Overview
Evaluate the impact of corporate social responsibility policy on the workplace and the corporate world. Also, assess the ethicality of an organization and identify the related stakeholders and their roles.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
• Competency 2: Assess the impact of corporate social responsibility policy.
o Assesses the impact of corporate social responsibility policy.
o Assess the ethical nature of a selected organization.
o Identify the major stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities regarding an issue.
o Assess the impact of the issue on various stakeholders.
o Assess the potential costs and benefits for various stakeholders in addressing an issue through corporate policy.
Context-
Stakeholders are not limited to directly involved groups and individuals who benefit directly from the corporation. Often, the entire community is affected by an organization’s actions, or lack of reactions. For example, board members, regulators, and consumers participate in the business process every day. To what extent should they shape or influence ethical behavior in business?
Understanding stakeholder needs, as well as threats to the organization, is a key component of the process of managing ethical issues. It is equally important to learn to identify issues and put them in a context or framework, to facilitate management decision making. One of the challenges of marketplace globalization is creating ethical policies and guidelines that monitor how we do business in the global market.
Assessment Instructions-
Complete the following:
• Assess the impact of corporate social responsibility policy on the workplace and the corporate world.
o Assess how, and to what extent, corporate social responsibility can be coordinated with an organization’s obligation to maximize profits for its shareholders.
• Identify a potential ethical issue at a real-world organization.
o Assess the ethicality of the organization.
o Identify the major stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities regarding the issue.
o Assess the potential impact of the organization’s choice to address or not address the issue via corporate policy. Address the financial and legal impacts of this choice on the organization, employees, and other stakeholders. In addition, address the potential impact on the organization’s reputation.
Questions to Consider-
To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of the business community.
• Workplace privacy is a very contentious issue today, because the growth of technology that might threaten privacy is outpacing the development of privacy laws. New technologies for communication and surveillance are not legally restricted because they are not yet addressed in existing laws. What right to privacy you believe an employee should enjoy at work? What right to surveillance should a company have in watching over the employees it is paying, and the property it owns? Where would you draw the line with regard to workplace privacy?
• Think about a real-world example of whistleblowing with which you are personally familiar, or which you have heard about. Why might you feel pressure not to report what you know in the situation, and to what extent would it affect you? What would you do (or did you do) in this situation? Would a code of ethics you are familiar with, such as a military code that requires reporting of unethical behavior, influence your decision?
• Analyze an advertisement that was misleading, and did not provide complete and honest information about the product or service. Your example might be from print, television, radio, or the Internet. It might be local, national, or international. How could this deception have been harmful? What action would you recommend to deter this type of deception in the future?
Suggested Resources
The following optional resources are provided to support you in completing the assessment or to provide a helpful context.
Library Resources:
Rendtorff, J. D. (2009). Responsibility, ethics and legitimacy of corporations. Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.library.capella.edu/lib/capella/docDetail.action?docID=10465558
o Part 4 is particularly applicable to this assessment.
You are encouraged to refer to the resources in the BUS-FP4801 – Ethics and Enterprise Library Guide to help direct your research.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Workplace Ethics
Management studies have drawn business leaders and managers into the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) debate. CSR focuses on decisions impacting society positively while improving organizational profitability and prosperity. CSR stakeholders, including internal stakeholders such as employees and managers and external stakeholders such as communities and the environment, determine organizational CSR policies and decisions. However, organizations must shape their CSR programs to cover ethical issues from their interaction and relationship with internal and external stakeholders. CSR programs can lack meaning if organizations fail to handle gender and racial inequality and other forms of discrimination, creating an unstable workplace environment. For instance, after being found guilty of employees’ gender and racial discrimination, the U.S. Department of labour fined the Walmart Company for gross misconduct and employment malpractices. While CSR program must incorporate stakeholder needs, the organization must continuously re-visit its policies and practices to identify ethical malpractices and handle them swiftly.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Prosperity and Profitability
Organizations design their CSR programs to suit all stakeholders. One of the CSR programs’ components, better employee working conditions, seeks to improve employee job satisfaction (Story et al., 2016). However, for organizations to enhance working conditions, they must understand employees’ needs and internal stakeholders’ requirements. Improving working conditions covers physical and psychological aspects, and this improvement influences organizational relationship and interaction with external stakeholders such as the community and the environment (Story et al., 2016). As an organization shapes its CSR program to appeal to internal and external stakeholders, it improves its attractiveness. Employees seek to work where they feel appreciated and motivated. Attractiveness through effective CSR programs enables organizations to attract and retain top talent. According to Story et al. (2016), Human Resource Managers face the scarcity of highly motivated and skilled employees. However, with the right CSR program focused on work conditions improvement, it becomes easier to attract top talent. In this regard, CSR blends with organizational obligations to maximize profit for shareholders through the acquisition of highly skilled and motivated employees to drive organizational business goals and objectives forward.
