business and society Flashcards
What is society?
A community, a nation, or a broad group of people with common traditions, values, institutions and collective activities and interests
What is business?
The private, commercially oriented organisations ranging in size from one person proprietorships to corporate giants
What is the business and society relationship?
What is the Anglo American Model?
Little consideration for anything outside stakeholders such as the environment - the greatest threat to environment sustainability is the continued increase in human consumption
What is capitalism?
The economic and political system where major portions of production and distribution is in private lands, operating under what is termed a ‘profit’ or ‘market’ system
What is corporate social responsibility?
To align a company social and environmental activities with its businesses purposes and values
What is the Maori Worldview?
What is the stakeholder model?
It holds that a company os morally obligated to all parties with a stake in the outcome of its activities, including employees, the communication and the environment as well as stockholders
What is the agency theory?
Promotes idea that shareholders own and the Board acts in their interest as their ‘agents’ focus on returning profit to shareholders. This is often an ‘unspoken assumption; in contemporary businesses as shareholders ‘own’ and are the ‘principals’ with authority to manage business. Managers are delegated decision making authority and they are therefore ‘agents’ of shareholders as an agent, they’re obliged to operate in accordance with shareholder desires
What is company regulation?
What is the social contract theory?
Holds that all businesses operate under an unwritten contract with the society as a whole, in which the society allows the company to do business under the condition that its actions benefit society
What is the old and new social contracts?
What is system thinking?
Modes of responding to messy/complex situations
ETHICS
What is the social contract?
A set of reciprocal understandings that charactsie the relationships between major institutions (business) and society, deals with arguments regarding to amount of freedom restrictions for the sake of protection of other rights
What is the Friedman Doctrine?
Use resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so it stays within the rules of the “game”
What is an example of ethics being misused?
The US congress attempted to pass a law allowing the censorship of any website
What is system theory?
All elements existing outside the boundary of the organisation have the potential to affect the organisation
What are the ethical frameworks (for decision making)?
Utilitarian, individualism, moral rights and justice
What is an utilitarian framework?
The ethical concept that moral behaviour produces the greatest good for the greatest number
What is an individualism framework?
Holds that acts are moral when they promote the individual best long term interest, which ultimately leads to greater good (the invisible hand)
What is a justice framework?
The ethical concept that moral decisions must be based on standards of equity, fairness and impartiality
What is a moral rights framework?
Holds that moral decisions are those that best maintain the rights of those people affected by them
What is a pluralistic society?
The politics and decision making are mostly made by the government but many nongovernmental organisations use their resources to exert their influence, prevents concentration of power