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SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Social Responsibility and Affirmative Action

Luis Mayorga and Jon Lieberman
BUS1050 T: 11:30-12:50
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Social responsibility and affirmative action are keystones in modern business. But they're not only for businesses themselves; but they extend to the individual consumer. The ideas of both stemmingfrom a want of fairness within in business. When businesses take it upon themselves to provide a benefit and to maintain it's image; it will reflect on society as a whole and vice versa.
Affirmative action, as performed by industries, is the barring of businesses and companies from discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and nationality. When affirmative action isexemplified, it shows a sign of a business doing well. Of course if a business maintains social and proprietary ethics within itself, it will operate what in what capacity? Efficiently! Not only does affirmative action prevent discrimination-which at it's root was created to heavily discourage such a thing and administer severe fines and penalties-but if employed it can do away with frivolous andwasted time in courts on the businesses part, but also assure our consumerist society that what they're buying is coming from a place of operable efficiency, who is clear and concise in their dealing and whose employees are in a comfortable work area and aren't being separated.
On the other side of the same extremely thing coin, many businesses in the US and abroad do not exemplify affirmativeaction. Outsourcing is a prime example. If a multi-national corporation is conducting production in another country, it still must maintain the ethics as seen by it's home and present society. Finding a balance of the two to appease those working within the company, a producer's country of outsourcing, it's home country and home society. A business should not simply do away with it's supposedhonesty. Although, honesty is an easy face to put on, especially when you have plenty of money to do so with.
Within the US specifically, you can easily find that the image of a business is now so heavily scrutinized rather the product that it actually markets. The overall quality of goods and services are trumped by the reputation of the company or business. What you buy can be absolute rubbish andserve relatively no purpose BUT if it's coming from a company with a reputation for lead in kids toys, you're not going to buy that toy. There's going to be plenty of other perfectly competitive companies offering the same good at relatively the same price. But back to the main point: the reputation is maintained by the use of affirmative action. Allowing your workers to be anyone means that whatyou produce “is for everyone” or at least that's how goods and services are often viewed.
The market for labor has increasing dramatically since the passing of affirmative action in 1961, in the US. Imagine an economy whose image of well being is maintained by a select group. The ability for that group to advance in society and better themselves is due to the lack of discrimination towards them.But an extreme problem arises through such discrimination. Marginalized minority groups are then left out of higher paying jobs and positions within an industry. With affirmative action, the literal capacity of employment is raised. If there are more jobs available that are open to anyone of any race, gender, sexual orientation and nationality, many more will be employed. If there are an increasednumber of those earning better wages the relative well being of society will be raised. And as mentioned before, if a business does not discriminate, they'll naturally make more sales than one who does not. So all in all, affirmative action creates jobs, maintains public image of a business and prevents discrimination. Although, there are plenty of loopholes that an employer can exploit and...