scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book ChapterDOI

The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits

01 Jan 2007-pp 173-178
TL;DR: When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system”, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are — or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously -preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on recent progress in the theory of property rights, agency, and finance to develop a theory of ownership structure for the firm, which casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature.

49,666 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine three aspects of the stakeholder theory and critique and integrate important contributions to the literature related to each, concluding that the three aspects are mutually supportive and that the normative base of the theory-which includes the modern theory of property rights-is fundamental.
Abstract: ?The stakeholder theory has been advanced and justified in the management literature on the basis of its descriptive accuracy, instrumental power, and normative validity. These three aspects of the theory, although interrelated, are quite distinct; they involve different types of evidence and argument and have different implications. In this article, we examine these three aspects of the theory and critique and integrate important contributions to the literature related to each. We conclude that the three aspects of stakeholder theory are mutually supportive and that the normative base of the theory-which includes the modern theory of property rights-is fundamental. If the unity of the corporate body is real, then there is reality and not simply legal fiction in the proposition that the managers of the unit are fiduciaries for it and not merely for its individual members, that they are . . . trustees for an institution [with multiple constituents] rather than attorneys for the stockholders.

10,163 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For the better part of 30 years now, corporate executives have struggled with the issue of the firm's responsibility to its society, and it became quickly apparent to everyone, however, that this pursuit of financial gain had to take place within the laws of the land.

7,143 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present conclusions from a 10-year research program, the purpose of which has been to develop a framework and methodology, grounded in the reality of corporate behavior, for analyzing and evaluating corporate social performance.
Abstract: This article presents conclusions from a 10-year research program, the purpose of which has been to develop a framework and methodology, grounded in the reality of corporate behavior, for analyzing and evaluating corporate social performance. There are three principal sections: (a) a summary of the approaches, models, and methodologies used in conducting more than 70 field studies of corporate social performance from 1983-1993; (b) a discussion of the principal conclusions derived from the data that (1) corporations manage relationships with stakeholder groups rather than with society as a whole, (2) it is important to distinguish between social issues and stakeholder issues, and (3) it is necessary to identify the appropriate level of analysis in order to evaluate CSP; and (c) a discussion of propositions and areas for further research.

6,827 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies and found that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association.
Abstract: Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...

6,493 citations

References
More filters
Book
21 Feb 2008

124 citations

Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: This is an updated edition of the popular workbook, written to match the latest syllabus, and has been written for students studying the "International Marketing Strategy" module in the CIM Diploma.
Abstract: This is an updated edition of the popular workbook, written to match the latest syllabus. It has been written for students studying the "International Marketing Strategy" module in the CIM Diploma; it is endorsed by Trevor Watkins, the CIM Chief Examiner, and contains sample exam questions. The layout of this text is lively and interactive. Each unit has the same structure with the intention of making learning easier and more consistent, and contains objectives, test tasks, practical examples and case studies. There are also questions to test the reader's knowledge, advice on where to find out more, a succinct chapter summary, and revision tips.

96 citations

01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a general framework for combining strategic benchmarking with efficiency benchmarking of the services offered by bank branches, in particular, the service-profit chain is cast as a cascade of efficiency benchmarks.
Abstract: This paper develops a general framework for combining strategic benchmarking with efficiency benchmarking of the services offered by bank branches. In particular, the service-profit chain is cast as a cascade of efficiency benchmarking models. Three models—based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)—are developed in order to implement the framework in the practical setting of a bank’s branches: an operational efficiency mode, a quality efficiency model and a profitability efficiency model. The use of the models is illustrated using data for the branches of a commercial Bank. Empirical results indicate that superior insights can be obtained by analyzing operations, service quality, and profitability simultaneously than the information obtained from benchmarking studies of these three dimensions separately. Some relations between operational efficiency and profitability, and between operational efficiency and service quality are investigated.

24 citations