Gender Stereotypes And Its Effects On Society - 893 Words

In society it is very hard to get away from sexism. It shows up in the media, clothing products, toys, and even television shows. Not only do we have lingerie commercials on television but now they consist of very skinny models with big breasts and of course they are gorgeous and a size zero. What ever happened to the overweight women, or the flat chested lady that just had three kids, why is she not on the runway showing off the new items for Victoria’s Secret? From a marketing perspective; sex sells. It is unfortunate that it has to happen at all, not only does it happen to women but also to men. Both genders are being portrayed as sexist’s objects in many different aspects in our society. No matter where we go it seems that sexism pops up in even the most unexpected ways. Going out shopping looking for pictures frames I never expected to find a sexy woman shown on a piece of paper in the picture frame. Does the marketing company think that I am going to buy this certain type of frame because the girl can hold her hair a certain way and make a seductive look with her eyes? Not so much, but a male client maybe more enticed by this woman’s look. Why do these companies feel that this is necessary? Do they really make that much more money by making items have the sex appeal? In 2013, the United States advertising made over $103 billion in revenue (Bush, Nagelberg, Campbell, n.d., para. 1). Most of the products that generally use sexist images are those of advertising forShow MoreRelatedGender Stereotypes And Its Effect On Society1418 Words   |  6 Pagestheir role in society is associated with masculine ideals. Generalizations that exist are such of men should; b e athletic and strong, be in charge, be the head of the family, to make the money, to want sex, and not show emotions. These generalizations are portrayed and instilled in our lives from media influence to even the adults in our lives telling us so. Males all over the world grow up trying to abide by the set limits society deems a male should do. The mindset of today’s society is tainted withRead MoreGender Stereotypes And Its Effect On Society966 Words   |  4 Pagesand images that surround us become a part of the culture in society and typically represent and reinforce a fabrication of gender roles, which ultimately frames gender stereotype. This is known as the gender ideology, a process that society considers normal and because of this, we abide by these distinctions without realizing the repercussions. Nonetheless, the advertisers and editors of images put forth great effort in molding each gender differently. Women, for example, obtain an ideal view as beingRead MoreGender Stereotypes And Its Effect On Society861 Words   |  4 PagesZac Galifianakis once stated, â€Å"Welcome to our society. You will be judged on what you wear, your taste in music, what you look like, and how you act. Enjoy your stay.† Today’s society lives under optimum power, commonly known as a democracy. Actually, humanity has so much power that it is able to manipulate people’s behavior and perception in life. Unfortunately, society expects a certain behavior from everyone. For example, men are expected to go to work and bring wealth to the family while womenRead MoreThe Role Of Gender And Stereotyping Of The Sexes Essay972 Words   |  4 PagesIn this paper I will discuss how the role of gender and the stereotypes of the sexes relate. I will also discuss the child’s perception of their male and female superiors and in the way they carry out their own behavior in regards to what has been introduced to them. In this paper I want to also expand on the basic stereotypes that we as individuals portray toward a gender. Gender and stereotyping is among a broad spectrum. There is an expansive amount of content, but the concept still remains theRead MoreHow Women Are Portrayed On Advertising And The Second Looks At This Time1104 Words   |  5 Pageshas on women in society. 2. State the claim the study supports The scholarly article I am reviewing is a research article that did two separate examinations on the role of humor in gender stereotypes. The first one is the role of humor seen in television advertisements and the second looks at peoples attitudes toward humorous and non-humorous ads that have gender stereotypes in them and how that would affect a persons desire to buy. There has been a lot of research done on the gender stereotyping,Read MoreGender Roles And Gender : A Season Of Madness By Hanan Al Shaykh950 Words   |  4 PagesGender Roles And Gender Stereotype Problems in society Gender problems are big problems in society. Although today s gender problems are better than before, it still cannot be resolved completely. There are many kinds of gender problems. For example, gender role, gender identity, gender stereotypes and gender-equal problems. The short story A Season of Madness, by Hanan Al-Shaykh, shows some problems of genders and society. In A Season of Madness, the author tells a story of a Lebanese woman-Read MoreThe Negative Effect Of Stereotypes1613 Words   |  7 PagesThe Negative Effect of Stereotypes in Comedy We all laugh at the things we see in the media that are perceived as funny; whether it be appropriate or offensive. One of the most popular subjects that comedians and comedy shows rely on is stereotypes. Stereotypes play a large role in society and the everyday lives of individuals. These stereotypes have resulted in blurred assumptions of others based on what we see and hear in the media. The use of stereotypes in comedy to make something funny has aRead MoreStereotyping : Stereotypes And Stereotyping1494 Words   |  6 Pages In everyday life Stereotypes are used, they are directed towards ethnicity, gender, and education. â€Å"In ethnicity, we have the ideas that each race is a certain way† (Aronson. The impact of stereotypes). Here are a couple of