Business Ethics and Social Responsibilities

The essay is prepared to discuss about the values and ethics to be managed within the community or by a business and contributing the fulfillment of corporate social responsibilities considering the case study of motion picture named Robocop in the year 1987 by Orion Pictures Company.

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Business ethics and social responsibilities
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
INTRODUCTION
The essay is prepared to discuss about the values and ethics to be managed within the
community or by a business and contributing the fulfilment of corporate social
responsibilities considering the case study of motion picture named Robocop in the year 1987
by Orion Pictures Company. The ethics in business mean doing what is right and what is
wrong through management of values, beliefs and ethics and ensuring successful business
functioning. The corporate social responsibilities are the duties that are needed to be managed
by people as well as by the organisation, so that those can contribute to the wellbeing of the
society, furthermore ensure benefiting the different stakeholders in business and community
in a sustainable manner (Tai & Chuang, 2014). The essay will also present idea about how
the major ethical issue that has been focused on the film can be dealt with and even the
corporate social responsibilities shall be managed. This will not only focus on a major ethical
issue that is happening within the society nowadays, but also can make businesses learn to
spread awareness among people and become much remain socially responsible by
contributing to the social welfare of the society, put efforts to raise the standards of
Hollywood movie industry too (Dion, 2013).
BODY
As the topic focused on the movie named Robocop 1987, so the organisation has been
the movie producing company named Orion Pictures and it operates within the Hollywood
film industry. The scope of operations is huge and it has managed to gain success after the
movie got released un the year 1987, which drew positive reviews and even spread awareness
about a major ethical issue within the political world. The company operates within the
movie industry and the scope of operations and sustenance is huge considering its local,
national as well as multinational reach through targeting of different market segments with

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ease and efficiency. As the case study is based on the film, so the focus has been on the major
ethical issue found from the film and why it was unethical (Hess, 2014). There are many
stakeholders that were affected as well by the issue and how the issue could have been dealt
with the help of corporate social responsibilities as well as should undertake measures for
preventing occurrence in the future as well.
The ethical found after watching the film has been the corruption within the society.
Though the film was a major hit among audiences and has been considered as one of the
science fiction action movies that included transformation of a cop into a robot cop to fight
against crimes in a place called Detroit (Caldero, 2014). But, at the same time, the film
focused on few of the biggest ethical issues in United States during that period of time,
especially the corruption and mentionable among other ethical issues were public companies’
privatisation, capitalism left unchecked, influence of media and gentrification. The most
interesting fact about this film was that it mixed the ethical issues in the form of messages
among people and created magic after 32 years as well, due to which, it has a major action
movie that took dig at the corruption ethical issue (Salminen & Mäntysalo, 2013).
The corruption and bribery continues to be the major ethical issues that are commonly
found at every places most of the times and thus require close and quick attention for resolve.
The practices of corruption include undertaking actions that are illegal and breached the trust
and have been closely associated with the Government and international agencies too. This
corruption issue was ethical and had been the focus of the movie and how the ethical issue
resulted in creating a devastated effect on the community as well as on the actor himself in
the movie (Sikka & Lehman, 2015). In Detroit, the crime rate is high and has been protected
by a cop named Alex Murphy, played by Peter Weller, who used to take down the notorious
criminals accompanied by his partner Anne Lewis. Soon, he found himself in a fight against

