Social Responsibility & Ethics Mngt (Essay Sample)

MGMT 325 Social Responsibility & Ethics Mgmt Student’s Name Institution Course Name Instructor’s Name Date MGMT 325 Social Responsibility & Ethics Mgmt What did you learn? With the business ethics and social responsibility course coming toward the end, one has a lot of concepts and knowledge to reflect on. From the initial reflection, I experienced challenges with course expectations and the knowledge I would acquire. At the time, my understanding of the key concepts of ethics and social responsibility was highly generalized. However, throughout the modules, I learned more about the meaning of being ethical at individual and organizational levels. This knowledge allowed me to realize the importance of utilizing ethics and social responsibility principles in an individual’s interactions in everyday life and organizational settings. This final reflection essay covers the knowledge I acquired, what I found surprising, what I expected from the modules, and what I will do with the information gathered. After completing the 9 modules of the course, I had a better understanding of how individuals and organizations have a responsibility to act ethically in every undertaking. Social responsibility entails organizations focusing on creating a sustainable business environment and taking care of stakeholder welfare (Byars & Stanberry, 2018). Understanding these concepts was reinforced through analyzing various case studies and applying decision-making models to resolve various ethical dilemmas. The course also entailed utilizing real-world examples as an approach to understanding the practice of ethical decision-making. What is surprising? What was surprising throughout the modules was how we were constantly exposed to real-world ethical issues and case studies that negatively affected individuals, organizations, and the environment. According to Asgary and Li (2016), organizations must adhere to the principles of business ethics and social responsibility to avoid detrimental effects. I was surprised how incidences of unethical ethical behaviors by organizations were rampantly demonstrated through several case studies. After further research, I was surprised by how unethical practices would adversely affect an organization. In one particular case study, an organization was caught in a situation where its supplier provided goods grown and harvested with unethical practices. Although the organization’s management was unaware of the supplier’s unethical practices, it was subjected to unnecessary legal obligations and damaged public reputation. In the present world of fast information exchange, an organization whose ethical and social responsibility values are questioned is likely to suffer long-term challenges such as reduced revenue and poor public reputation. Besides these revelations, I was also surprised to learn about some practices that I earlier viewed as non-ethical. For example, workplace practices such as covering for a colleague who shows up late are considered unethical (Fagbenro, 2019). These surprises enable us to see the bigger picture in even the smallest actions and decisions we undertake. What is expected? There is a lot to expect from the business ethics and social responsibility course. In my case, I expected to be exposed to various instances of business organizations engaging in unethical business practices. However, I did not expect large organizations under the fortune 500 category to be among such unethical companies. I always expected large business corporations to demonstrate ethical practices by developing and implementing elaborate training and organizational culture. It is worth noting that an organization will always have some ethical issues to address despite its size or the scope of operation. Despite this argument, Turker and Turker (2018) observe that applying better hiring practices and elaborate employee training and development programs would enable organizations to eliminate poor ethical and social responsibility cases. I also expected to learn how organizations and their stakeholders would resolve various ethical dilemmas experienced across various levels of business operations. This expectation included the significance of learning the dynamics of decision-making models and how businesses balance the pressure to remain socially responsible and the desire to meet organizational goals and objectives. Finally, I expected to complete the course with a better knowledge of how to remain eth...