examples for blacks, they all can run fast, and that they are all about the welfare system. â€Å"For Hispanics they are stereotyped as being crazy, loud, lazy, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, and slutty† (Typical stereotypes of Hispanics). The stereotypes of ethnicity is causingRead MoreGender Roles And Stereotypes1719 Words   |  7 PagesWhether it is consciously or unconsciously, we humans tend to characterize people by their gender. â€Å"Often, gender expectations or stereotypes shape our thoughts and interactions with others in subtle yet perceptible ways† (Block 1). When children enter the school environment, they will likely experience a number of issues relating to gender. They will continue to encounter gender issues thr oughout their lifetime, so it is important that we teach them to address these issues appropriately. TeachersRead MoreStereotypes And Stereotypes Of Gender Stereotypes1588 Words   |  7 PagesSociety today holds many stereotypes, and sometimes people will rebel against the stereotypes in order to embrace the individual and oppose social norms. However, some stereotypes are harder to rebel against than other. A stereotype that might be harder to break, either because the people who believe in that stereotype are too ignorant to look past it or because the people who need to rebel are not able to, is gender based stereotypes. One example of this type of stereotype is when gender roles appear

A Research Study On Management - 1710 Words

Henry Mintzberg, a world renowned professor at the prestigious McGill University once stated, Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet. There are many ways one defines management. Throughout the last 5 weeks I got to grasp some of the key concepts one needs to acquire to become effective in management. I was able to gain the knowledge for these main ideas through the small group projects, the in/online class discussions, and the analyzed paper we ve completed thus far. Overall, BUS 250 has demonstrated the importance of teamwork, leadership, organization/planning, personality traits, social responsibility, decision making, ethics, along with various other key concepts I will share with you. To begin with, as one could imagine, teamwork plays an especially important role in management, so it really laid an impression on me when we attacked the idea in class. Teamwork is the way employees and managers interact with one another to achieve a common goal. I first encountered this idea in a group project we had in the first day of class where we were assigned to build a boat out of construction paper. In groups of three we collaborated and came up with one boat design we would mass produce. We then came together as a class to determine which boat would be the best option to mass produce and sell to customers. It was pretty chaotic and hard to figure out the best design everyone wanted to produce. Learning the best way to work in a teamShow MoreRelatedA Research Study On Management Studies Essay1067 Words   |  5 PagesAfter a great deal of self evaluation, I have resolved to pursue management studies. Management studies have never been my goal until I graduated, saying othe rwise would be just an equivocation of the fact that slowly and steadily I started considering management studies to accomplish my long term goals and enhance my management skills. After experimenting with my career and meeting with many business enthusiasts, It was certain by the time that I want to pursue with MBA, to excel. Along with thatRead MoreA Research Study On Management Of Risk Management1647 Words   |  7 Pages1. Introduction: Project risk management these days is recognized as one of the important process of project management. Latest studies of project management has suggested that more focus should be on study of projects which are intra-alliance or inter-alliance networks. In the field of research about the risk management of project less attention is paid to the risk management in networked projects. The networked projects itself is a big concept, there are large number of people involved in a singleRead MoreA Research Study On Reward Management1220 Words   |  5 Pages1.1Introduction This chapter deals with the background of the study, statement of the problem, the objectives of the study, Research questions, significance, scope and limitations of the study. The significance of this chapter is to explore the main purpose of the research, the area to be covered and the problem of the research 1.2. Background of Study Reward management is one of the strategies used by Human Resource Managers for attracting and retaining suitable employees as well as facilitatingRead MoreA Research Study On Project Management922 Words   |  4 PagesProject Management Institute. (Partington, 1996) States that with the rapid transformation from bureaucratic and hierarchical structures to more flexible, organic and matrix organizations conferences, seminars and organizations proliferated on how to manage projects. The PMI (Project Management Institute) was founded in 1969 as a nonprofit organization with the sole objective to â€Å"foster recognition of the need for professionalism in project management; provide a forum for the free exchange of projectRead MoreA Research Study On Sedation Management799 Words   |  4 PagesResearch Critique The design of both quantitative and qualitative research offer valuable information to the health sciences. There are circumstances when certainty is necessary, and a quantitative design is needed. In contrast, there are times when an understanding of the quality of a particular social interaction is needed. The paper will apply a quantitative and a qualitative research article to the topic of sedation management to help validate meaning gleaned from two different research designsRead MoreResearch Study On Behavior Management871 Words   |  4 Pagesempirical research regarding behavior management in the classroom. More specifically, the article focuses on the findings and implications of a rarely discussed behavior known as â€Å"teacher retreating.