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then and in a gunfight, he got blown away by bullets. His body was later taken by the Omni
Consumer Products Company and transformed into a robot cop named RoboCop to fight
against crimes with better health security and higher chances of survival in gun battles. With
the next scenes, the movie shed light on the ethical issue, which was that Omni Consumer
product was already involvement in an agreement with the mayor of Detroit to provide
support to the police department (Pollock, 2014). But, the company had already privatised the
police force and made changes for gaining personal benefits, later even found that OCP
worked with major criminals of the place. The entire system was found to be corrupted and
did undertake actions for own benefits, such as the industry capitalists who did everything to
loot money and thus the crimes rates became high. The film showcased how the corruption
and corporate creed led to major issues and contributed to the lack of welfare of community.
It also showed a great example of how people can act against this, just as Robocop did by
following his major directives of serving the public wholeheartedly, protecting the innocent
people and make the society stand against corruption together, as an unit (Neu, Everett &
Rahaman, 2015).
The issue was highly unethical considering the fact that corruption had led to multiple
problems and harmed the society and its environment too. For example, major companies
nowadays, are found to be involved in creating huge campuses as well as headquarters and
offices all over the nation and even made buses available for only transferring its employees
from home to the organisation while on the other hand, the public facilities remain
unchecked, rents have risen and even made people lose jobs from the highly expanding tech
industry (Eisenbeiß & Brodbeck, 2014). The local Governments have also been associated
with providing the businesses with tax breaks for attracting those companies in the individual
cities, which shows clear signs of corruption and this ethical issues has been the focus, as it

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could be seen from the case study involving the movie. With the corruption rising, the movie
also prioritised on the effects such as privatisation of police departments and prisons, which
has turned crime into for profit sector, even resulted in unethical policies’ implementation
and grabbed high attention among mass media (Hernandez & McGee, 2014). The corruption,
as shown in the movie, was highly unethical as one of the major OCP executives was
involved in criminal activities, due to which, Robocop decided to take action against him, not
matter whoever he was and rather proving that corruption in institutions should be prevented
to keep community and its people safe. It was also unethical, because the OCP used the body
of Murphy to turn it into a robot, using it for supporting the police department and at the
same time, keep up with these unethical experiments for personal gains (Lehnert, Park &
Singh, 2015). The situation involved the senior executive of police department against whom
RoboCop responded to, though the machine was programmed with certain limitations of
abilities, which made him forgot about his wife and child too. There was also involvement of
murder where Jones, the OCP executive hired Boddicker to kill Morton, who was praised for
his performance of using cybernetics in the body of Murphy to make RoboCop. Thus, all
these negative prospects are closely related to corruption, where people can go to any stage
and do anything for acquiring personal benefits (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013). Due to this, the
corruption has been considered here as the main ethical issue represented in the motion
picture, i.e., RoboCop, 1987.
Not only does the ethical issue affected people and their lives, but also created
negative impacts on the outside environment, furthermore created negative mind sets among
people and making them loose trust on reputed business corporations, Government and
private institutions (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014).

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The stakeholders who are affected the most are the general public and few issues
within the society already recorded include poor employment growth opportunities, poor pay
to employees in Government organisations, high rate of crime and bribery demanded for even
low opportunities without considering even the cost infringement of the rights of another
citizen (Reamer, 2013). The private sectors are also affected while the public officers have
been getting aware with the crimes demanding some good deal of money. The judiciary was
no longer concerned about their responsibilities towards protection of human rights of the
people in Detoitttt and even did not pay any heed to punish the offenders who were involved
in injustice. The legislations and laws that were implemented to fight against corruption had
also been guilty for the crimes, which are not only unethical but also contributes largely to
the poor health and wellbeing of the society (Saeidi et al., 2015). The dignity and respect of
citizens are lower, people no longer care about others, whatever the situation may be and
even if illegal.
“If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I
strongly feel there are three societal members who can make a difference. The father,
mother and teacher.”
- A.P.J Abdul Kalam
As always said, prevention is better than cure and it is justified that people must be
aware and made others aware too about the negative issues that have resulted from unethical
actions like corruption. This has not been effective for empowering the citizens, but also for
strengthening the demands for anti-corruption activities through encouragement of holding
the Government responsible (Khan, Muttakin & Siddiqui, 2013). The public should speak to
act against corruption and related crimes, which should lead to fight against corruption and
facilitate cooperation and people to deal with ethical issues together. From the movie, it could

