The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits Essay

The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits - Essay Example Corporate social responsibility, a term used to describe a the way in which a corporation operates in regard to the community and environment in which it resides and the ethical and moral standards in which it conducts business; is quickly becoming an increasingly important issue as consumers are holding corporations progressively more accountable for their methods of business practices and operations. With today's current global economy, corporations can no longer operate on the level of autonomy that was once common. This is evidenced in the increasing decentralization of the traditional corporate hierarchy that is becoming more common in corporations across the nation. Costlo has been a leader in the empowerment of its' employees. The team environment has attributed to company's' many success including the current high level of employee efficiency and morale. Regardless of these positive aspects of Costlos' corporate environment, the net losses posted for the last two quarters denotes a need for fiscal policy and business model change while attempting to maintain its' current level of stakeholder confidence. As the fifth largest retailer in Over the years, the topic of corporate social responsibility has been gaining ground both in popularity and importance. The traditional Friedman or shareholder view of a corporations' only role in social responsibility is to "use its resources to engage in activities designed to increase its' profits" (Friedman 1970) in itself may be narrow though it is nonetheless true. While earning and increasing profits will always be the basis of success for any business Friedman's belief that ""business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibility" (Friedman 1970) is becoming increasingly outdated. More importantly, the public perception of corporations is becoming ever more important. Cutting costs by decreasing employee benefits and enacting salary freezes may temporarily increase the company's net profits, it would do irreparable damage to employee morale as well as public perception of the company, possibly alienating our current consumer base. In the long term, this will negatively a ffect profits considerably. Costlo's achievement of becoming the fifth largest retailer in the United States was done so with virtually no marketing. Highlighting the corporations' continued dedication to its' employees and to the communities in which its' stores operate through advertising, is an ideal way to promote a positive public perception. This will serve as a way to build brand name recognition as well as lure back former customers that may have strayed to competitors. Given the current decline in profits, the initial start-up costs for this marketing strategy may further drive profits down in the short-term. These objections by investors, while justified, are short sighted and it should be noted that not looking toward the long-term as a measure of success as well, is just as short sighted. The fact that corporations can be profitable while maintaining Corporate Social Responsibility 3 corporate social responsibi

PARLIAMENT, POLITICS AND POLICY MAKING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

PARLIAMENT, POLITICS AND POLICY MAKING - Essay Example The government Bills are customarily introduced in the House of Commons, with approved drafts going to the House of Lords and then to Monarch for the subsequent assent. While such a procedure creates necessary checks and balances system in order to prevent the possible implementation of hastily approved Bills, it still limits the powers of popularly elected MPs in favour of non-elected governmental bodies, The time limits on the readings of the Bills in one session represent a significant deficiency of the present system of lawmaking as well. As the sessions of Parliament are closed by the act of prorogation, each Bill that fails to be carried through all necessary legislative steps is considered lapsed, and its authors have to go through this very process of legislative enquiry anew (Keenan and Smith 53). This has a significant adverse effect on the tempo of lawmaking and obstructs the efforts of lawmakers. Nevertheless, the legislative procedure of British House of Commons has its own positive features as well. ... The modernisation agenda of Blaire’s government affected both Houses of the Parliament, leading to many changes in its procedural rules and other structural elements. One of most significant of these policy moves was a thorough reform of the House of Lords, which lost its traditional character of the representative body of hereditary aristocracy after the House of Lords Act of 1999 provided for abolition of all but 92 hereditary peerages (Strickland and Cracknell 3). The modernisation of the House of the Commons proceeded rather unevenly, being somewhat stalled and timid in 1997-2001 and increasing in pace after 2001 (Cowley 20). Under Richard Cook, the Labour Party’s Leader of the House of Commons in 2001-2003, such important reforms were undertaken as the provision for more even resources allocation to select committees, the introduction of more topical Parliamentary Questions, and establishment of payment system for heads of select committees, so that the latter migh t wield an influence comparable to that of the Ministers (Cowley and Stuart 29). The tenure of Jack Straw as the Leader of the House (after 2006) was marked by important changes in standing committees process, with the result that the powers of standing committees were broadened so that they might receive both oral and written evidence before scrutinising the Bills under consideration (Cowley 21). Nevertheless, the other reforms to Parliament introduced by New Labour had mostly detrimental effect on its standing. For instance, the introduction of automatic timetabling of legislation served to make each Bill going through pre-arranged sequence of the debates, which narrowed the chances of Opposition to