Corporate Responsibility

There is no one definition for Corporate Responsibility, which is often called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). But all the different definitions essentially boil down to the definition given above. Corporate Responsibility is closely linked to how ethically the corporation behaves, both within and outside the corporate offices, towards all its stakeholders like its employees, clients, shareholders and the society at large. The standards and values that are important to the organization play a big role in contributing to how ethical the workplace is in the organization. Organizational Standards are often an extension of personal standards. The owners and top management of the organization must set in place certain standards that contribute to a healthy workplace atmosphere. All employees must be made aware of the organizational standards that are prevalent and that they are expected to follow. Organizations often have traditional values like trust, honesty, loyalty, commitment, mutual respect etc. and often also have work-related values like innovation, teamwork, customer focus, productivity etc. An ethical organization has principles like professionalism, accountability, non-discrimination at work, open communication channels, ethical advertising and follow responsible business practices. Workplace ethics is no different from personal ethics. Ethics is striving to do the right thing always and it is guided by the moral principles and values held by a person. Ethics at workplace are an extension of the ethical values held by the proprietors and top management and also the people involved in the workplace. Lack of Ethics at the Workplace can greatly affect the productivity and workflow of an organization. Lack of Ethics might result in questionable accounting practices affecting the profitability of the organization. Conflicting Policies would result in unhappy employees and thus affect productivity of the employees. Harassment and discrimination can greatly vitiate the work atmosphere in an organization. Lack of commitment on the part of the employees towards their work and on the part of the proprietors towards the welfare of their employees can also adversely affect productivity and workflow. Bad hiring methods would place the wrong employees at the wrong job. Safety and health of the employees should be adequately taken care of by the organization so that the employees do not have any personal safety concerns. The organization should also have methods in place to deal properly with political pressure. Above all, the ethics of the workplace and the organization should be geared towards having satisfied customers