Discussion 3 Business Strategy

 Consider the potential conflict between corporate social responsibility and ethics while maximizing share holder wealth.  How does exercising Christian principles play a part in running a successful business while operating within state and federal regulations?  

1st student response (Venkata Simhadri ):

 
With things shifting universally, lots of enterprises are trying to fathom the paybacks of applying corporate social responsibility (CSR). By instigating this, many enterprises are trying to achieve things like how they can be socially by empowering many social foundations like Not-for-profit associations that work on fixing social issues and deliver ethics schooling to all their personnel. With increased incidents of corporate scandals, enterprises have made it a purpose to implement CSR (Guitián, 2015). With CSR and ethics implementation, enterprises are trying to cut down the negative impact on the stakeholder’s investments because being socially responsible will positively impact the public regarding their company.
When operating within the regulations implemented by the state and federal authorities, enterprises will try to implement diverse varieties of biblical ideologies, which can lead them to be successful. There are numerous fundamental moralities in the bible, which might be beneficial in overseeing any corporation. First, we will be implementing the “Principle of due diligence,” (FORSYTH, 2020) which is knowing your competition, then testing the product or service in that market. Doing this will help businesses analyze their reach in the market and how the consumers received it, and this will ultimately save the businesses in many ways because, based on this information, businesses can alter their approach or product offering.
The next thing in this implementation would be how to treat everyone in the company impartially. “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger” (Deut, 24:14). By applying this principle from the Jewish Study Bible, we can conduct the business to treat all the personnel equally and honestly (Berlin, 2004). The next thing we can use to conduct a better business is by accepting criticism and encouraging people to criticize if they think that the business is not doing something that might be ethical in a business’s perspective but unethical in another’s perspective.
References:
Berlin, A., Brettler, M. Z., Fishbane, M., & Jewish Publication Society. (2004). The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guitián, G. (2015). Service as a Bridge between Ethical Principles and Business Practice: A Catholic Social Teaching Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(1), 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2077-z
FORSYTH, J. (2020). Instilling Christian Principles of Business Success in the Classroom. Christian Business Academy Review (CBAR), 15, 11–19.

2nd student response (Monica Kulakarni) :

 
Companies are stuck with the everlasting greed of multiplying their profits exponentially to attract more investors and increase the net worth of the Company. This fierce competition to be known among the fortune 500 often neglects the most important responsibility of the Company towards its society which is called the Corporate Social Responsibility. (Amir  & Amir, 2010)
According to the article by (Emerson, Yang & Xu, 2020), the author states that some studies have found a positive association between CSR and tax avoidance. Companies with low tax payments often tend to do CSR as a way to compensate or rather avoid their responsibility towards social affairs. This is the reason why Investors evaluate tax avoidance behaviors when combined with CSR activities. Numerous data has been collected as a part of the research in this article and has been found out that companies are mischievously avoiding the tax payments due to the pressure from stakeholders and investors who only tend to focus on the net profit ratio. These strategies have proven to work as they tend to insulate the company from negative attention and also help in tax avoidance.
However on a positive note I would also like to highlight some companies that have attempted to change this norm and are positively working towards the Social Responsibilities towards the environment.
Some of the best examples of the companies which have taken the foot forward are:
·         Method – a Company that manufactures dish liquid soap and hand soap has pledged to use the plastic that is recovered from the ocean waste.
·         Coco Cola when it realized that it was producing about 3M metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2014 switched to more eco-friendly fuels to supply to its trucks.
References
1.      Amir Barnea, & Amir Rubin. (2010). Corporate Social Responsibility as a Conflict Between Shareholders. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(1), 71.
2.      Emerson, D. J., Yang, L., & Xu, R. (2020). Investors’ Responses to Social Conflict between CSR and Corporate Tax Avoidance. Journal of International Accounting Research, 19(1), 57–72. https://doi.org/10.2308/jiar-18-050