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Corporate Social Responsiblity

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Corporate Social Responsiblity
corporate social responsiblity and new zealnd business

The concept of corporate social responsibility has been developed rapidly in last century. Milton Friedman, the famous Noble Prize-winning economist, who indicated that the corporation’s social responsibility is to maximize profit which has addressed a heated debate about corporate social responsibility in last forty decades. This article is going to discuss different positions toward Friedman’s theory and whether it is suitable for New Zealand firms or not.

The most important points on CSR has found in Friedman’s article is that a business’s responsibility is to get as much profit as possible without against the law and ethic custom (Friedman, 1970). There are several arguments about CSR which support Friedman’s points. First, manager’ obligation is to expend shareholders or owners wealthy thus he is representative of shareholders and owners. That is to say, Shareholders and owners should take control of their possession which is considered as their ethical right as they invested the business. The ethical right creates responsibility of directors of their organization which is to maintain and increase shareholders’ wealthy. It is irresponsible if manger spends shareholders’ money without their permission. But if the manager spends money in a way that shareholders would have spent it, he imposes tax. Second, when firms are trying to focus on their own interests, they can eventually lead to the best interests to whole society. “Lacking profit for extended periods, a firm’s funds (and funding sources) can dry up very quickly, leaving the firm unable to conduct business.”(Ahlstrom as cited in Globerman, 2011, p. 512). When companies lack of money to do business, lack of money to employ people, how could they contribute to society. It intelligibly describes Friedman’s position. Thirdly, government officials should make social decisions instead of directors who work for an enterprise. For example,



References: Schwartz, M. & Saiia, D. (2012). Should Firms Go “Beyond Profits”? Milton Friedman versus Broad CSR Globerman, S. (2011 ). The Social Responsibility of Managers: Reassessing and Integrating Diverse Perspectives. Business and Society Review, 116(4), 509-532. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database Ahlstrom, D.(2010) Roper, J.(2004). Corporate Responsibility in New Zealand. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 14,22-25. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database Orlitzky, M |Research Annotation 2 | |Reference |Roper, J.(2004)

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