What is ethics and social responsibility? How do these help with the development of a strategic plan for the company? Ethics are the moral values that are the guiding force behind the company as they guide the company to act in moral or ethical ways. Social responsibility for a company is how they act or respond to the community or the environment in whole. It shows how the company wants to be seen. By knowing what morals or ethics a company wishes to project, they can answer the question “What do we stand for as a whole”? By being socially responsible they can answer “Who do we serve and how can we support them, other than with our products”?
Strategic Plan
But how do these fit into strategic planning one may ask and how do they relate to the stakeholders needs and the business environment? A stakeholder wants to invest in a company that has a long-term future and know that a company that acts ethically towards their employees, contractors, consumers, suppliers, and competitors and shows a strong social responsibility are the one more likely to succeed far into the future. “By and large, including ethics and corporate social responsibility to the planning process will help the organization consider the social impact the organization’s business and financial decisions have on the public” (Akwaowo, 2015).
However, not all people believe that ethic and social responsibility have a place in strategic planning. Robert Finocchio has the following beliefs:
“While ethics should be part of the company's mission statement, long-term strategic plan, public pronouncements, and codes of conduct, unless it is also a "cornerstone of the organizational culture," it will not be effectively integrated into the business strategy, he said” (Schulman, 2014).
He goes on to state that an ethics performance evaluation at the end of the year should be done and a strategic plan for ethics checklist should be completed for the year to come.
Code of Ethics
“A code of...