Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a subject of much current interest within the managerial world. CSR has the attention of the business community, investors, customers, and the business media. CSR as both the philosophy and practice of for-profit organizations voluntarily acting to positively assist society in ways beyond that required to obtain profit objectives. The concept of CSR is becoming transformed such that it is no longer a radical concept concerning the responsibilities of corporations to society, but simply a tool of managing stakeholders and improving reputations. CSR is the idea that it reflects the social imperatives and the social consequences of business success. Corporate Social Responsibility is business decision making linked to ethical values, compliance with legal requirements and respect for people, communities and environment around the world. It could also be likened to open and transparent practices that are based on ethical values and respect for employees, communities and Continue reading
Business Ethics
Case Study on Business Ethics: The AIG Scandal
American International Group, Inc is a company whose operation began back in 1919. It was established back then by Cornelius Vander Starr as an insurance agency in Shanghai, China. AIG left china in 1949 after Starr had established himself as the westerner the sell insurance to the Chinese people. AIG headquarters then shifted from china to New York City, which is still the headquarters up to date. It is from here that AIG began its expansion tapping into other markets such as the Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Europe through use of its subsidiaries. It was in 1962 when Starr transferred management of AIG United states holdings to Maurice R. Greenberg. Greenberg introduced policies that made the company shift from its original personal insurance background to anew high market corporate targeted cover. The new management under Greenberg went on to focus mainly on selling AIGs’ insurance packages through independent Continue reading
Enron Scandal – The Evolution of Business Ethics
Aristotle said, “The end and purpose of the polis is the good life”. Adam Smith categorized the good life in terms of material goods and intellectual and moral excellence’s of character. Smith in his The Wealth of Nations commented, “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” Ethical misconduct has become a key concern in business today. Ethics is the main area of corporate governance, and management must take responsibility for their actions on global community scale. Ethics in business and shareholders desires for profitability are not always put on the same pedestal, and it is the responsibility of the executive management to ensure ethics surpass profitability. The 2008 financial crisis initiated critics to inquire about the ethics of the executives who were put in charge of large financial institutions around the Continue reading
Ethical Reasoning
Ethics is a term which refers to moral philosophy that focuses on the aspects of good life and the difference between better and worse. Ethics is concerned about the rules of human behavior and considers whether or not there is any objective right or wrong. Furthermore, ethics is concerned about the foundations of moral principles and how it evolved. Considering the definition of ethics, it can be deemed that its main objective is to guide the society on deciding what is good from bad and what is better from worse which is also referred to as normative ethics. This may be done in a general way or may address certain ethical issues only. Another form or ethics is termed as meta-ethics wherein the meaning of ethical language is analyzed to identify their true meaning. Simply speaking, the true meaning of referring to something as a moral act or a right Continue reading
Ethical Hackers and Ethical Hacking
An ethical hacker is a security professional who helps organization to take defensive measures against malicious attacks and usually the process he doing to find those vulnerable point is called Ethical Hacking. Sometimes this is also known as Penetration Testing or Intuition Testing. In this case, the ethical hackers are getting into the minds of computer criminals; think like them to find about innovative ways the hackers may use to get into the systems. Then organizations can take required actions to avoid those vulnerabilities. It has identified that the almost all computer systems have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a hacker to come to do damages. This can be due to an unpatched application, a misconfigured router or a rough network device and it will be not able to detect unless penetrate the networks and assess the security posture for vulnerabilities and exposures regular basis. As the hacking is Continue reading
Industrial Espionage
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines industrial espionage as “an individual or private business entity sponsorship or coordination of intelligence activity conducted for the purpose of enhancing their advantage in the marketplace.” While this definition may imply Industrial Espionage to be more or less the same as business or competitive intelligence, but there is an essential difference between the two – while business intelligence is generally under private sponsorship using an “open” methodology, espionage may be either government or privately sponsored and clandestine. Industrial Espionage is the process of collecting information and data for the purpose of generating revenue. Generating revenue is very important aspect for these people. They are not thrill seeker, if the compensation does not justify the reward they will not bother attempting to collect the required information. Individuals who commit Industrial Espionage are not looking for information for information sake, but for information that will Continue reading