Recall from chapter four: “If an executive is ‘quietly ethical’ within the confines of the top management team, but more distant employees do not know about her or his ethical stance, they are not likely to be perceived as an ethical leader.Traits and behaviors must be socially visible (emphasis added) and understood in order to be noticed and influence perceptions.” And in chapter five we read about the gap between perception and reality when firms work diligently but don’t bother to “toot their own ethical horns” so the public erroneously excoriates them for failing to act.It is a conundrum along the lines of “if a tree falls in the forest…”

Question #1: What are the ethical limits on “reputation management” and when does it turn into self-aggrandizement and braggadocio?

Learning objective #8 is a very “college of business” kind of objective.What is the ROI for CSR?Which, of course, is business-speak for what is the Return on Investment for Corporate Social Responsibility?Please reassure me that you recall the ROI formula—that would be nice.I would ask you to consider this:

Question #2: There appears to be a correlation between profitability and CSR.Does that mean that ethical, high-CSR companies are more profitable, or is it possible that profitable companies have the luxury to engage in more CSR activities?

This chapter offers a wonderful spot to integrate multiple issues, (CSR, Stakeholders, and Moral Types of Managers) but I guess that will be up to me.

I’m mildly surprised that Hartman and colleagues do not address the concept of immoral, amoral and moral management.That conception is articulated clearly within Archie Carroll’s “The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility” and also offers us a different perspective on CSR—sort of like the familiar Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.Please take a read of the following link:

http://www.faculty.wwu.edu/dunnc3/rprnts.pyramidofcsr.pdf

If that link is busted, use the title and your favorite search engine. Or, I placed it in "Course Documents" if you would rather. It is an extra 20 pages, I know, but I feel that it is useful and nicely adds to Hartman’s Figure 5.2 explication.

Question #3: Use Carroll’s analysis of three moral types — immoral management, amoral management, and moral management — to classify a company you know about.It could be a company you worked for or currently work for, or it could be from the business press.Please provide justifications that support your classification.Be kind and tactful—if you are slamming a specific company for being immoral based on personal observation, then don’t open yourself up to a slander/libel suit by naming names.If you choose to write about a company based on personal experience and the company was immoral, then call that company OZCO or some fabrication of your preference.