From Tension to Cooperative Dialogue: Holcim Essay
From tension to cooperative dialogue: Holcim” is outstanding example of corporate social responsibility. Being properly ethically directed, the Cement Union found the way to affect the community in positive way as the main concept of CSR (Lachman). This process was carried out throughout non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) which were opened to enter. Corporate social responsibility of Holcim was manifested by company’s active part in flood harm consequences fixing. The next step was creating stakeholders’ committee with large involving of local citizens. As the result, the company became closer to people’s interests and contributed much to some movements and citizens’ activities. Soon, the Cement Union established friendly to citizens and stakeholders environment. Eventually, the Cement Union was benefited with intensive assimilation in wider community of its stakeholders. In this paper, I’ll try to interpret the views of famous scholars in the aspect of Holcim case.
Milton Friedman
Thinking about what would Milton Friedman say about Holcim case, there is a strong assumption that the response would be – “I’ve told you so! ”. Let’s remind that this scholar denies social responsibility in reality of free trading and competitive market. It should be mentioned, that he denies corporate social responsibility only in the aspect of its initial meaning and sharing nature. According to Mr. Friedman, CSR exists, but in pretty interesting form: “The doctrine of “social responsibility” involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses…In the present climate of opinion, with its wide spread aversion to “capitalism,” “profits,” the “soulless corporation” and so on, this is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a by-product of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest. …The difficulty of exercising “social responsibility” illustrates, of course, the great virtue of private competitive enterprise–it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to “exploit” other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes. They can do good–but only at their own expense” (Milton). So, what about the Holcim? Clearly, this company got a lot from own contribution (local increased confidence, security staff reducing, community assimilation etc.). Thereby, his views can be easily paralleled to analyzed case
R. Edward Freeman
This scholar is known as the founder of Stakeholder theory, which gave the birth to new attitude towards corporate’s place, its effects and relations. Here is the quote of R. Edward Freeman ”That’s what stakeholder theory is – it says: business creates value in a responsible way that takes care of the environment, that tries to make the world a better place, that engages employees, and it makes money for shareholders. Those things have to go in the same direction. The idea that business and ethics and sustainability and responsibility are separate is an idea whose time has passed”(Freeman). To be business successful it has to create values for customers, employees, suppliers, communities and financials without exceptions. In fact, it is the theory of advanced ethical business, which became so popular last few years. Actually, the case of Holcim is also useful to support R. Edward’s Freeman views. As we learnt, the responsible corporate’s approach towards community’s problem can be interpreted like the pattern of behavior proclaimed and supported by R. Edward Freeman. In their turn, commonly positive consequences of Cement Union’s activities is a kind of visual aid of Stakeholders theory’s benefits.
John R. Boatright
It’s interesting, this scholar also would find the case of Cement Union as the example of CAP proper to confirm own point of view. Let’s remind that the main idea of John R. Boatright is derivative from Freeman’s one abd devoted to real possibility of shareholders’ and stakeholders’ interests parallel corresponding: “Stakeholder management, then, as a guide for managers rather than a form of corporate governance, provides a valuable corrective to managers who fail to appreciate how shareholder primacy benefits all stakeholders and use it as a reason for disregarding other stakeholders. Such managers commit a mistake of their own by confusing how a corporation should be governed with how it should be managed. There is no reason why managers who act in the interests of shareholders and seek maximum shareholder wealth cannot also run firms that provide the greatest benefit for everyone. Indeed, a manager who fails to benefit every stakeholder group is not achieving the full potential of a firm”(Boatright). Being the supporter R. Edwards Freeman’s views, Mr. Boatright contributed a lot to the issue of advanced ethical business practical implementation. In other words, the CAP’s in analyzed case would be treated by him as a sample of proper company’s interest management, that intended to benefit all groups of individuals who affect or affected by this certain business.
Talking about my own ideas, I’m not ready to say what of three views is the most suitable to analyzed case. On the one hand, there is Milton Friedman, who states that CRS can be leaded only by own company’s interests. On the other hand, R. Edward Freeman and John R. Boatright support the idea that CRS is absolutely adequate to nowadays realities. In fact, all three authors brings pretty similar messages! The point here is the stakeholder theory does not deny financials ‘ interest in community beneficial activities. It directly states that company should benefit everyone who is affected or affects business and Mr. Boatright proves that such kind of managing is possible actually. The main difference about Milton Friedman’s idea is volume of ethical virtue approach, which place shareholders interest of money making out of the moral borders. Considering that virtue approach is only one from five existing, his views about CRS as unethical phenomenon should be strongly argued.
As for my conclusions, analyzed case became valuable to get the idea that ethics can exist hand-to-hand with organizations’ natural interest of profits obtaining, what was pretty strange thought to me before. In addition, I’ve found practical example of proper moral decisions that lead to common benefits. At second, it was useful to experience the deep meaning of ethics domain and to see its institutions widely interpretable. Being the philosophic subject, ethics presents us large foundation for thoughtful analysis. Considering that only correct answers hardly can be generated, we are still ought to seek them.
