Social Responsibility example essay topic

Social Responsibility, some may say it is and organization's duty to behave in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner. Well, there is more to it than just that. There are four key theories or guidelines that must be followed to maintain a status of good social responsibility. A company has one a duty to its shareholders, two the duty to maximize profit and avoid harm, three a responsibility to its employees and others who may be dependent on that specific company, and last but not least they have the duty to do good to the world.

In the movie "A Civil Action", Jonathan Harr and Steven Zaillian, starring John Travolta, you see how hard it is to distinguish who wins when it comes down to social responsibility. Many people, mainly children, suffered and died in the city of Woburn, Massachusetts due to the city drinking water, from the river, being polluted. They named two companies that are to be held responsible for these actions. The companies who are responsible for the water pollution that killed and harmed many, failed at almost every single theory of social responsibility. Yes, they were maximizing their profits, which made the shareholders wealthy and happy, but they were also causing harm to the people. Once you cause harm to people it will eventually back fire on you and soon you will most likely be loosing your profits.

No one will want you products and you will be paying for all the damages you have made. The employees have work but you are ultimately putting them and their jobs at risk when you make the decision to be careless and do something that can potentially run your company into the ground. Not only is the company jeopardizing their employees' jobs and incomes, but also most of the families the companies harmed were their own employee's families. When it comes to doing good for the world that was the very last thing that they were doing. How is contaminating a person's drinking water good for the world? People are what sustain the earth, and these companies are killing off the future of tomorrow.

Other living creatures and plants were most likely harmed in the process as well. Trees take is water from the ground and the ground takes in the water from the rivers and animals drink from those same rivers and fish swim in them. These companies showed the worst lack of responsibility anyone possibly could. Once you start the cycle of being irresponsible it is like a chain reaction that harms everyone including yourself. John Travolta's character Jan Schlichtmann, on the other hand was more of a mix when the issue of social responsibility came up.

He was trying to maximize his law firm's profits and he was not putting anyone in harms way. On the other hand if you were an employee or a shareholder of the firm you were probably not to thrilled by the whole thing. Due to the extensive research it took to build the case all the other lawyers and employees lost everything. The law firm had nothing coming in as profit, they only had money going out and they all eventually lost their houses and office furniture to pay for what they needed to win. Even though it was a huge lack of one responsibility it was a gigantic gain of another responsibility to do good to the world. This lawyer was doing good for the whole world by making everyone everywhere aware of what was happening in Woburn and making sure it never happened again in Woburn or anywhere.