Corporate Governance & Ethics Assignment

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & ETHICS
Corporate Governance & Ethics
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & ETHICS
Executive summary
There has been a significant debate in relation to the purpose of a business. The prima faice
purpose of a business organization has always been towards making profits and ensuring that the
investors and other shareholders get adequate returns for the investment made by them in relation
to the organization. However various contemporary studies have depicted that the aim of the
modern day business is not merely to make profit, organizations also has a major role to pay in
relation to the society as it is also one of the major stakeholders of the organizations. The paper
provides an argument that businesses can only function properly if it aims to make profit through
the incorporation of ethics in its operations. The paper conducts a literature review on the various
theories available in relation to business organizations such as those provided by Freeman,
Friedman, Jenson and Boatright. The paper also provides how the broader view provided by the
thesis can benefit the society. The paper also discusses the approach in light of other theories
such as the duty of care, theories of justice and utilitarianism analysis. The paper also analyzes
the approaches based on principles of CSR, CSV, Blue Economy and circular Economy.

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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & ETHICS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................ 3
Literature review......................................................................................................... 4
Benefit to the society................................................................................................. 7
Justice and normative theory analysis........................................................................9
Other theories towards reconciling the view............................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 12
Recommendations.................................................................................................... 12
References............................................................................................................... 13

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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & ETHICS
Introduction
There has been a long debate in relation to the purpose of a business entity. The prima
faice purpose of a business organization has always been towards making profits and ensuring
that the investors and other shareholders get adequate returns for the investment made by them in
relation to the organization (Smith 2003). However various contemporary studies have depicted
that the aim of the modern day business is not merely to make profit, organizations also has a
major role to pay in relation to the society as it is also one of the major stakeholders of the
organizations (Weinstein 2013). This is because of the growing competition between various
organizations goodwill has become point of distinction. The management of stakeholders in
relation to the operations of an organization is a critical component. According to Sharplin
(2003) any person, organization, group or the society who can be affected by or is likely to
presume themselves to be affected by a particular operation is known as a stakeholder. Positive
relationships are created through a process of effective stakeholder management. The position
can be reached by an appropriate management process with respect to the agreed objectives and
expectations of the stakeholders. One of the pillars of proper stakeholder management is the
carrying out of operations of a business organization based on the principles of ethics.
Ethical principles have to be incorporated into the functioning of organization to ensure
that the organization is able to make profit as well as ensure that the goodwill of the organization
among its stakeholders is maintained. However an organization cannot function solely based on
ethics as it is the one of the major functions of the organization to make profit and give proper
returns to the stakeholders.