The competitiveness in the current business environment requires organizations to play their best game to survive and thrive. Organizational policy perspectives underline the relationship between governance and performance (Newman et al., 2020). Organizations must play economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities, and they can outline their commitment to these business perspectives through CSR programs. Newman et al. (2020) pointed out that firm CSR programs improve corporate image, support employee motivation, better the working environment, promote efficiency gains, and impact revenue generation, majorly achieved through furnished brand image and appropriate market development. Organizations that manage to furnish their CSR programs to align with the above-mentioned business aspects position themselves on the path to achieving business goals and objectives. With such organizations firmly working towards goals and objectives through improved productivity and profitability, shareholders reap from the positive association between effective CSR programs and overall organizational profitability.
Ethical Issue(s): Google’s Workplace Racial and Gender Discrimination
Google’s Ethicality
Overall, Google’s culture operates around innovation with the company continually scrutinizing its internal and external environment to identify ways to improve its employees’ environment. According to Tran (2017), Google bases all its decisions and operations on data. The company argues that it has to build a great working culture to remain a global giant and guarantee its employees the freedom to function effectively in their workplace. Tran’s analysis of Google’s internal CSR programs underlines its commitment to becoming a global leader and cultivating a culture benefiting all stakeholders. However, recently, the U.S. Department of Labor, through a Google employee study, realized that it exhibits discriminating hiring practices.
Ethical Issue Major Stakeholders and Roles
An independent study on Google’s employees and hiring practices revealed that the giant technology company discriminates against women, Asians. In this case, women and racial minorities, employees of Asian origin, claimed that Google paid its software engineering workers poorly while the study noted that women and people of Asian origin rarely accessed opportunities to work as Google’s software engineers (Thorbecke, 2021). In this issue, Google held the largest responsibility as its hiring teams and managers discriminated against women and Asians. Through the U.S. Department of Labor, Google agreed to pay fines amounting to $3.8 million while also deciding to reserve $1.2 million to settle balance equities. The affected employees (women and Asians) served as the affected stakeholders, and Google’s compensation agreement could influence their wellbeing in the organization.
Ethical Issues’ Financial and Legal Implications
Organizations practicing poor vertical relations may face financial and legal implications impacting their profitability and reputation. Favorable policies, including effective CSR programs, improve organizational attractiveness impacting the internal and external environment (Story et al., 2016). Failing to address issues such as Google’s discriminatory hiring practices, can subject an organization to legal issues. Besides, failure to address ethical organizational problems can result in financial losses through compensations. An organization’s reputation can change due to the inability to address ethical issues through policies. In such a case, an organization can experience high turnover rates and fail to attract highly-motivated and skilled employees.
Conclusion
Effective CSR programs incorporate stakeholder needs and re-visit policies and practices to identify ethical malpractices for immediate action. An effective CSR program enhances organizational attractiveness, which attracts and retains the best employees. However, biased and discriminatory practices, such as Google’s discrimination against women and Asians, expose organizations, to business, legal, and financial implications.
References
Newman, C., Rand, J., Tarp, F., & Trifkovic, N. (2020). Corporate social responsibility in a
competitive business environment. The Journal of Development Studies, 56(8), 1455-1472.
Story, J., Castanheira, F., & Hartig, S. (2016). Corporate social responsibility and organizational
attractiveness: Implications for talent management. Social Responsibility Journal, 12(3), 484-505.
Thorbecke, C. (2021, February 2). Google to pay $3.8 million over alleged discrimination
against women, Asians. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/google-pay-38-million-alleged-discrimination-women-asians/story?id=75633080.
Tran, S. K. (2017). GOOGLE: A reflection of culture, leader, and management. International
Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2(1), 1-14.
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