Study on the Company’s Responsibilities

1.0 Introduction
 

Nowadays, the stakeholder’s responsibility is consistent with the corporation’s benefits, so that the process of creating values is a whole confederative course all over the world (James, 2009). Therefore, the development of the corporations around the world is closed related to the stakeholder’s responsibilities; as a result of it is good for the development of the society and environment. This relationship is reflected on the corporate social responsibilities of the company, which asks for the corporations around the world must exceed the traditional opinion which is the make profits is the exclusive objective, and emphasize the attentions on the value of the production and the contribution to the society. The classical economic view for the corporation is to maximize the profits for the business, while the socioeconomic economic view mentions that the companies should take on two aspects’ responsibilities for the society and itself (Michael & Michael, 2009).

For the global companies, the managerial legitimacy means the stakeholder’s responsibilities are more important than the government. The social responsibility of the company can be implanted to a wide range of stakeholders in society; as a result of these stakeholders are groups or individuals who can affect the achievement of the organization’s objective. Heather & Robert (2009) found out that the stakeholders can be divided into two parts, which are the environmental stakeholders and the process stakeholders. The environmental stakeholders contain the customers, owners and the community, while the process stakeholders include the employees and suppliers of the company.

Until now, some companies have already accepted the opinion which is they have the responsibilities to a wide range of stakeholders in society; because of there is closed relationship between the corporation’s responsibilities and the stakeholders. However, there is another point of view thought that the objective of the company is only making profit and the firm’s responsibilities don’t have meaning on achieving objective, so that these companies don’t agree with that. In my opinion, the preceding opinion is suit for the development of the society and environment. For proving the relationship between the company’s responsibilities and the stakeholders is interactional and closed related with each other, this paper will be discussed from four aspects which depend on four different kinds of responsibilities on stakeholder’s responsibilities, for proving that all the companies around the world should accept that taking stakeholder’s responsibilities is good for the company and society’s development.

 

2.0 Main Body

According to the Carroll’s pyramid model, the social responsibilities of the company can be divided into four stages from bottom to top are: the economic responsibilities, the legal responsibilities, the ethical responsibilities and the philanthropic responsibilities (Stephanie, 2008). There are many advantages on the stakeholder’s responsibilities for the business. First of all, fulfilling the corporate social responsibility is good for increasing the profitability of the company, because o fit can help the business build up the well visualization for achieving the long-term objective (Acquier, et al, 2008). In addition, it is good for the continuable development of environment and resources. Therefore, it shows that there is a strong relationship between the companies’ responsibilities and the wide range of stakeholders in society nowadays.#p#分頁標題#e#

First of all, the economic responsibility of the company is the foundation upon which all other levels rest in corporate society responsibilities, based on the Carroll’s pyramid model. The firms should consider the social responsibility under the condition of the company can keep a good development itself, unless other responsibility will be the burden for the business. John (2006) has shown the economic responsibility for the shareholders can enrich the stakeholder or society, as a result of it can help the national economic have a rapid and steady development. The Michael E. Porter theory mentions that the corporate economic objective and the society responsibility can be compatible in the modern society (David, 2007). Based on the view of Nigel & Nikala (2009), some managers of the company consists that supplying some extra responsibility will decrease the retained profits, as a result of it could add extra costs on the process of production and extending. But actually, the economic responsibility to the stakeholder has some strongpoint to the companies. Take the SONY Company as an example; it used the economic responsibility to absorb many customers’ attentions. For reducing the costs of products, SONY company is trying t make the production and used information more clarity so that decrease the customer’s risks when they bought the SONY company’s technical products. The Sony Company used some alloy steel instead of the traditional steel for making the façade of the equipment, which is the representation of economic responsibility. Compared with other technological companies all over the world, the SONY Company utilized the economic stakeholders’ responsibility maintaining the strong competitive position in the serious competition environment. Due to the tenet of implementing economic responsibility is to make business as profitable as possible; the transaction cost theory emphasizes that the phenomenon of professional work divided result by the operation of the economic system and the market pricing mechanism. Thus, the economic responsibility can reduce the transaction costs for the business, which can make the rational consumers prefer these companies. On the other side, the cost of using the market pricing mechanism is a little higher, so that it forms the corporate mechanism. Hereby, the companies should use the economic responsibility to the customers which is also the stakeholder in society for keeping the steady social mechanism. The investments on the economic responsibility of the corporation can endow the product with the property of society responsibility which can be seen as a differentiation strategy. There are many researches on the economic responsibility for corporations. Based on the analysis of the relationship between the corporate society responsibility and the short-term profits, Nigel & Nikala (2009) has shown that it has some correlation between the produce costs and the level of implementing corporate society responsibility in the UK. The result is if the relationship has the positive correlation, there is obvious differentiation between the value of the products which fulfilling the economic responsibility and the rest. In addition, Nigel & Nikala (2009) also pointed out the productive costs of the public companies with high reputation are always lower; as a result of the good reputation is result by the implementing economic responsibility. From above, it shows that the economic responsibility of the company can reduce the productive costs for maximizing the profits, so that it is not only good for the owners of the company, but also good for the customers.#p#分頁標題#e#

