Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

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Business Beyond Profit Motivation: Importance of Establishing a Business
Enterprise as a Source of Job Opportunities

Module 015
Business Beyond Profit Motivation:
Importance of Establishing a Business and
Sustaining Business Enterprise as a Source
of Job Opportunities

Most businesses start as an idea. The owner of a concept is often an

entrepreneur who sees commercial opportunities in the market and turns
these concepts into a marketable product or service. With a new business
established, new source of job opportunities are attainable.

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

1. Define and understand the meaning of important terms;
2. Recognize reasons why businesses are important in a society;
3. Discover ways businesses can be sustained.

Importance of Establishing a Business

A business is the foundation of success and wealth of a society: companies create the
resources that make social development possible. Businesses are the growth drivers of the
economy of a country.
Businesses are the means by which we get most of the goods and services that we, as
consumers, want and need. The basic objective of business is to develop, produce and
supply goods and services to customers. This allow companies to make a profit, which in
turn demands far more than just skills in companies’ own fields and processes.
Businesses range from one-person venture to huge global corporations and from those
existing in the informal trade economy to enormous state-owned enterprises. They can be
for-profit, with an avowed purpose of making money for shareholders, or not-for-profit,
with the purpose of trying to help society and improve the world.
Entrepreneurs demonstrate an almost intuitive understanding of the combined effort that
creates success. The social skills of company owners, together with relationships
maintained with customers, suppliers and other business people, are always vital if
companies are to be run well and developed with a view to the future.
The ability to produce this kind of added value to an entrepreneurs profit is the basic
requirement for business, but it is also a foundation for success in society. Only profitable
companies are sustainable in the long term and proficient of creating goods, services,
processes, return on capital, job opportunities and a tax base to profit the government and
the people. This is what business does better than any other sector; therefore, companies’
Course Module
basic commercial operations are the primary benefit they bring to society. With this,
employment rate and job opportunities are higher will gain demand.

How Society Benefit from Companies

1. By Supplying the goods and even services that customer cannot, or do
not want to, manufacture themselves;
2. Continually developing new goods, services and processes;
3. Investing in other new technologies and invest in supporting the skills
of employees;
4. Creating jobs for customers, suppliers, distributors and coworkers.
These people make money to support themselves and their families,
pay taxes and use their wages to buy goods and services
5. Building up and spreading international standards, e.g. for
environmental practices
6. Spreading “good practice” in different areas, such as the environment
and workplace safety.

Why Are Businesses Important for the Economy

Competition
Business is competition. New ventures compete with previously stale
businesses. For example, a local farmer, may be able to offer cheaper produce
because he does not have to spend money on shipping. An agile start-up may
be able to innovate new technology faster than a huge, bureaucratic
counterpart, forcing changes in thinking and behavior.

Local Hiring
Businesses operate giving opportunities for hiring people.

Diversity
Businesses are flexibility which makes it diverse in form, function, culture,
and with possible potential. The greater diversity we have in the economy,
the easier it is for the economy to withstand tough conditions.

Turnover
Even though it sounds like a bad thing, many start-ups and small businesses
eventually fail. That turnover gives the community a chance to learn, recover,
and rebuild, which is beneficial in the long run, driving even more new
growth.
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Business Beyond Profit Motivation: Importance of Establishing a Business
Enterprise as a Source of Job Opportunities

Sustaining Business Enterprise as a Source of Job Opportunities

Businesses allow people to create jobs, provide employment opportunities to others in a
community and build an asset that could be passed down to future generations.
Although employment basically helps businesses and vice versa and build opportunities,
nowadays, those opportunities sometimes no longer provide financial stability, wealth and
prosperity, when in fact this should be the end goal of everything. Policies need to
acknowledge this new reality and help ensure that a steady job and business ownership
translate into economic security for all.
Despite several decades of economic; unemployment, poverty and inequality remain
critical barrier to sustainable growth and global stability. Multinational enterprises have
created supply chains across the globe but there is a extensive view that the benefits are
not shared satisfactorily with host and producer countries and communities. More needs to
be done to stimulate complete growth, merging economic growth with social inclusion and
environmental protection. More and better jobs are urgently needed in most countries to
maintain social consistency, achieve broad-based well-being and reduce poverty. And these
need to be jobs of the future – productive and of good quality while preserving the natural
environment on which future development depends.

Guidelines in Sustaining the Growth of a Start Up Business

Target Audience
A business should know the demographics that concerns target audience.
This will make marketing easier because of informed idea for techniques and
tactics needed to reach out to these key audience groups.

