Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability

Ethics, Responsibility and
sustainability

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1) Analyse theories related to duties, morals and sustainability.................................................1
2. Assessing the potential for leading and implementing sustainability and governance
policies........................................................................................................................................3
3. Stakeholders and strategic collaboration opportunities in organisation..................................4
4. Impact of current organisation practices on sustainable development for future ..................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Every organization faces some challenges while going at global level. These challenges
may be related with ethics, corporate social responsibility or sustainability. Ethics can be defined
as the principles related with moral values that guides the behavior (Waddock, 2018). Business
ethics means, the study of correct practices and policies in respect of various subjects like
corporate social responsibility, corporate governance etc. The objective of firm is not only
maximizing revenue but also to protect the interest of society like consumers and community as
a whole. Sustainability means the ability to uphold. Business should make efforts for controlling
the negative effects of activities on environment. The Report is based on Woolworth Group. It
belongs to retail industry. It was founded in year 1924. Headquarter of company is located at
South Wales, Australia. It operates supermarkets, hotels, Woolworth online etc. The Report will
outline theories related to ethics, responsibility and sustainability. The potential of business for
leading sustainability and governance policies in organization. It will also describe stakeholders
for business and determine the impact of organizational practices on sustainable development in
the future.
MAIN BODY
1) Analyze theories related to duties, morals and sustainability.
Corporate Social Responsibility: It refers to self-regulated model for the business that assist the
firm to remain socially accountable to itself, public and other stakeholders. With the help of
CSR, business provides various benefits to society as well as it also helps to boost the brand
image of firm (Purvis, Mao and Robinson, 2019).
There are various CSR challenges that Woolworth may have to face in diverse global-
local context such as lack of transparency, ignorance of main areas of the society etc. Woolworth
should use the following model of social responsibility of the firm. Presently Woolworth is
facing the major challenge in meeting its lofty sustainability targets and this affected its sales
revenue and growth within the market. It is described below -
The socio-economic model of corporate social responsibility -
The traditional view of social responsibility of company is based on economic model.
Whereas, modern authors of corporate social responsibility believes that organization have a
responsibility not only towards shareholders but also towards customers, suppliers, employees
and public etc. This view of modern proponents is based on socio-economic model of CSR
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(Tran, 2019). According to this theory, the activities of business also have an impact on the
society. Therefore, Woolworths should consider the impact of activities before taking decisions.
Nowadays, there are various firms that are using this model due to various reasons. Firstly, it will
be in the foremost interest of the company because of challenges in global local context. This
will also help firm to avert any type of problem that may arise due to legal action taken by the
stakeholders.
Ethics: It refers to the branch of moral beliefs that includes defending, ordering and suggesting
the concepts of right or wrong. Ethical behaviour of the business helps to attract large number of
clients towards the product of firm therefore, it helps to increase sale and profit of the
organization (Mudrack and Mason, 2019). The areas of business in Woolworth will be affected
by global perception of socially, ethical and moral responsible behaviour. Such as ethics and
management, corporate social responsibility, ethics and corruption etc.
There are various types of ethical theories that Woolworth may follow such as
Deontology, Utilitarianism, rights and virtues etc.
Deontology -
The theory of deontology says that, people and business should comply to their duties
and obligations when they are involved in decision-making when ethics are involved. The theory
involves various positive attributes but, it also involves various flaws. One limitation of this
theory is that, there is no rationale for deciding duties (Davies, 2016).
Utilitarianism -
This theory is based on the power to forecast the impact of various actions. For
utilitarian, the option that offers the greatest advantage to most of the people is ethically correct.
The theory is divided into two categories that are rule and act utilitarianism. These theories also
have certain limitations. Firstly, no one can accurately predict the consequences of their actions.
Further, comparing material gain is very difficult because their qualities differ at large extent
(Seifi and Crowther, 2018).
Sustainability:
It refers to ensuring that the health of human beings is being protected, and they will have
access to basic resources and enjoy better quality of life. Sustainability has three different
elements such as economy, environment and society. Woolworth may use different models for
sustainable development (Ralegaonkar and Ram, 2020). These are as follows -
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