Secondly, Davide (2007) stressed the legal responsibility asks the company obey all the rule and regulations, as a result of the law is the society’s codification of right and wrong. Doing the legal responsibility can help and keep the society becoming the monocracy society for the stakeholders. The companies around the world must do everything under the law and play by the rules, for example, the environment protection law, the consumer rights and interests’ law, the labor protection law, and so forth. From above, the Carroll’s model has shown that the companies should provide goods and services to the customers that at least the minimal legal requirements (Davide, 2007). Developing the working activities under the existing national and global legal frameworks is the basic requirement for the companies around the world. If all the companies around the world don’t follow the laws and regulations, the serious competitive environment will become quite unfair which full of issues and problems. However, there still have some companies get the homologous punish by without following the rules all over the world. In 2008, the Chinese Sanlu milk powder Company absorbed many people’s attention, as a result of there are some heavy metal existing in the products of the company (Gary, 2008). The aftereffect of this event is the company have to be bankrupt and suffer from the chastisement of the laws, as a result of the unqualified milk powder made lots of Chinese children got the nephric lithiasis, even death. The event of Sanlu Company is representative examples for the companies which did not obey the legal rules, which are lack of corporate social responsibility. Therefore, the companies must obey the legal national and supra-national laws and regulations for keeping the excellent competitive environment, unless it will suffer from the chastisement of the laws. That means the legal responsibility of the company is related to the company’s own development and the customers’ safe and benefits. Due to the closed relationship between the employees and the corporation, the legal responsibility is so necessary for both of them because the laws and regulations can protect the rights of labors and also can reduce the loss of the company if something happened. It can be represented by three aspects. Firstly, companies with legal responsibility can reduce the issues of the labor contract and trade entanglement with the stakeholders. In the actual life, there are lots of problems existing in the labor contract between the firm and employees. Therefore, legal responsibility can supervise this system for ensuring the labor’s legitimate rights. And, the conflict between the employee and employer has become more and more obvious because of the polarization of benefits. In the UK, there are about 847,000 cases about the labor disputed in 2004, while the number has increased to 1,260,000 in 2006, which shows the average increased percentage is about 10.44% (Rajat & Eric, 2007). Moreover, the legal responsibility can protect the employee and employer’s safe problems. In order to saving some costs, Gary (2008) also pointed out that some employees work in the execrable environment so that they don’t have the guarantee on the safe and health, especially in the colliery industry. Hereby, it shows that company with social responsibility can protect the rights of the employees, and also can motivate employee to work better and find out more capable methods on operating, such as, the supply chain management.#p#分頁標題#e#

Thirdly, the ethical responsibility is the obligation to do, what is right, just and fair for the company for avoiding the farm for the society (Oswaldo, et al, 2010). In other word, the ethical responsibility is the society’s expectation to the corporations. In our daily life, updating the produce technology, developing the green projects, and optimizing the industrial structure are what the company can do for the environment protection and social stabilization. Stephanie (2008) mentioned the core notion of the ethical responsibility is the environment ethic. The traditional theory stresses that corporation is the principal part, so that some firms are not hesitate destroy the surrounding environment for achieving their objective (Mary, 2008). Accordingly, the sequent of that is that qualify of environment is decreasing rapidly. Due to the desertification, global warming and some other environmental problems becomes serious now, one of the ethical responsibility which is the environmental responsibility indicates the global companies should reward the natural environment (Min-dong, 2009). All the companies should recognize that the activities of the operation will destroy the balance of zoology, whereas the destroyed environment also will restrict the development of the business. This points out that the companies around the world and the environmental system are so closed that interdependent and interactional, so that it is quite necessary to provide the ethical responsibility to the stakeholders. The Volvo Car Company is developing a kind of electric car for environment protection which is named battery electric vehicle. Due to the automotive pollution brought the environment destroyed so seriously, some car manufacturer started to develop the battery electric vehicle which is avoiding the air pollution. The Volvo Car Company has invented the BEV vehicle, which is relying on the electric for driving and zero gas letting. This new style car is using battery instead of benzene, so that the electric power comes from the continuable sources for generating electricity. Consequently, all the companies around the world should focus on building the long-term business strategy instead of short-term planning, as a result of the latter one might waste natural resources and damage the balance between social and environmental. Until now, Stephanie (2008) has shown there are many firms have already made or tried to make green project for protect out environment, which is the representation of fulfilling the ethical responsibility to stakeholders.

