COMM 104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Product Liability, Kantian Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility
7 Feb 2016
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Milton friedman"s analogy that the sole purpose of a corporation is to generate a profit in order to benefit the shareholders. As an executive director, you are the employee of the shareholders and should therefore act in their best interests. This is referred to as shareholder capitalism or agency theory. Charles handy (2002) suggested that corporations should go beyond just making a profit and do something that could benefit the overall society: making a profit should be a means to a nobler end. Polls in the us have suggested that corporate executives have the lowest ethical standards. Society is a lot different today than it was twenty years ago, therefore peoples expectations change: society expects people to be more ethical. The business or the manager must try to understand the perspectives of the various stakeholders on the business or transactional problem, and then make business decisions that take those stakeholder views into account.