† Teacher retreating is defined as the â€Å"behavior that occurs in the classroom when a teacher backs down after one or more students undermine the teacher’s authority by failing to comply† (Ratcliff, Carroll, Hunt, 2014, p. 170). Furthermore, the research consisted of four independent studies where a totalRead MoreA Research Study On Risk Management1922 Words   |  8 Pagessuccessful. After reading this case study, I’ve to notice so many poor decisions being made by this Satellite organization. The most noticeable issue was that they failed to plan initially. I noticed that there were unrealistic goals set, in which created a chaotic working environment. Because of this, the organization was bound to have nothing but an abundance of failure with this project and its success in the near future. As mentioned in the case study, the team faced many project failuresRead MoreA Research Study On Healthcare Management Essay981 Words   |  4 Pageslearned about in high school are what introduced me to healthcare, but it was ultimately my undergraduate degree coupled with my experience working in a free health clinic that has solidified my decision to wholeheartedly pursue a career in healthcare management. As a GMU healthcare administration student, I have learned about the sociological, political, business, and medical components found in the healthcare system . Furthermore, by reading and learning about the positive and negative aspects that existRead MoreA Research Study On The Project Management1599 Words   |  7 PagesCulture result in surveys conducted by the Executive management teams. The Client Operations department staff scored very poorly amongst the 50,000 banks employees, hence the development of a project to drive scores back to a more acceptable result. After undertaking this unit, I believe it was evident that there was a lack of structure in the planning process with the project and it resulted in misguided unproductive project teams. The project management (PM) teams neglected core planning areas and overlookedRead MoreA Research Study On Management Styles772 Words   |  4 Pagesdemonstrating technical skills. Netherlands management approaches rely on cohesiveness and collaboration to exchange ideas with workers to create a productive work environment. Education is provided through government funding through the gra duate school level. India is a collectivist culture emphasizing the person-organization fit as a predictor of the turnover rate in that country. Individual technical skills are prevalent in their pool of talent. Management styles are less authoritarian and include

Csr Essay Free Essays

string(451) " seen as a deviation from maximizing profits\? Or should a company’s managers strive to cut costs, but so that it is not so evident to customers, in order to get more money\? For example, a manager of a food company knows that he can substitute one ingredient for another, cheaper one, which may cause cancer if often consumed, and the customers most probably won’t realize it, because the appearance and the taste of the product will not change\." â€Å"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. † Warren Edward Buffet, Entrepreneur. We will write a custom essay sample on Csr Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now Social responsibility of business is a very contradicting topic and there clearly can be no perfect answer as to what extent corporations should employ it. Milton Friedman and Ivar Kolstad have contrasting opinions on the issue, and both of them listed weighty arguments for their positions. In this essay I would like to express my view on the problem presented in the articles. The argument can in fact be called â€Å"shareholders vs. stakeholders†. Management is bound to be responsible to shareholders; otherwise there will be some other management who will be responsible to them. In this respect, management does not have a choice. But they do have a choice whether or not to be responsible to other stakeholders as well, that is, employ some general and non-legislative principles of doing business. Shareholders are central in Milton Friedman’s opinion. He believes that a company exists in order to satisfy the shareholders and give them the most possible out of it. I cannot agree with this view and I think that it is quite narrow, because most companies are so much more than just profit-generators for stockholders. Of course companies need to make profit – otherwise they cannot survive, but owners should indeed feel the difference between fair profits, fair return on their money, and unlimited profits created at someone’s expense. Let’s look at managers’ choice between maximizing profits and caring for stakeholders from the perspective of different schools of normative ethics. Kantian deontology states that there are actions that are always good and actions that are always bad, and humans should act according to their moral duties, not to selfish motives and wishes. In the world of capitalists, this theory is quite hard to apply, since businesses inherently pursue the goal of profit generation, which is selfish by its nature. However, an idea of universal law can be used to evaluate moral actions: if one manager chooses to deceive his customers, let’s assume that all managers choose to deceive their customers. What would the result be? All customers would be deceived and would no longer trust the companies. So when making decisions, Kant suggests thinking in terms of universal laws. The opposing theory – consequentialism, suggests that the moral value of an action only depends on its consequences. However, let’s imagine that an employee of a nuclear power station decides to talk to his friend on the phone instead of controlling the process. If