alliance.  Depending on the intentions of the organization, a company may initiate these relationships for purposes that are instrumental to performance (i.e. profits, loyalty) andor for normative purposes.  In any case, businesses need to present a pluralistic stance because it somehow has to convey that the enterprising entity exists for the purpose of the interests of the society.

However, such pluralistic characteristic also demonstrate how one relationship can also critically impact the relationship with one another.  An example is when companies get the bid of a series of government projects where bidding depends on the rate of the bid.  Hence, lower bids usually get the projects, but this may also mean jeopardizing the quality of the work, thus creating an eventual negative effect to the community.

2. On Corporate Responsibility
a) Although corporate social responsibility seems to be emphasized more in the past years due to the demand for accountability, its history can be traced as far back as the philosophical and socio-political emergence of the likes of the Quakers and the socialists.  Basically, the idea is to ensure that companies should conduct its function and business as socially responsible and based on values, and then eventually, Victoriam philanthropy. The further developments of CSR can be seen to be due to the increasing demand for corporate accountability and transparency, especially as companies are starting to be found to be accountable to a substantial amount of socio-economic dynamics.

b) Carrolls pyramid of social responsibility identifies four levels according to the degree of importance in terms of the fundamentals of the CSR practice.  The first level begins at the economic obligations followed by the legal, and then ethical, and lastly, philanthropic.  Based on the pyramid, it shows that the economic responsibility is essential, but nonetheless, even though it is the economic that causes problems in the legal, ethical and philanthropic spheres, Carrolls pyramid emphasizes how each level is actually integrated with accountability.

Although this is an ideal scenario, a potential problem is that accountability across these four levels may jeopardize each level.  This is to say that even though achieving a balance is the ideal, the problem is that accountability is a challenge to be equalized.  Traditional economic perspective emphasizes the importance of profits, and in an imperfect market, profits do not usually translate to philanthropy.  This thereby shows that these four levels or virtues are constantly subject to market and economic forces that can challenge the accountability factor, in addition to the fact that economic priorities will always be first.

c) Mirvis and Googins stages of corporate citizenship is made up of the following stages Compliant, Engaged, Innovative, Integrated and Transforming.  To illustrate this evolution, Apple Computers can be examined.  First, in the Compliant stage, Apple Computers became responsive to CSR demands when the company faced criticisms in terms of its practices.  A particular area can be seen in the evolution of its green products.  Initially, Apple Computers were evaluated in terms of its environmental impact and the use of toxic chemicals in its products.  As a response, the company started to get more engaged by developing the idea of green products.  From this innovation, Apple Computers started to integrate this philosophy not only in its production but in its operational functions as well.  Lastly, the transforming element can be seen in Apples holistic approach to CSR which range from its products to its great emphasis on CSR practices as found in law, ethics, employee interests, consumer demands and responses to the communities and other stakeholders.

3. On the Stakeholder Approach
Serving the stakeholder environment based on the best approach requires an examination on who the stakeholders are and the operation and function of the firm in terms of its CSR intentions.  In any case, the most feasible approach and recommendation is multi-fiduciary approach.  The reason the multi-fiduciary approach is the most recommended, hence, the best, is that management maintains its stance as a corporate or enterprising entity and sees this relationship as something that is forged between a trustee and a beneficiary. For instance, for a company that is awarded with the right to extract natural resources, the multifiduciary approach allows the firm to understand both its business stance and its responsibility to the stakeholders, namely, the communities that will be affected by the operation.

4. On Corporate Governance
The hierarchy of corporate governance demonstrates how organizations or companies are determined according to a strategic positioning of power and roles in the entire governance of the firm.  The four major groups according to the hierarchy are made up of the shareholders, the Board of Directors, the Executive Officers and the Management.  An interesting corporate governance hierarchy model can be seen in the Fortune 500 and British firm Marks and Spencer, especially in its corporate governance issue in 2008 when it appointed Stuart Rose as both its Chief Executive and Executive Chairman until .
This would prove to a critical corporate governance issue as the Board of Directors act on behalf of the interests of the shareholders this may conflict with Roses position in which as Chief Executive he acts on behalf of the interests of the company.  The shareholders were divided on the decision because of the value of Stuart Rose in the company in turn, the Board of Directors also voted to appoint Rose according to certain conditions such as the expiration of the appointment in 2009.  The Management, on one hand, also expressed support for this decision mainly because of Roses influence on the company.  However, not all shareholders were happy with the appointment as it would reflect a decrease in Marks and Spencers value in the coming months after the appointment, but as far as voting goes and the power of the Board of Directors and the majority of the shareholders, the company managed to make one of the critical decisions in its history.

5. On Moral Development
(i) Kohlbergs Stages of Moral Development is made up of three major stages (Pre-Conventional, Conventional and Post-Conventional) and six levels (Obedience and punishment orientation, Self-interest orientation, Interpersonal accord and conformity, Authority and social-order maintaining orientation, Social contract orientation and Universal ethical principles). These stages of moral development show how a person can integrate his or her own self-interests with respect to the forces of the society as determined by the norms and the law.

In applying this theory to actual practice, Kohlbergs stages can help managers maintain an ethical corporate culture according to the growth of the company this is to say that an ethical corporate culture has to develop as well because any company faces a series of ethical challenges throughout its lifetime.  Managers are then able to understand that basic ethical practices lead to the firm becoming being able to understand deeper what is right or wrong.  Eventually, through these developments, the company will reach a principled conscience in which ethics is part and parcel of its existence.

(ii) Although business ethics can be regarded as simply ethics, what makes business ethics an entity on its own is that companies are always faced with the reality of accountability and responsibility towards the shareholders.  This is why it cannot be discounted that companies will always have to profit first, and profits do not immediately result to ethical behavior.  Taking into consideration this factor, ethics in the business context is not just ethics.

(iii) When managing an acute stage, ethics becomes a safe haven for the company because this allows the firm to prevent itself from getting into worse stages.  In addition, corporate karma is something that managers can consider an example is when a company is about to go bankrupt, instead of being greedy the Board of Directors may decide to take a cut in pay instead of cutting down people.  This thereby further empowers the firm and eventually lead to better results that will take the company out of the acute stage.

6. On Enterprise Level Management
When a company cares about the world it gives something back to the society thereby forging mutual and beneficial relationships.  The company should keep in mind that the it is made up of people who are essentially stakeholders at a greater scope this is to say that when these employees, from the lower end to the senior managers step out of the corporate building, they become mere shareholders.  They are subject to law, the social dynamics and the forces of nature.  Hence, corporate greed only fulfils a short-term need and ethics pave the way for corporations to understand that their role is beyond the economic and that they can actually create a significant impact on the lives of each member of the society.