HUMA 1745 Chapter 18: HUMA 1745 Chapter 18 Notes
1 May 2018
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HUMA 1745 Chapter 18 Notes – Summary
Introduction
Corporate Social Responsibility
• Organizations may engage in these practices because they feel pressured by society to
do so, or they may seek ways to improve society because they feel it is the right thing to
do.
• Canadians want businesses to give back to society, according to a recent poll which
foud that Caadias’ ies of orporatios are largely affeted y hether usiesses
support charitable causes and protect the environment.
• Oakville, Ontario-ased Ti Hortos, hih akes ustoers aare of its Childre’s
Foundation, is well regarded by Canadians.
• Not everyone agrees that organizations should engage in corporate social responsibility.
• For example, economist Milton Friedman remarked in Capitalism and Freedom that
fe treds ould so thoroughly uderie the ery foudatios of our free society as
the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as
uh oey for their stokholders as possile.
• Joel Bakan, professor of law at the University of British Columbia, author of The
Corporation, and co-director of the documentary of the same name, is more critical of
organizations than Friedman.
• Baka suggests that today’s orporatios hae ay of the sae harateristis as a
psychopathic personality (for example, self-interested, lacking empathy, manipulative,
and reckless in their disregard of others).
• Bakan notes that even though companies have a tendency to act psychopathically, this
is not why they are fixated on profits.
• Rather, their only legal responsibility is to maximize organizational profits for
stockholders.
• He proposes changes in laws to encourage corporations to behave more socially
responsibly.
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