The Social Responsibility of Business by Cindy

The Social Responsibility of Business by Cindy - April 2020 Scholarship Essay

Businesses exist to earn profit and to serve a purpose to shareholders and society. Alex Edmans claims that this is a fundamental dilemma for businesses. To earn a profit, there are many expectations for businesses. They must take into consideration the social responsibility of their business; in other words, how they can most efficiently and effectively increase profit as they assess the quality of their product, the consequences in the production of their good or service, and also the environment they put their employees in. This is true because according to the definition of a business: providing a good or service with an intent to make a profit.
Business ethics definitely plays a role in the three areas of a business’s purpose that are previously mentioned. Business ethics are a set of moral beliefs that generally determine how businesses function and how their decisions are made. This includes how workers, shareholders, and customers are treated, the positive or negative outcomes of how a product is produced, and how qualitative the good or service may be. In order for a business to consider the existence of social responsibility within their company, they must have business ethics and hold these morals with great importance.
Edmans defines an important aspect of social responsibility as the experience of an employee as they work at a company. The well-being of an employee determines how well the business’s social responsibility is. Their treatment also determines the business’s profits and ethics. A company’s social responsibility is important because these ethics relate to the happiness of its customers and society. With happy employees come satisfied customers, presumably.
Some companies greatly differ from their competitors when comparing their cultures, profits, and social responsibilities to others’. This is because of how important businesses value social responsibility. For instance, Costco finds social responsibility extremely high in levels of importance. They allow their employees to spend national holidays with their families rather than working. This displays how Costco cares for their employees’ well-being. The treatment Costco gives its employees affects the culture of the business. Happy employees evoke a joyful environment customers would enjoy and preferably shop in. With happy and optimistic workers, customers would be more willing to come back because of the wonderful experience they have had before simply because of the employees present. If customers return, the company’s profits are bound to rise and would additionally attract a higher number of customers because of good reflections and reviews.
If a company values business ethics and practices, its influences on society would naturally be beneficial and impactful. When a business successfully makes their employees happy, satisfying the needs of its customers should not be difficult. Happy employees and satisfied customers would have an overall positive influence on the surrounding community, but in order to gain profits, social responsibility is a key factor in keeping and gaining customers.