Archive for category Ethics Social Responsibility
Social Responsible Investing For a Better (Investment) World
Social Responsible Investing (SRI), also known as sustainable investing or ethical investing has origins dating back to as far as the early18th century and was motivated mostly through religious reasons. The modern SRI movement, as we know it today, started in the 1960s. The movement spawned out of an increased awareness of social and environmental issues. It eventually became a marketing gimmick for many multinational corporations attempting improve their image to the outside world, regardless of their actual policies.
Not until the 1990′s did a serious social/environmental paragraph in business plans and prospectuses became apparent, and was the positive effect on business performance acknowledged. During this time, socially responsible mutual funds, or social funds were starting to emerge. In the years since the number of social funds has increased significantly, and not for no reason, as proven by the Domini 400, a benchmark that measures the impact of social screening on financial performance. Since its start in 1990 the index has continuously outperformed the S&P 500. The companies in this basket just seem to adapt to volatile market conditions better than ordinary companies.
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The Importance Of Business Ethics
Business ethics concerns itself with the choices exercised by the people in organizations in terms of decisions and actions. Some choices are considered to be good and some are not. But there are no standard definitions. A lot of the choice depends on the perspective of what is good for the business and from whose point of view.
One common earlier point of view is that what is good for the owners or for the shareholders is good for the business. All economically profitable actions and decisions are considered to be good in this perspective. All organizational behavior of the individuals and groups is oriented in such perspective towards profit generation with a single minded focus.
The danger with such a view or behavior is that sometimes it can be damaging others who are not shareholders, but who are affected by such behavior and decisions. Laws which govern such business behavior and choices deal with legally right and wrong aspects; they do not and cannot deal with morally right or wrong choices, so long as they are not legally wrong.
And this can lead to ‘clever’ legally defendable, but otherwise damaging choices in business, damaging to customers, to society, to government and to stakeholders other than only the shareholders. An emerging point of view which is slowly gaining wider acceptance is that the greater good of all the stakeholders needs to be considered and organizational choices have to be made in line with such considerations, if the business has to be considered as operating with business ethics.
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Still Using Those Tired Old Office Buzzwords?
“Paradigm shift.” “Value-add.” “Win-win.” “Customer-centric.” “Outside-the-box.” “Leverage our core competencies.” Clichéd terms like these buzz around the office like flies at a hot summer picnic… and they’re just as annoying.
Language is alive, and when it’s not, it’s time to liven things up. Here are some fresh examples (just for fun):
1. Hallway Trapprehension
The anxiety we feel at the approach of a coworker we’ve already passed multiple times in the hall in a single day (as we fret over something new and witty to say).
2. Shingling
Excessively pitching our kids’ candy bars, cookies, bowl-a-thon pledge requests, or anything else to coworkers, especially when a child’s value as a human being is apparently at stake.
3. Zombieland
The in-and-out, slow-eye-flutter, head-nodding state people fall into in many after-lunch meetings.
4. Octoboss
Supervisors who clasp onto so many tasks and special projects that subordinates often get deflected by an inky cloud whenever they approach… as the supervisor escapes.
5. Embuggeration
The act of filling coworkers’ email with huge files, impenetrably convoluted or lengthy messages, irrelevant Reply All copies, or any such encumbrance that causes said coworkers’ productivity to slow to a deathly crawl.
Tags: ethics social responsibility, social responsibility articles