Ethical Issues and Corporate Social Responsibility

Introduction

The corresponding research and evaluative study would be delving into the multidimensional aspects of the broad issues related with corporate ethical practices, under the purview of Corporate Social Responsibility. For the purpose of infusing the utmost measure of relevance as well as development of the research study based conclusions which could be effectively verifiable through credible references to existing academic and practically observable information, the study would be selecting a specific multinational business organisation to focus the evaluative efforts on it. This specific business organisation would be analysed from four different perspectives to determine the extent of corporate ethical practices as well as Corporate Social Responsibility based operational effectiveness which such an organisation could infuse within the business activities and market operations which it generally could perform under the concurrent global business scenario. The first one of these perspectives would be the critical analysis of the principles related to the environmental, social as well as governance related responsibilities of the organisation under consideration, from the outlook of Corporate Social Responsibility. Apart from these, the research perspective would be as well associated with evaluation of the limitations, opportunities and challenges which such an organisation could encounter in implementation of the CSR policies. The second of the research perspectives would be associated with the evaluation of the roles and the impacts of the CSR strategies developed by the selected organisation under consideration with special focus on the internal and external stakeholders and the implications of corporate social governance. Critical explanation would be provided regarding the strategic application of CSR policies and the associated impact on the interests of the stakeholders as well as on the safety and qualitative measure retention regarding the product offerings of the concerned organisations. The third perspective would be considerate about the recommendations involving strategic and procedural improvements for the company under consideration involving communication, sustainment and monitoring of the organisational CSR strategy and the standards of regulation. The final perspective would be related to assessment of the fundamentals of ethics and the application of the same through commensurate business decision formulation.

Company overview

For the purpose of the subsequent study to progression towards effective conclusion, the selection of the multinational technology and software development organisation of Apple Inc. has been undertaken by the researcher. The organisation was established in the year 1976 Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne and the current headquarters of the company are situated at Cupertino, California, Untied States of America. The multinational company develops, designs and offers specific products and services such as consumer electronics, online services as well as computer software. Apple is considered amongst the four leading global technology organisations apart from companies such as the Google, Facebook and Amazon (Vitell, 2015). Apple Inc. is renowned globally for the design and manufacturing of an extensive range of electronic gadgets such as smart phones, iPhone, the iPad tablet computer, branded personal computer products such as the Mac, portable media players such as iPod, the wearable smart watch products such as Apple Watch, the Apple TV digital media player, and the HomePod smart speaker. The other product and service offerings of the Apple Inc. could be identified as those of the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, Apple Music, iTunes and iCloud and software suits of operating systems such as IOS8 and OSX, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and Xcode. The company was furnished with the current name in the month of January of 1977 prior to which the company was known as Apple Computers Inc (Wu et al. 2015).

Analysis of the environmental, social and governance principles as well as the opportunities, limitations and challenges of implementation of the Corporate Social Responsibility of Apple Inc

According to the research of Ağan et al (2016), Apple Inc. is one of the leading business organisations which is primarily focused on the observation of developed policies regarding the environmental and social principles which the company implements concerning the offered services and products. As has been opined by Albuquerque, Koskinen and Zhang (2018), this involves the strategic applications of the Corporate Social Responsibility based duties as the fundamental activities on part of the overall operational approach of the Apple Inc. The proper application of the principles of environmental maintenance and socially responsible corporate governance could be identified as the core perspective of the business organisation under consideration. In this context, the research of Alvarado-Herrera et al (2017) has observed that the Apple Inc. has been consistently investing extensive resources towards infusing greater sustainability within the entire structure of products and service offerings. According to Carroll, Primo and Richter (2016), this specific focus on sustainability and environmental viability on part of the business organisation under consideration has led the Apple Inc. to undertake concentrated efforts towards adoption of innovative technologies so as to ensure complete safety as well as qualitative pre-eminence in terms of the offered products and services from both the social and environmental perspectives. According to Clarke and Boersma (2017), this could be observed from the instance of the launching of the operating system of OSX which is specifically designed to be better performing on comparatively lower energy consumption measures and thus, could contribute in saving of greater measure of energy and be environmentally productive and sustainable for longer periods of time in comparison to the previous versions of operating systems launched by apple or by any other similar multination organisation. As per the research of Cooper (2017), within the duration of 6 years commencing from the year 2009 and culminating in the year 2015, the gross reduction in the energy consumption level of energy by Apple products could be identified to be that of 57%. Furthermore, Apple Inc. generally avoids the utilisation of metals and industrial materials which could be corrosive and harmful to the environment as well as to the health of the consumers of the Apple products. The research of Eding and Scholtens (2017) has outlined some of these apparently prohibitive and excluded materials from the manufacturing inventory of Apple Inc. production system to be those of PVC, mercury, lead and phthalates. On the other hand, Apple Inc. has consistently invested in the development of specific product features and production systems through which better measurement performance regarding the availability carbon and methane could be performed. This process is oriented towards the ensuring of the safety and security of the human resource assets who are employed by the manufacturing and quality testing units of the multinational organisation under consideration and the maintenance of the security of the surrounding environment is also another concern which the company has to address in this respect and such rigorous monitoring and supervision of the carbon footprints and methane emission are specifically developed for attending to such objectives.