In the end, implementing the philanthropic responsibility is to contribute resources to the community as a good corporate citizen, for improving the quality of the life. The philanthropic level is the top level in the Carroll’s pyramid of social responsibility, which is focused on the corporate beneficent responsibility (Davide, 2007). In the recent developing stage, one of the most important task for building the concordant society is to develop the social project by a long way, as a result of these projects are closed related to the demotic direct benefits and the stabilization of the society. On the one hand, doing some charity things is an important method for carrying out the corporate social responsibility for the company to stakeholders. Carola & Kevin (2007) considered that the corporation should not only supply the protection to individuals and environment, but also pay more attention on giving contribution to the development of the society by what they got, especially for the benefits of the social weak-force groups. Through different kinds of beneficent endowment, commonweal activities or break ground funding organization can help the business achieve the objective of implementing the social responsibilities. Thus, if the corporate social responsibilities can be seen as a kind of rigid responsibility, engaging different kinds of modern benevolent undertakings are absolutely necessarily contents and steps for the corporate cultures. On the other hand, the corporations are the most important part for the development of the philanthropy. Compared with the individual citizen, the firm can play bigger role in these activities; because of it have bigger force and finance to support them (Joanna, 2006). Herewith, the corporations with philanthropic responsibility can extend the concept of charity, which can educate the employees and build up a good visualize. At present, there are many different forms activities for companies implementing philanthropic responsibility. In the U.S., the McDonld Company was holding a statewide childhood immunization campaign, which is the biggest immunized activity. The company was spending plenty of money on implementing philanthropic responsibility to children, which is ask the children age group between 0 and 14 accept the bacterin of measles inoculation for free in half month. The McDonld’s promotion of a statewide childhood immunization campaign makes the corporations around the world are trying their best to contribute to the society for better development. From above, it shows that the philanthropic responsibility of the corporation can be achieved by the form of charity, while the modern charity project is closed related to the participation of the companies around the world. The companies can use charities activities for rewarding society, which is fulfilling the responsibility to the stakeholders.#p#分頁標題#e#

Although the results shows implementing the corporate social responsibility is not only good for the company itself, buy also good for the environment and society, there still have some companies would not like to accept the view of they have the social responsibility to a wide range of stakeholders. The reasons are represented on two aspects. First of all, the traditional enterpriser’ opinion limits the CSR’s extending. Some enterprisers are still focusing on the profitability of the company which without the consciousness of responsibility in some developing countries, so that lacking of trust to society in the serious competition environment (Annick, 2008). And then, the faulty law system is also influence the CSR’s development. Sometimes, there are no specific regulations on the law when something happened, so making the companies lost believes on the corporate social responsibility. In a word, extending the corporate social responsibility still needs the governments and companies’ support all over the world.

 

3.0 Conclusion

The primary objective of the company is to make profit, so that there is some contradiction with the social development because of the requirement of society is pluralistic. The companies around the world have the responsibility to a wide range of stakeholders is not only good for the business itself, but also make a significant contribution for the society and environment. Generally speaking, the economic responsibility of the company can make the production reach a high level of operational efficiency which maximizing the earning per share to shareholders. In the next place, the legal responsibility can give the protection to the employees and suppliers by regulations and laws, which supply a steady monocracy society. Afterwards, the ethical responsibility of the firm improves the meaning of social responsibility for environment protection by continuable development. Eventually, the top level philanthropic responsibility is claimed the company should contribute some resources to the community for improving the quality of life by different kinds of charities for the whole world. Although there still have some limitations on the current corporate responsibilities need to be improved, the companies around the world should accept the opinion which is they have the corporate responsibilities to a wide range of stakeholders in current society.

 

Reference:

 

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