CSR and the amorality assumption

Business is generally not thought as a very moral field. The business of business is business, not ethics. The recent (or perhaps even ongoing) crisis hasn’t actually raised the image of business as a morally sound way of acting. Rather people associate business with concepts such as self-interest, survival of the fittest, “kill or be killed”, fraud, bribery and other dirty tricks. According to a survey made a couple of years ago, only 9 % of Germans trust business leaders. (Jörges, 2008) I wonder what the percentage is nowadays, as the survey was before the financial crisis.

Even though the public largely may regard business people, or at least some of those, to be immoral that may not be the actual case. Business people themselves often think of business as mainly amoral. Amoral means that business is indifferent to moral issues. It means that companies do not have to take ethical issues into account per se, it is not up to them. This statement is usually followed by the explanation that it is the government’s business to define a law system that supports ethical ways of doing business and the companies are responsible for staying within these guidelines. In corporate social responsibility (CSR) this is usually labeled as the laizzes-faire model of CSR. Traditionally CSR models also define other possible models of behavior. The relation to ethics varies from the amorality of the laissez-faire model all the way to the social shaper model in which stakeholders and ethical issues, instead of sales and profits, are the primary concern of an organization. Most non-profit organizations fall into the social shaper category. (Johnson, Scholes, Whittington, 2008)

From a philosophical perspective, however, CSR has its flaws. It still assumes that there is an inherent trade-off between profit-making and ethical behavior. With the exception of the social shaper, most CSR models justify ethical behavior with added value and hence increased profits. In other words, most companies behave ethically not because it is right, but because they earn money. Recalling Kant’s categorical imperative it doesn’t qualify as ethical behavior, because ethical behavior is there an instrumental value.

If the end result is ethical behavior anyway, why care about the principles behind that? I find the answer quite obvious: for safety’s sake. Firstly, if our systems for valuing ethical behavior (such as preserving the environment) fail, companies would start to behave unethically again. Secondly, it is very hard to try to put a price tag on everything. The public image of a company would crumble instantly if knowledge of major unethical behavior would spread. Such knowledge is, however, not very easy to obtain and spread to consumers. There are just too many companies out there, we can’t (or at least I can’t) memorize every fact I’ve read about their labor usage, materials or environmental controls. And that’s where ethics comes into play. When the time of choice between good and bad behavior arises, an ethical person (or company) chooses the right thing whereas the CSR driven one, aware of the information asymmetries chooses the wrong one. And that’s bad for us all.

References
Johnson, G. et al. (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy. Prentice Hall/Financial Times.
Jörges, H.-U. (2008). Die Knute der Rendite. Stern 36, 56.

Work and meaning

Ok, let us begin with some questions: what is your work? What does your input mean to your company? Is your work noticed? Are you making a difference locally? How about globally? Most importantly, what does your work mean to you?
Someone might say: "Why should I care, it's just a job for God's sake?"

Exactly. From my experience, by saying "just a job" most people mean that:
I) they go to their job, do their stuff and get out
II) they don't think of their job as anything special

Let's delve deeper into the meaning of "just a job" from a couple of viewpoints

1. The company viewpoint
Those people with "just jobs" aren't really effective. They do what is required, but don't really put their minds into it, meaning that their potential for development is rather limited. For the company this naturally means less profit in the future. So, clearly for the company that kind of people aren't a very wise investment.

2. The employee viewpoint
So what is happening here is the exchange of time for money. You're trading in time, and getting out money, and very little else. You might make some occasional friend at work but that's about it. No rush of adrenaline, no highs and lows. Just the same old job. Day after day, week after week...really starts to wear you down, doesn't it? Nothing ever changes, it's all the same. You go on holiday for a week, come back - it's still the same! They hardly even noticed you were away! A couple of days later, even you hardly notice you've been away!

Why does all this matter? Well, I personally believe that this is the cause of a lot of unhappiness in the Western countries. When you have "just a job" you're just erasing your life periodically. It's a subjective blackout. For those couple of hours per day, you pretty much cease to exist. Imagine having to shut yourself down for the workday, every day. It's bound to create bad results!

How did this happen? Well, historically, companies haven't always been the thousands-large monsters they are today. It probably all started when a guy who was good at making swords realized that it's hell of a lot nice to make that sword for Karl and his brother and get food for that instead of farming all the time himself. Basically, he liked making swords. See the difference to our days? There's loads of people who work in an office and fiddle around with piles of paper all day. Is it because they like to fiddle with piles of paper? Probably not, more likely they prefer staying alive to starving under a bridge. They just aren't that interested in their job, it lacks meaning.

Who's to blame for this? Well, nobody, really. It's somehow in the whole system of society. Naturally, it's better to have a job than to starve. But still, it'd be a hell lot better to have an interesting job. But alas, supply and demand don't match in the job market.

What to do about it? Naturally we'll have to try to match supply with demand better. But businesses can do a lot themselves. They can really start seeing employees as people, instead of as just a resource. I know that there are businesses doing this already, but on a larger scale it needs improving. It's the managers' main responsibility to make the employees see the results of their job, to feel themselves needed. Get rid of all the totalitarian influences in the leadership style, and keep Kant's Categorical Imperative in mind:

1. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.
2. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
3. So act as though you were, through your maxims, a law making member of a kingdom of ends.