In today's post-Enron, scandal-plagued, and ethically challenged business world, the topic of values in business emerges as a very important consideration - academically, scholastically, and practically. Gerald Cavanagh, in his book, American Business Values, makes a valuable contribution to the business literature by examining the subject of values in business from a variety of perspectives - historical, legal, philosophical, ethical, psychological, managerial, and cross cultural. I wish that the book would address more issues of corporate social responsibility and assure better understanding their relevance to accounting, management, marketing and information.
Every corporation has a goal to act on behalf of its owners. The company’s owners, its shareholders can certainly donate their own assets to charities that promote causes they believe in. For example they can buy hybrid cars to cut back on fossil fuel consumption. But it would be irresponsible for the management and directors of a company, whose stock these investors purchased, to deploy corporate assets for social causes.
It would be very easy to carry out a litmus test of the market for corporate social responsibility. For example, Apple Computer could sell one iPod for $99 and another for $125. The company could announce that the extra $26 from the more expensive iPod would be spent to promote specific social causes, such as education, environmentalism, etc. Such a test would account clearly and honestly for how shareholders’ money was being used and would allow the market to drive the outcome. If consumers wanted to pay the extra $26, voting with their wallets for a cause they believe in, they could.
Also in my opinion there is a questionable use of corporate assets for a company to inv ...