everything goes right and no catastrophe happens, can his action be considered ethically good? In this sense, the theory is not very useful. However, if we are talking about managers’ decisions, they should always think about consequences that their actions can cause. Another theory is utilitarianism, which evaluates the moral value of an action in terms of the summed happiness of all members of society that resulted from it. Shareholders make themselves â€Å"happy† by maximizing profits at any expense, but a whole lot of stakeholders are left â€Å"unhappy†. Therefore, owners of the company minimize the good in society by maximizing profits. On the other hand, a company can make a lot of people deliriously happy by giving out its products for free, and soon go bankrupt. So where does the thin line lie between maximizing customers’ value while staying financially sound and giving up profit opportunities for ethical motives, getting no or a very moderate return? It’s a very hard question, but in my opinion, companies should try to avoid doing harm to customers, employees and environment whenever they can. Another school is called classical school, and it states that the moral value of an action depends on its nature, motives and consequences. In my opinion, this theory is the most sensible one, because it comprises all other theories and does not look at actions from a narrow perspective. As long as customers are concerned, CSR is integral when dealing with them. If customers are dissatisfied with the quality of a product or service they get, or a company somehow deceives them, thus maximizing its profits, it receives a bad reputation and as a result can lose all of its customers and the shareholders would not get any returns. However, all too often companies cut costs at the expense of their customers’ well-being: for example, feed chickens with hormones that can have adverse effect not only on an individual, but also on his genes; or use low-cost resins in the production of furniture that poison humans’ breathing system. Frequently customers do not know about these hazards and assume that the product is of decent quality. I am not saying that companies should openly declare that their products are harmful, but rather that from the ethical point of view it would be right if the customer could have an overall image of the product that he is purchasing. It makes sense to also mention the billboards advertising make-up products where all women seem perfect and consumers subconsciously think that if they buy the product, they would be closer to the perfect image presented to them. However, it appears that most of these photos are heavily photoshoped and there is no way a real woman can look like this. However, these images do affect the overall standards of beauty, and make many women depressed about their appearance and many men to admire not the real natural beauty, but a fake photo of a woman he might never notice in the real life. In this sense, Dove has made quite an ethical move and launched a â€Å"Campaign for Real Beauty† (although it may as well be that this so-called â€Å"responsible† campaign was nothing but a fresh marketing move). However, it attracted attention to the topic and made more people aware of it. From Friedmanian point of view, can good quality goods be seen as a deviation from maximizing profits? Or should a company’s managers strive to cut costs, but so that it is not so evident to customers, in order to get more money? For example, a manager of a food company knows that he can substitute one ingredient for another, cheaper one, which may cause cancer if often consumed, and the customers most probably won’t realize it, because the appearance and the taste of the product will not change. You read "Csr Essay" in category "Essay examples" Should he maximize profits in this case? According to Friedman’s view, if a manager knows about the possibility but decides not to use it, he taxes the shareholders who would not get this additional profit. In the end it all comes down to the agent-principal theory, which states that managers have skills and knowledge that the shareholders do not themselves possess, therefore owners often cannot estimate, whether or not the management is doing a good job, so they need to trust the management. It follows that the management indeed has a choice, because shareholders do not really know to what extent management acts in owners’ interests. And again, shareholders most often can go away, sell their shares and have nothing more to do with the company, so they are likely to involve with strategies that damage other stakeholders. If we talk about employees, would it be fair to use child labor or underpaid labor in some third world? Kolstad says that companies have bigger responsibility in poor countries than in rich countries because poor countries’ governments cannot guarantee their citizens’ rights. I agree with him and I believe that there should be some sort of a moral code for companies, which defines that a company cannot exploit these unethical means of getting profits and involve in such â€Å"dirty† operations. Also, if we talk about layoffs, would it be fair to dismiss employees who have worked in a company for many years and who actually created its image and reputation? Shareholders are sort of blank in this sense – they are not involved in the development and production and often they do not put anything personal into the company, nor are they loyal – if the company does not promise good returns, they simply invest their money somewhere else. It is rather an ethical question whether these people need to be a priority for the management. Sure, their expectations need to be met, otherwise management will be dismissed, but a company is not its shareholders – in fact, they can be anyone. I believe that the main principle a company can adopt in relation to its employees is guaranteeing that everyone