brief note on corporate social responsibility

i came across a recent interview with a ceo that highlights the prevailing ideas surrounding the profit-driven corporations. the straw man:

While he maintained that modern business schools do an excellent job teaching free-market principles, they often neglect the human aspect of a company.

As a result, employees become more burned out, turnover rates increase and workplace morale suffers because businesses forget that their fundamental objective should be to keep humans in mind, Ouimet said.

Balancing the two isn't easy, he acknowledges, especially since the economic and human aspects should carry equal weight in an organization.

the two - economic and human aspects - need not be mutually exclusive for the smart ceo. focusing only on profits may lead to both quality and quantity of employee benefits. by ensuring that workers ers psychologically healthy, the ceo will gain of a more productive workforce, and thereby more profit. more profit will lead the enterprise to grow and employ more and more people.

on a related note, the economist had an excellent dissection of theories of corporate social responsibility a few weeks ago, and a bit of it is available online.

Labels: social