Tag: csr

The “BlackBerry Riots” — What Should RIM Do? (via The Business Ethics Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

We have learned that Chris MacDonald quickly analyzes current events for ethical issues and can be counted on to get a post up in a day or less. This is one of those.

Chris MacDonald

My favorite paragraph is this one –

The question is complicated by questions of precedence. Tech companies have come under fire for assisting governments in, for example, China, to crack down on dissidents. Of course, the UK government isn’t anything like China’s repressive regime. But at least some people are pointing to underlying social unrest, unemployment etc., in the UK as part of the reason — if not justification — for the riots. And besides, even if it’s clear that the UK riots are unjustifiable and that the UK government is a decent one, companies like RIM are global companies, engaged in a whole spectrum of social and political settings, ones that will stubbornly refuse to be categorized. Should a tech company help a repressive regime stifle peaceful protest? No. Should a tech company help a good and just government fight crime? Yes. But with regard to governments, as with regard to social unrest, there’s much more grey in the world than black and white.

We’re going to come across this issue again and again. Modern social unrest, justified, unjustified or simply beyond our understanding, is now also a product of social networking. As these machines gain complexity and power, so will the possibilities of social action. We are entering a new world in which a protest or similar action can be organized in very short chunks of times. Flyers and bullhorns are as obsolete as Egyptian hieroglyphs in this new climate of computer assisted unrest.

James Pilant

The intersection of social media with social unrest is a massive topic these days. Twitter has been credited with playing an important role in coordinating the pro-democracy protests in Egypt, and Facebook played a role in helping police track down culprits after the Vancouver hockey riots. But the mostly-unstated truth behind these “technologies of the people” is that they are corporate technologies, ones developed, fostered, and controlled by c … Read More

via The Business Ethics Blog

RESEARCH PAPER ON CONSUMERISM (via My Way Of Expressing!!!)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I very much enjoyed this paper and hope as many people as possible read it.

James Pilant

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT   I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals and my college. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.   I am highly indebted to Mr. SHASHIDHAR CHIRON, our program director for their guidance and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support in … Read More

via My Way Of Expressing!!!

Creative Space (via Project CSR)

On By southwerkIn business ethics4 Comments

At one point the author talkes about life changes. There have been some major ones in her life. And then she says at one point these words, “I left my career, changed cities, left my community. I wouldn’t advise this radical restructuring. Yet it was necessary for me. I’d been so malformed over the years of being determined by others that I needed space to create, to build my own structures.”

I very much disagree. If at all possible, do what she did, leave your career, change cities, and get a new community.

We all need to break the bonds of our lives and form our own personalities and grab desperately on to the possibilities of a life of meaning, a path with heart in it.

How many of you have gone back to your high school reunion and listen to the guests discuss how high school was the best part of their lives. I remember some vaguely pleasant hours but no whole days. I started having a real life when I became a full adult. I have made many bad decisions and quite a few good ones, but the best one was not to stay in the pattern laid out for me in the communities I grew up in.

I do a job I love, teaching, and I fight to change the world.

That’s not what they taught me. I was supposed to conform and I don’t.

Now, once you have disagreed with a writer (and in the first paragraph no less) you are compelled by custom to do a kind of rain dance of stomping on the rest of the article. Nothing could be further from my intent. I loved the blog entry and the writing in it.

I, old man that I am, thinks she should be more willing to take the example of her life and say, “You ought to do this too!” She didn’t just make the correct decision to leave her community – she made the courageous decision. I don’t think she gives herself enough credit.

This is a good article from a thoughtful writer. I went down the list of her last six entries and that intelligence and commitement is evident in all of her writing. It’s one of those blogs that might very well merit a place in your bookmarks or favorites.  — Project CSR.

James Pilant

“Creation is pleasure and torture at the same time. It’s trying to make something out of nothing. It’s a birth of some sort. Sometimes it’s like pulling a piano out of a swamp. Sometimes it’s like walking on air. The torture of that nothing-space in front of you, and the pure elation of filling that space with something good—it’s one of life’s great juxtapositions. I’m grateful for that—the torture and the pleasure.” Zooey Deschanel I used to thi … Read More

via Project CSR

Corporate Social Responsiblity – Is it real? (via Kilnen’s Thought)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I appreciated this article. I among many who have serious doubts about CSR. There are some authors who believe the term is so undefinable to be useless.

It may be used to green the company’s issue when there is no real justification. That’s where my suspicion lies. The company takes something it is already doing it, gives it an environmental angle and then explains to the world in best corporate flack manner, how they “give back.”

It’s just taking under a PR screen.

James Pilant

Thanks! to Kilnen’s Thought!

Corporate Social Responsiblity - Is it real? So what is CSR? It basically means giving back to society, through environment or social projects. I have been research CSR recently and have surprise by the amount of businesses that claim to carry out this process. From KLM producing fuel-efficient winglets to co-operative fair trade. Everyone and their dog seems to be interested. However, it always appears to benefit the company first and society second. I mean, what a surprise that KLM’s wing … Read More

via Kilnen’s Thought

Economic Issues That Should Influence Ethical Multi-National Enterprises (MNE) (via hinaumer)

On By southwerkIn business ethics7 Comments

This is a good article about multi-national corporations and corporate social responsibility. In fact, it’s excellent. I really enjoyed it.

From the web site - Unite the Union

It’s from the web site, hinaumer. I recommend you read it.

