From the dawn of civilisation human is involved with business. In the name of barter trade, mutual exchange on account and many other forms of business facilitated men to survive in the society with the needful. With the passage of time business crossed the borders of villages, cities, and even countries. From the early twentieth century, the concepts, postulations, and theories about business developed; and in western countries, especially the USA, business and business administration are inducted as subjects to be researched and learned. From 1900-1970, with the rise and fall of capitalism, communism, and socialism; and now in the ages of mixed economy, the definition and concepts of business have undergone significant modifications.
Business had been defined in many fashions in last hundred years. According to modern concepts, an activity will be called 'Business' when it runs after profit, adds some value to the society and it must carry ethics. These three conditions are three pillars of the legitimacy of business. Past economic theories stressed much on profit maximisation but the modern outlook is different and for them the profit is only secondary. Today business is regarded as a social institution forming an integral part of social system.With the initiation of globalisation, the businesses across the world are so interconnected that the wind of recession of any economy can affect the world economy easily. In our country, after 1990s the businesses-- both public and private have expanded considerably. In last 30 years many industries have been grown to maturity while many others are still growing. But some recent events indicate that business is losing social values and not practicing ethical standards as expected.
Very recent Hallmark group and Sonali Bank scam of almost Tk 40 billion is the burning example of under-applied ethics. According to newspaper reports, the corruption continued for the last three years. The top brass of the bank completely failed to perform their duties and swindled. The Hallmark also coerced and adopted unethical ways to get the loan. In the recent collapse of stock market the institutional investors showed very disapproving behaviour. They were equally responsible for making the bubble and burst. Their withdrawal of so much money at a time from market harmed the individual investors most. The recent scams of so-called multi level marketing (MLM) like Destiny and Unipay2U fraudulently collected billions of taka from general people. Already Unipay2U is vanished and Destiny is under probe and trying to avoid apprehension by the law enforcers.
Another business, popularly called 'click business', exploited many innocent people by misguiding them. Showing the opportunity of earning money without labour, a company called 'Dolancer' looted Tk 2.0 billion recently and ran away. Land grabbers are so powerful in the city that not only they are grabbing governmental lands but also sometimes private lands by threatening the legal owners. They are executing these illegal schemes by appointing local terrorists and paying kickbacks to the law enforcers. Sometimes they are backed by influential political leaders. These land grabbers have the signboard of business but never show social values and hardly exert ethical behaviour. To exploit the best opportunity many businesses do not consider the environment issue. The city's residential areas have lost residential nature. Some textiles, tanneries, manufacturing industries are operating their businesses at the heart of the capital city. They continuously are polluting the environment and rivers of this city. The mighty 'Buriganga' has lost the status to be named as river. Consequently, in the latest livability ranking by The Economist, Dhaka has got the last place out of 140 cities of the world. Last year it was ranked as second last.
The multinational and local big companies are exploiting the benefits of the third world. They are taking advantage of cheap labour, lack of consciousness about environment issues, uneducated and ignorant people. How much the society is receiving from them is an issue to ponder. Some banks provide education scholarship to students from their corporate social responsibility. It is really commendable, but over publicising them is how much justifiable is a question. The cost of advertising would support many more students. The luxurious initiative of haunting beauty with a lavish budget by some multi-national companies (MNC) also come under scrutiny when it is found that many brilliant students cannot manage funding of education owing to poverty.
All these events involve businesses and corporations. These show an obvious lacking of ethics and social values. As large amount of resources are concentrated in the business sector, it is supposed to play a leading role in augmenting the material and social welfare of a nation. Though business is an artificial entity and is seen like a person, it is operated by a group of human beings. Hence, the disharmony between business and social value, ethics ultimately means the society is losing values.
The term 'Corporate Citizenship' is also commonly used to refer to the moral obligations to the society. This implies that, like an individual, corporate shall be guided by some social norms. Against this backdrop, business should exert high level of ethics and must exercise 'Social Audit' which will evaluate how a business discharges social responsibilities.
This article was published in The Financial Express, Views & Opinion, September 23, 2012
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