Ethics and Social Responsibility

Many organizations are based within the society, and in this respect, they have a definite social responsibility of conducting their operation and discharging their duties to the society.  It is asserted that for any organization to be successive and competitive in the market it has to incorporate ethics and social responsibility when developing a strategic plan. An organization's strategic planning and capital budgeting decisions have the potential to impact the most important group of any firm called stakeholder.

A stakeholder is an individual or a group of persons that can be affected by the achievements or failures of the organization's strategic plan, and they include customers, local communities, governments, suppliers, intermediaries, and the financial community. This personal study seeks to establish whether the presence of a code of ethics that address strategic planning/capital budgeting decisions will considerably raise the awareness of social responsibility during the long-run planning process. It is imperative to understand that a code of ethics that highlights and tackles long-term planning is often associated with higher and successful awareness during the planning process.

Ethics are certain procedures and rules that give an outline as to what is good or bad. Galbreath (2009) asserts that while ethics should be part and parcel of an organization's long-term strategy, mission statement, codes of conduct, and public procurement, it should also act as the corner stone of organizational culture; otherwise it will never be effectively integrated into its business strategy. When developing a strategic plan, organizations must observe these rules and procedures because they play an important role in the success of the strategic plan.

First off, ethics ensure that an organization becomes socially responsive in its initial and eventual operations. It is imperative to understand that an ethic-centric firm follows ethical tenets while overseeing its daily operation and conducting business. It is believed that ethical implications of proposed actions should be considered at the action planning stage. This gives rise to another role of ethics in developing a strategic plan, which is adding robustness to an organization's strategic planning since it adds value and protects the organization (Robideaux, Miles & White, 2007).

Social responsibility plays a vital role when developing a strategic plan as it allows the laid down objectives by an organization to benefit all stakeholders. In fact, organizations are expected to be social responsible so that they can stay in business. This responsibility is aimed at preventing organizations from engaging in harmful activities as well as allowing organizations to perform activities that directly advance social goals. The major role of social responsibility in developing a strategic plan is that it enables an organization to create a good image, reputation and trust, which are precious possession to any organization.

Social responsibility is also good for the employees as it gives them a sense of meaning and purpose when the work they do make any positive change (Hartman & Desjardins, 2010). As a result, a company would be able to attract and maintain good employees because of a good reputation. This has many advantages to an organization because it will reduce the cost of hiring and training new employees. Companies that carry out ethical discussions as best practice remain out of the media spotlight with negative publicity. This practice benefits both the organization and the stakeholders as a whole.

Based on the above discourse, I believe that my ethical perspective has changed for the better. Throughout the program, I was able to learn that rather than doing what is good, people with ethical perspectives based on character usually base their ethical perspectives on the good. This is because stakeholders often rely on an individual's ability to make sound moral judgment. Moreover, I learnt that business decisions that culminate from traditional strategic planning scenarios often lead to cries of foul play from many industrial watchdogs, angry consumer base, and negative publicity as a result of a disenchanted public.