James Pilant

Multi-National Enterprises (MNE’s) are huge organisations whose boundaries of influence and philosophy exceed those of the home country they originate. They are a very real and important part of the business world in which we live today. Companies such as IBM, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nike, Starbucks and Wal-Mart, to name but a few, are huge organisations whose sales and profits often far exceed the Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross National I … Read More

via hinaumer

CSR statements are easy; sustainable procurement is harder (via Fair For All)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have written before about my doubts as to China’s coming status as the number one economic power. These kinds of articles and posting tend to reinforce my beliefs.

My great thanks to “Fair For All.”

CSR statements are easy; sustainable procurement is harder As Dell and HP have discovered this month, it’s a lot easier to write a CSR policy than it is to ensure that it is carried through. Their plight is not uncommon and is the unfortunate result of treating CSR as a public relations function, focused on appearance and not on substance. To be credible, CSR needs to be built into the operations of a business, which r … Read More

via Fair For All

The Growth Of CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Philosophy of Business

Well, these statistics are encouraging but whether CSR is a form of green washing, PR or a simple waste of time and resources on the one hand or a promising corporate move toward some limited form of responsibility, I’ll leave up to you.

And They Don’t Pay Their Share Of Taxes Either

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

I wrote in the previous post about how the fifty companies that laid off the most workers paid their CEO’s a total of 598 million dollars. But if you read the study itself, you discover that they also shirk their duties as good corporate citizens.

This is from the study –

Under current law, U.S. corporations face a 35
percent statutory tax rate on corporate profits. Of the 50
layoff leaders, only two reported paying this statutory
rate in 2009 and most paid substantially less, according
to an IPS analysis of domestic earnings and federal tax
payments in company 10-K reports.20 Hewlett-Packard,
under Hurd, remitted $47 million in federal corporate
income tax, a mere 2 percent of the company’s reported
$2.6 billion in pretax domestic net income.


Citizens for Tax Justice has used forensic accounting
methods to demonstrate that corporations
often pay an even lower tax rate than they report to
the SEC. Overall, as a result of various tax avoidance
schemes, U.S. corporate income taxes have plummeted
from almost a third of all non-Social Security federal
tax revenues in the 1960s to only a sixth of total taxes
today.22

In some extreme cases, major U.S. corporations
are actually paying less in taxes to Uncle Sam than
they pay, in compensation, to their CEOs. At Occidental
Petroleum, for instance, CEO Ray Irani made $31.4
million last year. That represented almost twice as much
as the $16 million the international oil firm paid in federal
corporate income tax for all the services the federal
government provides.

It is almost too obvious to mention that when corporations avoid their taxes, the burden falls on the middle class.

What is meant by CSR, corporate social responsibility? Are they just code words, that mean, “Get off my back and stop complaining,” or “Can’t you crazed citizens and nosy government officials recognize our good works and let the magnificent engine of capitalism grind on?”

I wonder if it is just a public relations thing. I bet you do too.

James Pilant

Job Cutting CEO’s Average 12 Million In Salary (not counting other benefits)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

The fifty largest job cutting companies in the United States paid their chief executive officers a total of 598 million dollars.

Read some more –

The nation’s biggest job-cutting companies paid their top executives an average of $12 million last year, according to a report released today.

The 50 U.S. chief executives who laid off the most employees between November 2008 and April 2010 eliminated a total of 531,363 jobs, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, a research group that works for social justice and against wealth concentration.

In “CEO Pay and the Great Recession,” the institute said the $598 million in combined pay for the 50 executives would have paid one month’s worth of average-sized unemployment benefits for each of the laid-off workers.

The top 50 layoff firms reported a 44 percent average profit increase for 2009, the report said.

“These numbers all reflect a broader trend in Great Recession-era Corporate America: the relentless squeezing of worker jobs, pay and benefits to boost corporate earnings and maintain corporate executive paychecks at their recent bloated levels,” the authors wrote.

The complete article is here.

The complete study is found here.

Job killing has been profitable for many years now but the scale of the rewards are almost unimaginable. Reflect that 12 million dollars yearly is a million a month. In a thirty day month, that’s about 33,000 dollars a day or 4,166 dollars and hour or 69.44 a minute.

James Pilant

Milton Friedman got corporate Social Responsibility wrong (via Get Aktiv)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism3 Comments

I suppose there is a certain satisfaction from hearing one’s own views confirmed. I plead guilty. This is delicious. This is from the web site, Get Aktiv.

This is the key sentence from the essay.

Extrapolated into another scenario, Friedman would no doubt argue that a corporate executive would be duty-bound to offshore their operations to low-cost developing countries wherever it maximised profits, and this should only be done at the very lowest possible labour rates allowed by law so as to maximise corporate profits, even if the developing country has no effective wage protection and it is exploitative of the workers, provided that doesn’t bring financial harm to the company through loss of reputation – indeed, to pay a more ‘humane’ or ‘reasonable’ wage to staff than the absolute minimum that could have been negotiated is a reflection of an executive not performing his duties to the company.

On my flight back from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne yesterday, I took the opportunity afforded by flying AirAsiaX (sans onboard entertainment) to read another sizeable chunk of “Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and other Economic Leaders”. I guess I’m a bit slow in getting to the literature of leading global economists but I can now say I’ve read Milton Friedman’s “The Social Responsibility of Business”, an essay f … Read More

via Get Aktiv