involved in the process gets a fair return. This means that there should be no miniscule salaries, regardless of where a company does business. However, if we talk about countries’ differences, surely a salary of a worker in China would be lower than that of the same worker in Finland. The point is that a company should not aim to just exploit the labor force of the country it chooses for its production, but rather think about how to make life for the workers better as well. If workers in a China are prepared to work for 100$ a month, but in this case it only gives them a chance to get by and not die, it would be very ethical from a company’s point of view to pay them 140$ a month. It would still be many times cheaper than hiring the same worker in Finland, but at least a company would give Chinese workers a chance to live decently. So all in all I believe that a company should not aim at employing people at the lowest possible salary in order to cut costs, but instead respect employees and ensure they get a fair return on their work. Another dimension of corporate responsibility is environment. It is special because the environment cannot cry for help, and if not enough attention is paid to it by the state or people, and a company does not treat it healthily, it becomes absolutely insecure. European and American companies that have factories in the third-world countries have no pragmatic interest in caring for the environment. Governments of these countries have to make a difficult choice between food and goods for its citizens and pollution caused by First World companies that choose Third World because environmental laws are much less strict there than in developed countries. So how should a company behave in regard to the environment? I believe that it is integral that a company does not just exploit it and leave the state and the population of the country dealing with the negative consequences. For example, managers are frequently tempted to cut costs by not installing waste filters and pouring unfiltered dump into rivers, lakes and soil. They can foresee that the consequences of this negligence can be disastrous, but they just do not care because they can always move their factories to another poor country with loose environmental legislation. This behavior is morally ill from the point of view of classic school of normative ethics. The nature of an act in obviously damaging – they pollute the environment. Their intention is to cut costs by involving in this negligence, and is by no means noble. The circumstances are bad and the managers actually could foresee it, but they are either too happy themselves with the stream of money or shareholders make the decisions for managers and make them behave in an environmentally harmful way. In this case managers become â€Å"Dams† and the organization can be considered ethically ill. However, who could directly punish companies for such actions? Their customers in the First World may have some idea of this irresponsibility, but they like the cheap product and most of them still are not so environmentally conscious. Home government does not really care what the company does in some Third World country. So in the end it all falls down on the Third World country, its government and especially people. It also has to be said that all environmentally irresponsible decisions are relatively short-term from the whole mankind’s point of view, because for now we have only one planet with the fixed amount of non-renewable resources. However, the safety and sustainability of nature is always dependent on numerous individuals who face trade-offs between clean environment and their own advantage, and people are generally prone to choose what is best for them. In conclusion, it has to be said that there are no perfect companies – each business inevitably pursues its own selfish aims. However, in modern globalized world, where corporations have a lot more influence and power than ever before, they also have a lot more responsibilities to the society. Unfortunately, managers all too often forget that they are the ones who can make all the difference to a company that is avoiding its responsibilities. â€Å"It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities† Josiah Charles Stamp, English Economist and President of the Bank of England How to cite Csr Essay, Essays

Csr Essay Free Essays

string(451) " seen as a deviation from maximizing profits\? Or should a company’s managers strive to cut costs, but so that it is not so evident to customers, in order to get more money\? For example, a manager of a food company knows that he can substitute one ingredient for another, cheaper one, which may cause cancer if often consumed, and the customers most probably won’t realize it, because the appearance and the taste of the product will not change\." â€Å"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. † Warren Edward Buffet, Entrepreneur. We will write a custom essay sample on Csr Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now Social responsibility of business is a very contradicting topic and there clearly can be no perfect answer as to what extent corporations should employ it. Milton Friedman and Ivar Kolstad have contrasting opinions on the issue, and both of them listed weighty arguments for their positions. In this essay I would like to express my view on the problem presented in the articles. The argument can in fact be called â€Å"shareholders vs. stakeholders†. Management is bound to be responsible to shareholders; otherwise there will be some other management who will be responsible to them. In this respect, management does not have a choice. But they do have a choice whether or not to be responsible to other stakeholders as well, that is, employ some general and non-legislative principles of doing business. Shareholders are central in Milton Friedman’s opinion. He believes that a company exists in