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be understood that Robocop had been designed with the help of programming by keeping
four motives clear, which were to serve the public and gain their trust, protect the innocent
people, and uphold the law, though he was left uninformed or knowledgeable about the of the
classified final directive (Masonv & Simmons, 2014). Rather than putting mouth shut,
Robocop acted against everyone responsible and engaged in corruption, even the main OCP
executive, when in need, to serve people by protecting the innocent and at the same time,
fulfilling the responsibilities towards making a better and healthy society.
From the movie, it was understood that dealing with the ethical issue should not only
make people socially responsible, but also could raise the chances of leading a better life
though management of own roles and responsibilities towards the community wholeheartedly
(Jizi et al., 2014). The ethical issue has damaged both the social and institutional environment
of the nation, as stated in the case study related to the movie, which are needed to be
responded to by managing reform options that are open to the Government and regulatory
bodies and mitigate the effects of corruption. The high rise in corruption created real threats
to businesses and resulted in competitive risks, legal and operational risks and constraints in
making foreign direct investments (Larmour & Wolanin, 2013). The crimes rates increased,
as seen from the movie, which created instability and made people failing to trust the
Government, which were dealt with compliance driven approaches and Robocop was
introduced by transforming Murphy to a robot cop. OCP though played a huge role in putting
efforts to fight against crimes, but from inside, the executives were involved in criminal
instances too (Cohen, 2013). The corporate social responsibility efforts prioritise on the
reducing of tension between business and society and at the other hand, fight against
corruption to create opportunities for creation of shared value. The public relations’
campaigns need to be integrated, which are considered as major corporate social

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responsibilities managed by people to act against these ethical issues and make sure to
prevent re-occurrence again (Tai & Chuang, 2014).
The development of countermeasures for addressing the governance issues could also
be effective CSR approaches to harmonise the cultural norms required to be managed within
the society and within businesses. This could be associated with the improvements of human
rights, preventing poverty and responding to crimes as an unit, as found from the Anti-
Bribery Convention, UN 10th Principle (Dion, 2013). Being corporate socially responsible
should have also been all about the satisfaction of customers, respecting the environment,
empowering the employees to protect the natural resources to prevent the disruption of
supply chains for natural resources and form strengthened communities to fight against any
ethical issue that may arise. To fulfil the social responsibilities, the business organisations
should have also focused on developing new energy efficient standards systems to lower
down the consumption of energy, furthermore reduce the costs of operations associated with
the business functioning (Hess, 2014). The company should have created more scopes and
opportunities of employment for the local people and interact with the small scale farmers
involved in sustainable agricultural activities. This would create good sources of income for
them and at the same time, create positive mind sets among them, and thus make them feel
interested to become loyal suppliers. The suppliers should though be certified according to
the Global Food Safety Initiative to meet the health and safety standards, furthermore ensure
proper delivery of good quality and healthy products to clients (Salminen & Mäntysalo,
2013). To promote a better environment, companies should have managed the carbon
footprints by lowering down the intensity of greenhouse gases’ emissions, furthermore
promote occupational health and safety to prevent negative health impacts of individuals at

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work and ensure creating good living standards and working conditions for people within the
society.
The various approaches could also be to pay the civil servants well and make them
remain motivated with rewards and incentives, which shall easily influence them to fight
against corruption. The creation of transparency and managing openness in spending by the
Government are also necessary to raise money, provide foreign support as well as develop
approaches to manage the resources wisely (Sikka & Lehman, 2015). The replacement of
distorting subsidies with the cash transfers along with the formation of international
conventions could also be beneficial for attempting to act with anticorruption laws,
furthermore strengthen position in the nation to prevent bribery and other related crimes
(Neu, Everett & Rahaman¸2015).
CONCLUSION
The essay demonstrated the ethical issue from the movie RoboCop 1987 and the
ethical issue had been corruption, which affected the nation and even made people commit
crimes for gaining own benefits. The corruption ethical issue has been associated with other
related crime incidents such as the bribery, murder, extortion, etc. There is need to implement
anticorruption laws, rules and regulations along with various governance procedures
management to ensure preventing to such kinds of issues and even allow people to spread
awareness among the ethical issue. This has been effective when people raise their voice as a
unit and thus gain the ability to fight against corruption with ease and efficiency.

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