Ethics, Social Responsibility and Strategic Planning

Ethics Reflection Paper: Ethics, social responsibility and strategic planning
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Background
The corporate management strives to maximize wealth for shareholders, but they also need to act ethically. They also need to balance different aspects of a business to avoid neglecting one area or focusing too much on one specific area. The use of computers and the internet in the workplace has made it easier for information to flow to various stakeholders. Profits maximization is not the only objective of a corporation, since there are responsibilities to diverse stakeholders and ethical considerations to be considered when making decisions. Hence unethical practices can be quickly reported and potentially tarnish the corporation’s brand. Through considering the interest of all stakeholders when making strategic decisions, then the management incorporates corporate social responsibility (CSR) into stakeholder management and business process. Organizations are then better placed to create corporate and social value when ethical practice and social responsibility are considered in strategic planning.
Ethics, social responsibility and strategic planning
Ethics and social responsibility of business are the commitments to doing what is right at all times. In many cases unethical actions in many organizations occur because of greed and compensation structures that provide incentives to the management (CIMA, 2010). Profit maximization, is a major objective of corporations, but this can often create short-terminism rather than focus on sustainability. Strategic planning relates to the guiding framework/ planning tool highlighting the direction that a business sought to follow through a long-term plan. The three concepts are related as they provide the framework for the business existence (Sumper, 2015). At the same time, the main ethical considerations include individual values, organization values and shareholder participation. Since the strategic decisions have a direct impact on a corporation’s stakeholders, there is a need to have a code of ethics that guides decisions that affect the stakeholders.
There are four levels of social responsibility, and the economic responsibility relate to the profit-making motive, since it is through this that a corporation contributes positively to the society (Sumper, 2015). The legal obligation requires that organizat...