order to satisfy the shareholders and give them the most possible out of it. I cannot agree with this view and I think that it is quite narrow, because most companies are so much more than just profit-generators for stockholders. Of course companies need to make profit – otherwise they cannot survive, but owners should indeed feel the difference between fair profits, fair return on their money, and unlimited profits created at someone’s expense. Let’s look at managers’ choice between maximizing profits and caring for stakeholders from the perspective of different schools of normative ethics. Kantian deontology states that there are actions that are always good and actions that are always bad, and humans should act according to their moral duties, not to selfish motives and wishes. In the world of capitalists, this theory is quite hard to apply, since businesses inherently pursue the goal of profit generation, which is selfish by its nature. However, an idea of universal law can be used to evaluate moral actions: if one manager chooses to deceive his customers, let’s assume that all managers choose to deceive their customers. What would the result be? All customers would be deceived and would no longer trust the companies. So when making decisions, Kant suggests thinking in terms of universal laws. The opposing theory – consequentialism, suggests that the moral value of an action only depends on its consequences. However, let’s imagine that an employee of a nuclear power station decides to talk to his friend on the phone instead of controlling the process. If everything goes right and no catastrophe happens, can his action be considered ethically good? In this sense, the theory is not very useful. However, if we are talking about managers’ decisions, they should always think about consequences that their actions can cause. Another theory is utilitarianism, which evaluates the moral value of an action in terms of the summed happiness of all members of society that resulted from it. Shareholders make themselves â€Å"happy† by maximizing profits at any expense, but a whole lot of stakeholders are left â€Å"unhappy†. Therefore, owners of the company minimize the good in society by maximizing profits. On the other hand, a company can make a lot of people deliriously happy by giving out its products for free, and soon go bankrupt. So where does the thin line lie between maximizing customers’ value while staying financially sound and giving up profit opportunities for ethical motives, getting no or a very moderate return? It’s a very hard question, but in my opinion, companies should try to avoid doing harm to customers, employees and environment whenever they can. Another school is called classical school, and it states that the moral value of an action depends on its nature, motives and consequences. In my opinion, this theory is the most sensible one, because it comprises all other theories and does not look at actions from a narrow perspective. As long as customers are concerned, CSR is integral when dealing with them. If customers are dissatisfied with the quality of a product or service they get, or a company somehow deceives them, thus maximizing its profits, it receives a bad reputation and as a result can lose all of its customers and the shareholders would not get any returns. However, all too often companies cut costs at the expense of their customers’ well-being: for example, feed chickens with hormones that can have adverse effect not only on an individual, but also on his genes; or use low-cost resins in the production of furniture that poison humans’ breathing system. Frequently customers do not know about these hazards and assume that the product is of decent quality. I am not saying that companies should openly declare that their products are harmful, but rather that from the ethical point of view it would be right if the customer could have an overall image of the product that he is purchasing. It makes sense to also mention the billboards advertising make-up products where all women seem perfect and consumers subconsciously think that if they buy the product, they would be closer to the perfect image presented to them. However, it appears that most of these photos are heavily photoshoped and there is no way a real woman can look like this. However, these images do affect the overall standards of beauty, and make many women depressed about their appearance and many men to admire not the real natural beauty, but a fake photo of a woman he might never notice in the real life. In this sense, Dove has made quite an ethical move and launched a â€Å"Campaign for Real Beauty† (although it may as well be that this so-called â€Å"responsible† campaign was nothing but a fresh marketing move). However, it attracted attention to the topic and made more people aware of it. From Friedmanian point of view, can good quality goods be seen as a deviation from maximizing profits? Or should a company’s managers strive to cut costs, but so that it is not so evident to customers, in order to get more money? For example, a manager of a food company knows that he can substitute one ingredient for another, cheaper one, which may cause cancer if often consumed, and the customers most probably won’t realize it, because the appearance and the taste of the product will not change. You read "Csr Essay" in category "Essay examples" Should he maximize profits in this case? According to Friedman’s view, if a manager knows about the possibility but decides not to use it, he taxes the shareholders who would not get this additional profit. In the end it all comes down to the agent-principal theory, which states that managers have skills and knowledge that the shareholders do not themselves possess, therefore owners often cannot estimate, whether or not the management is doing a good job, so they need to trust the management. It follows that the management indeed has a choice, because