Definition (1):
Another social commitment to strategic managers is Ethical responsibilities. These are the strategic managers’ notion of right and proper business behavior.
Definition (2):
Ethical responsibilities reflect the company’s notion of right and proper business behavior. These responsibilities are obligations that transcend legal requirements. Firms are not required but expected to behave ethically. Some legal actions might be often considered unethical. For instance, cigarettes’ production and distribution are legal. But considering the harmful effects of smoking, some people may think the sale of cigarettes to be unethical.
Definition (3):
Ethical responsibilities are the abilities to identify, interpret, and perform upon multiple values and principles as per the standards within a specific context and/or field.
These responsibilities can be divided into the following parts:
- Responsibilities to Employees: A company should control HR decisions and employee behavior in a way that matches the law and establishes social responsibilities.
- Responsibilities to Customers: A business owner can look after the way to make a product that holds value for the consumers in terms of quality, price, safety, and usefulness. When s/he knows the problems with the product or the way that her/his company follows, s/he will take steps for solving them, especially for protecting the brand.
- Responsibilities to Supply Chain: A business has relationships with distributors, wholesalers, and retailers who bring the finished product to consumers. The business owner possesses an ethical responsibility for acting honestly in each transaction in this supply chain.
- Responsibilities to Environment: An ethically responsible business owner makes decisions for responding to the changes in the environment like adjusting employment terms with workers or the business transaction terms with suppliers and customers. S/he needs to do ethically responsible things like disposing of waste appropriately and considering the impact of employment generation or deletion on regional as well as national economies.