Global Trends and Ethics

Running Head: GLOBAL TRENDS AND ETHICS
Global trends and ethics
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1GLOBAL TRENDS AND ETHICS
According to Tai and Chuang (2014), Corporate Social Responsibility of companies can
be defined as the initiatives of the company to evaluate and take responsibility of the effects of
the operations of the company on the society and environment. Companies must adopt CSR
policies to ensure that the operations of the companies have positive effect on the society and the
environment. The aim of the companies should be to promote the well-being of the people in a
society. CSR can also be defined as corporate citizenship. Implementing the principles of CSR
can require companies to incur costs, which may not be of financial benefit to the company in
short, term, however incurring such costs will help companies have positive impacts on the
society and environment and such positive impact will in turn be beneficial for the company in
the longer run (Poussenkova et al. 2016).
Corporate Social Responsibility can be defined as those voluntary activities which are
undertaken by companies to operate in a manner which is environmental, social and
economically sustainable (Vertigans and Idowu2017). CSR policies have been implemented in
every business environment and are no longer considered to be legal obligations to the
stakeholders of a company. Many organizations are even taking steps to give effect to the CSR
policies and bring such policies in their respected framework. CSR policies should not only be
implemented by large organizations, any business irrespective of its size and nature of operations
can take steps to positively affect the people and the environment (Cheng, Ioannou, and
Serafeim2014). It can be stated that every business organization must:
 Recognize the human rights, be respectful to them and take steps to safeguard the same
 Take responsibility of its actions and assess the impacts of the actions on the ecnomy,
society and the environment.
 Be transparent in its activities that have impacts on the society

2GLOBAL TRENDS AND ETHICS
As opined by Saeidi et al.(2015), the code of Corporate Social Responsibility takes into
account many factors which have impacts on the society, environment and economy. Therefore,
the code of CSR covers many domains such as Labor and Human rights, Health and safety of
workers, Environmental impacts of the operations companies, Ethical considerations and
Management systems (Leipziger 2017).The best example of a company who has adopted the
code of CSR is Maxim Integrated. The other companies with the best CSR policies include
Google, Microsoft. Google had been selected the third time consecutively for having the best
CSR policy, Microsoft holds the second place (Forbes.com, 2018). The Walt Disney Company
held the third pace among the most socially responsible companies. The Walt Disney Company
had held that place since 2014.
The CSR pyramid or the four part model of CSR had originally been published in the
year 1979. The pyramid of CSR was introduced by Caroll. The purpose of the pyramid was to
illustrate the different building blocks of CSR. It is to be mentioned that the pyramid was
selected as it represents a geometric design which is built to stand strong over the years. The base
of the pyramid is the most important part of the structure as it holds the rest of the structure. This
is why economic responsibility was placed at the base as the foundation of the pyramid. Legal
responsibilities was upon the foundation of economic responsibilities as all business operational
must comply with legal regulations of the respective jurisdictions. Ethical responsibilities were
placed above legal responsibilities as it is important for businesses to maintain ethical standards
while performing its operations. Philanthropic responsibilities were placed at the top as it is
desired by societies and that the business acts as a good corporate citizen and contribute to the
development of the society (Carroll, 2018).

3GLOBAL TRENDS AND ETHICS
The ethical responsibilities are represented in a separate block of the pyramid, ethical
responsibilities of business organizations can be expected to saturate and cut through the entire
model of the pyramid. If the CSR policy of Microsoft is analyzed by the CSR pyramid model, it
can be assessed that its CSR policy complies with all the responsibilities of all levels of the
pyramid. However Microsoft has been involved in an anti-trust case for a long time. The
Company allegedly had abused its position of monopoly in the European market.
Figure 1 CSR Pyramid
Source: (Carroll 2018)