shareholders do not really know to what extent management acts in owners’ interests. And again, shareholders most often can go away, sell their shares and have nothing more to do with the company, so they are likely to involve with strategies that damage other stakeholders. If we talk about employees, would it be fair to use child labor or underpaid labor in some third world? Kolstad says that companies have bigger responsibility in poor countries than in rich countries because poor countries’ governments cannot guarantee their citizens’ rights. I agree with him and I believe that there should be some sort of a moral code for companies, which defines that a company cannot exploit these unethical means of getting profits and involve in such â€Å"dirty† operations. Also, if we talk about layoffs, would it be fair to dismiss employees who have worked in a company for many years and who actually created its image and reputation? Shareholders are sort of blank in this sense – they are not involved in the development and production and often they do not put anything personal into the company, nor are they loyal – if the company does not promise good returns, they simply invest their money somewhere else. It is rather an ethical question whether these people need to be a priority for the management. Sure, their expectations need to be met, otherwise management will be dismissed, but a company is not its shareholders – in fact, they can be anyone. I believe that the main principle a company can adopt in relation to its employees is guaranteeing that everyone involved in the process gets a fair return. This means that there should be no miniscule salaries, regardless of where a company does business. However, if we talk about countries’ differences, surely a salary of a worker in China would be lower than that of the same worker in Finland. The point is that a company should not aim to just exploit the labor force of the country it chooses for its production, but rather think about how to make life for the workers better as well. If workers in a China are prepared to work for 100$ a month, but in this case it only gives them a chance to get by and not die, it would be very ethical from a company’s point of view to pay them 140$ a month. It would still be many times cheaper than hiring the same worker in Finland, but at least a company would give Chinese workers a chance to live decently. So all in all I believe that a company should not aim at employing people at the lowest possible salary in order to cut costs, but instead respect employees and ensure they get a fair return on their work. Another dimension of corporate responsibility is environment. It is special because the environment cannot cry for help, and if not enough attention is paid to it by the state or people, and a company does not treat it healthily, it becomes absolutely insecure. European and American companies that have factories in the third-world countries have no pragmatic interest in caring for the environment. Governments of these countries have to make a difficult choice between food and goods for its citizens and pollution caused by First World companies that choose Third World because environmental laws are much less strict there than in developed countries. So how should a company behave in regard to the environment? I believe that it is integral that a company does not just exploit it and leave the state and the population of the country dealing with the negative consequences. For example, managers are frequently tempted to cut costs by not installing waste filters and pouring unfiltered dump into rivers, lakes and soil. They can foresee that the consequences of this negligence can be disastrous, but they just do not care because they can always move their factories to another poor country with loose environmental legislation. This behavior is morally ill from the point of view of classic school of normative ethics. The nature of an act in obviously damaging – they pollute the environment. Their intention is to cut costs by involving in this negligence, and is by no means noble. The circumstances are bad and the managers actually could foresee it, but they are either too happy themselves with the stream of money or shareholders make the decisions for managers and make them behave in an environmentally harmful way. In this case managers become â€Å"Dams† and the organization can be considered ethically ill. However, who could directly punish companies for such actions? Their customers in the First World may have some idea of this irresponsibility, but they like the cheap product and most of them still are not so environmentally conscious. Home government does not really care what the company does in some Third World country. So in the end it all falls down on the Third World country, its government and especially people. It also has to be said that all environmentally irresponsible decisions are relatively short-term from the whole mankind’s point of view, because for now we have only one planet with the fixed amount of non-renewable resources. However, the safety and sustainability of nature is always dependent on numerous individuals who face trade-offs between clean environment and their own advantage, and people are generally prone to choose what is best for them. In conclusion, it has to be said that there are no perfect companies – each business inevitably pursues its own selfish aims. However, in modern globalized world, where corporations have a lot more influence and power than ever before, they also have a lot more responsibilities to the society. Unfortunately, managers all too often forget that they are the ones who can make all the difference to a company that is avoiding its responsibilities. â€Å"It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities† Josiah Charles Stamp, English Economist and President of the Bank of England How to cite Csr Essay, Essays