Running Header: APPLIED ETHICS

Applied Ethics

[Name of Instituion]

Ethics and Social Responsibility

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility is the self-regulation of a company's social impacts as built into its business model. It moves beyond the traditional business model of being accountable only to shareholders into the realm of accountability to all stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility requires that businesses integrate the public interest, including environmental interests, into their decision making. Ethics are a fundamental building block of corporate social responsibility. When employees act in an unethical manner, negative social impacts can result. Because of the importance of employee ethics, many businesses are integrating ethics training into their social responsibility efforts. This training prepares their employees to do the “right” thing, even when it is not required.

Discussion

Many companies begin their internal social responsibility programs with internal ethics training. The intent of this training is to guide employee choices, helping them to make the ethical choice when a situation may be morally ambiguous. As social responsibility begins with making the right choices, on a daily basis, ethics training can help prevent adverse or undesired social impacts by encouraging employees to do the “right” thing, going beyond the minimum of what is required by law. Many companies offer anonymous ethics“hotlines” where employees can internally report nonethical or illegal behavior within the company.

This ethical approach to environmental performance is particularly important for companies doing work in the developing world, where environmental laws may be lax, or not enforced. In these situations, employees must often make decisions to work as if they were governed by the commonly accepted and regulated practices of developed nations. In short, they do the “right” thing for the environment, even though it may not specifically be required in that country. For example, laws governing proper disposal of waste streams are not the same in every country. In most of the developed world, there are laws governing the segregation of electronic wastes (such as computers and monitors) and universal wastes (such as fluorescent lamps and batteries). These laws are meant to appropriately segregate wastes that may be high in metals and other contaminants from the general refuse stream for recycling or proper disposal.

An ethical company operating in a country that does not specifically require the segregation of these waste streams would do so because it is the “right” thing to do for the environment and public health. Critics of ethics programs argue that they are nothing more than smoke and mirrors, allowing companies to make external claims that their employees receive ethics training, without effectively changing employee actions or decisions. Training itself may not change an individual's actions or decisions if the overall company's cultures, goals, and metrics for success remain the same. Individuals may fear internal repercussions for imposing voluntary measures on a company that are not specifically required and impact their financial bottom line. Similarly, even though most internal hotline programs grantee that reporters of non-ethical behavior remain anonymous, many employees do not report unethical behavior, for fear that the report will be tracked back ...