A Role of Ethics and Social Responsibilities in Management.

Ethics can be defined as a process of evaluating actions according to moral principal of values(A.Alhemoud). Throughout the centuries people were trying to choose between profit and moral. Perhaps, some of them obtain both, but every time it could have roused ethical issues. Those issues concern fairness, justice, rightness or wrongness; as a result it can only be resolved according to ethical standards. Setting the ethical standards for the way of doing business in corporation is primarily task of management. Corporations have to maintain the same standards as an individual person and, in addition, corporations, as organizational units, have their own social
On the other hand, being ethical can be clever marketing strategy.
Increasingly, consumers are swayed by "non-commercial" factors, such as whether the product harms the environment . "Firms such as Ben & Jerry's, an ice cream maker and Body Shop international, a cosmetics retailer, have enforced their brands by publicizing their ethical standards...Calmins Engine , a maker of diesel engines , made the product greener while lobbing for stricter pollution laws. Dp Pont, a leading producer of ozone damaging CFCs, became an early member of anti-CFCs lobby partly because it knew it was well ahead of its rivals in developing alternative."( The Economist December 23 1996) But ethical self promotion can backfire. As in the case of Body Shop company that was publicly enforced to rephrase a statement that its product were not tasted on animals (Some other companies did that in the past). This accident made many consumers to question Body Shop ethical standards. Another interesting issue in corporate management is social responsibilities. Social ________________________________________________________
________________ Frank Lalli "A Question of professional ethics" responsibilities can be defined as set of obligations an organization has to protect and enhance the society in which it functions.(Ricky W. Griffin.