Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Clarifying the Relationship, Lecture notes of Business Ethics

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Business ethics and

Corporate social

responsibility

Business ethics is sometimes confused

with “corporate social responsibility”

or “CSR.” Although the two are

related, they are not quite the same. It

is important to understand how they

are different as well as how they are

related to each other.

The phrase “corporate social responsibility” refers to a corporation’s responsibilities or obligations toward society. There is some disagreement about what those obligations include.

• (^) Do companies have a responsibility to donate to charities or
• (^) to give their employees higher wages and customers safer products?
• (^) Or are they obligated to maximize profits for their

Friedman view

The shareholder view of Friedman says a manager’s only responsibility is to legally and ethically make as much money as possible for shareholders.

Which of these two views is correct? Stakeholder theory or shareholder theory?

O Business ethics is both a part of

corporate social responsibility and

part of the justification for corporate

social responsibility.