Create Teams
Divide the responsibilities amongst employees. Delegate and assign roles to
appropriate individuals.

Have a Brand
A customer remembers products and services through the use of branding.
Create a lasting to target audience, and associate a particular image, slogan,
logo, concept or ideas.

Budget
Money is very essential in any businesses. Hire a financial consultant to be in
charge of the monetary movement of the business and to keep it on budget.

Course Module
 Advertisements
To make an appealing business to your target audience, offline and/or online
advertising are important and depends on the nature of your business which
one you assign more budgets to. For example, you can harness the power of
social media. Develop a Facebook page for your company and frequently
update it with information. By diversifying the mediums that you use to
speak to your audience, you are giving yourself a better chance of success.

Market Research
Be conscious of what is going on in the market. Are the competitors currently
making products that are better or more accessible? Is the market for this
particular good coming to an end, or is there a need to revamp current
product?

Constant Communication
Have a team of employees who are working underneath the administration.
It is wise to ask for feedback on the company and the products. Doing so
means might get a fresh look or perspective at the improvements to make for
even greater levels of success.

Principles for sustainable business

There are two types of principles; operational and strategic. Operational
principles are practical and addresses the question of what we do and how
we do business on a day to day basis. The strategic principles tend to be used
as guidance in setting the direction of the business. Used to help decide how
things are done within the business.

Operational Principles

Good Employer
The organization is committed to employee satisfaction, development and
well-being. The organization, from the most senior management level display
and model fairness and equity in all aspects of employee relations and show
no tolerance for discrimination, bullying or harassment. Workplaces are safe
and healthy and employees are encouraged to provide input and participate.

Environmental responsibility
The organization is respectful of environmental limits and operates in an
environmentally efficient way in the design and delivery of its
products/services. For example material/resource use is minimized;
products are designed and manufactured considering the full life cycle of the
 Business Ethics and Social Responsibility
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Business Beyond Profit Motivation: Importance of Establishing a Business
Enterprise as a Source of Job Opportunities

materials and waste products. Environmental technology is invested in

and/or used for example using solar panels to generate electricity.

Community contribution and fairness

The organization contributes to making the communities in which it operates
better places to live and do business (for example, sourcing materials locally)
and employees are encouraged to become involved in achieving this goal.
Often this will be at a local level, but there may also be opportunities to apply
this at the national and/or global level. All employees demonstrate honesty
and fairness when dealing with stakeholders. Although not often applicable
in small business, where relevant, working in partnership with Maori to
empower Maori in decisions that affect them.

Influencing others
The organization actively encourages others such as suppliers, customers
and its employees to improve their own sustainability performance. For
instance making it easy for customers to recycle the product or foreign
material manufacturers implement internationally accepted labour
standards to ensure forced or child labor is not used in the manufacture of
materials or parts.

Strategic Principle

Integration of sustainability into the organization

Sustainability is a business priority and is reflected in all aspects of the
organization, including business processes (such as decision making, vision,
performance management) to ensure that decisions are made with their
sustainability effects in mind. There is clear evidence of management
commitment to sustainability.

Minimizing risk and maximizing opportunity

Addressing risks and uncertainty when making choices and taking a
precautionary approach when making decisions that may cause serious or
irreversible damage. Applying this principle using the strong sustainability
lenses would go further to propose that lack of full scientific certainty is not a
reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

Transparency and accountability

Course Module
 The organization is transparent and accountable about its performance in
matters that are important to others.
Meeting tomorrows needs with innovation (Integrated and long term
thinking) – Considering the long term (inter generational) implications of all
decisions. Seeking solutions that are mutually reinforcing rather than
accepting that a gain in one area will necessarily be achieved at the expense
of another. For instance recycling waste material, saves dollars by reducing
rubbish levies.

References and Supplementary Materials

Glossary
Competion: Showing rivalry
Economy: the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the
production and consumption of goods and services.
Diversity: a range of different things, a variety
Opportunity: a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.
Principle: a fundamental source or basis of something

References and Supplementary Materials

Books and Journals
Laura P. Hartman and Joe DesJardine; 2011; Business Ethics Decision Making for Personal
Integrity; Philippines; McGraw Hill

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

Sustainable enterprises creating more and better jobs; http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/

groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/documents/publication/ wcms_175537.pdf; June
20, 2017

Businesses and Jobs; https://prosperitynow.org/files/PDFs/2017_Prosperity_Now_

Scorecard_Businesses_Jobs.pdf; June 20, 2017

Online Instructional Videos

Why small businesses are important to an economy; https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=nqsx8pF-yMM <Date of access to online video>; June 20, 2017