Friedman's Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility

Accordingly, the legitimate incentive for any profit-making firm is the maximization of the shareholders’ profits (Burgess-Jackson 192). Based on the concept of Friedman, the business has an imperative role to play in the society in which it operates. Many consumers, for example, are currently focusing on the companies that promote the agenda of environmental awareness by showing some aspect of environmental responsibility. According to Friedman, “it may well be in the long-run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees. Essentially, the employment-at-will principle provides that any employer has the mandate and authority to terminate the contract of their employees without any warning at any time.

This can be done without fear of repercussions or favour that may result from legal pursuit of consequences. The employment-at-will principle has had various forms of criticisms. There are arguments in favour or the principle and those against it based on the provisions and considerations of ethical conducts and limits between the employer and the employee. According to Werhane and Radin, employment-at-will principle is not prudent due to two primary reasons; it causes violation and a sense of betrayal which does not conform to the ethical principles of fairness and integrity during the recruitment process. He argues that most advertisers actually deceive people but essentially control their behavior through their autonomy and ability of freedom of choice. Advertisement is done freely but the freedom to choose the advertised product lies with the targeted audience despite the fact that they are cheated on the product features or not.

In his argument, he adds that the primary purpose of advertisers is to convince the prospective buyers to purchase their products and services, rather than controlling our behavior. According to Arrington, advertisement of products is a technique which simply gives us an information to purchase a certain product. What happens beyond the passing of the product information is a subject which can be explored based on four central issues including autonomous desire, rational desire and choice, free choice and control or manipulation notwithstanding. The argument by Norman Bowie is about the Global Climate Change in relation to the obligation of business organizations (Rachel et al 109). He argues that business organizations have an imperative role to play in as far as the protection and conservation of the natural environment is concerned.

However, his argument is quite sceptical as he argues that this obligation must be within what the law provides. In fact, he argues that the “legal harm to the environment caused by businesses is regarded as morally permissible by society and believes that the current legal activities by business organizations that harm the environment do not violate the avoid-harm criterion. ” In summarized counter-arguments by Denis Arnold and Keith Bustos, the business have a sole obligation on any harm caused to the environment with limits. Accordingly, any other accrued benefits are viewed as incidental and are considered harmful to the business in the perspective of this model. The basic ideas about the “managing of stakeholders” are very crucial in solving many issue brought by the adoption of the dominant model in business environments.

The primary argument, according to Freeman is the fact that business executives have a sole responsibility to create and maximize the organizational value for all stakeholders independently. This can adequately be understood in the context of ethical theories for ethical theories for “managing for stakeholders. ” In his summary, Freeman outlines the “fourth pragmatist argument” which focuses on the introduction of capitalism and the essence of business social cooperation and collaboration. For instance, the privilege to free discourse, protection, due process, and certain property rights. The reason they assert freely work abuses these rights is on the grounds that in such game plans employers can terminate you for no reason. Along these lines, you may state something that your supervisor discovers questionable and due to this you could be let go.

Be that as it may, this appears to straightforwardly abuse your entitlement to free discourse. Another case is that you could be terminated for not submitting to an arbitrary medication test or pursuit of your work area. Regardless, there are laws against segregation which limit the reasons for end (or enlisting) of an employee. Whenever you round out an application you will see an announcement such that in enlisting the employer does not separate based on race, shading, national source, age, religion, conjugal status, sex et cetera. Contracting or terminating for any of these reasons is illicit. Likewise, many states are currently passing "admirable motivation" laws which request that employers who wish to fire an employee do as such for a worthy motivation and that the reason be known to the employee.

Fundamentally these laws are systematizing your entitlement to know why you are being ended and your entitlement to request this choice. What's more, "Disappointment", the third conundrum, is identified with the second one, and agreeing to this Catch 22, the informants can once in a while avert genuine and noteworthy perils. The complicity hypothesis was offered by Davis (2003) as another option to the standard hypothesis. In this hypothesis, informant has a commitment to play out the whistleblowing activity to express his/her reliability to the association in general. Davis (1996) communicated that the complicity hypothesis has two unmistakable highlights contrasted with the standard hypothesis. The initial one of these is ethics. By this, he implies that product marketers should not focus on manipulating their prospective customers to buy their goods.

Rather, they should focus on the applications of continuums of business ethics to provide accurate information about the product features. In another perspective, he addresses the relevance of making normative judgements on the part of the consumers as well as the prospective clients targeted by the advertising agencies. In his argument, he defines the aspect of desires and impulsive buying through the provision of empirical information by the advertisers. This is an important aspect in the manipulation of consumers which play a big role in ethical advertising.  Elements of Moral Philosophy: And the Right Thing to Do - Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy 3r. e. Place of publication not identified: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Print. Rachels, Stuart, and James Rachels.