In this context, as has been observed by Etzioni (2018), the fundamental environmental sustainable policies, which, are utilised by the Apple Inc. in the production and manufacturing process of the products and services which it offers, under the general purview of the Corporate Social Responsibility perspective, are oriented towards the involvement of renewable energy sources such as solar, hydroelectric or wind generated energy for the minimisation of energy consumption within the overall system of manufacturing and production. This is meant to contribute to the sustainability objective involving the saving of electricity for the Apple manufacturing systems. Fisher, Mahoney and Scazzero (2016) highlights the fact that this is especially effective in the sustaining of beneficial practices involving economic progression of the regions where the Apple manufacturing units could be located. Furthermore, Grayson and Hodges (2017) has outlined the practices of the company employees of utilisation of various energy sources such as bio fuel driven vehicles, bicycles, carpools as well as walking to reach to their working destinations and the consummate encouragement provided to such environmentally beneficial practices by the organisation under consideration is particularly significant to the broader considerations regarding the CSR based objectives on part of the Apple management hierarchy. Reduction of the emitted carbon footprint through renewable energy sources and green technological procedures in the production mechanisms is at the core of the product manufacturing related considerations of sustainability of Apple Inc. Apart from this, the environmental as well as social sustainability objectives formulated under the purview of the developed CSR perspectives at Apple have prompted the company to invest extensive financial and technological resources towards maintaining plants and trees throughout the majority of the campus of the headquarters and other facilities of the company. According to the research of Hawn and Ioannou (2016), approximately 80% of the campus of Apple is surrounded by vegetation and by different variety of trees. Furthermore, greater emphasis is put on the consumption of energy generated by renewable sources for the obtainment of the necessary measure of energy for the offices and production facilities as well as stores which are owned and operated by Apple Inc.

The observation of such factors could lead to the realisation, as has been suggested by Hopkins (2016), that, the organisation is in critical necessity to ensure consistent upgrades in three specific operational domains. The first one of these is to be identified as the domain of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which is critical for Apple Inc. since the company generally concentrates on niche market consumers and customer loyalty maintenance is the core functioning for ensuring that price variations or enhancements could lead to minimal effects on the purchase related decisional and behavioural frameworks of the targeted customer segments of the company. The second domain is related to that of proper market research and feedback obtainment mechanism development. This could assist the organisation in formulation of effective evaluative mechanisms through which the company top brass could constitute the policies of price range management and decide upon the inductance of different technologies and product development procedures so as to consistently keep the company at an advantageous position in the existing market scenario. The significance of this has been observed by Kolk (2016) to be that of a credible framework of attaining the most updated feedback from the customers and market researchers so that the Apple Inc. hierarchy could be at a position from which the most informed perception could be gained regarding the changing market conditions. This also assists in the determination of suitable changes in the overall strategic CSR practices, through outlining the viability of certain practices and the obsolescence, if any, of other principles of corporate governance which are practiced by the Apple Inc. Ultimately, the third domain could be outlined as the establishment of the centrality of operations, involving both the CSR and the general production administrative segments of the company under consideration. This would be vital for the organisation to assess and analyse the overall efficacy of obtained surveys and feedbacks from the market. This could as well contribute to the attainment of better perceptions regarding the interests and attitudes of the stakeholders.

Evaluation of the role and impact of the CSR strategy of Apple, in relation to corporate governance, and internal and external stakeholders. Impact of CSR strategies for stakeholders and for product/service safety and quality on the performance of Apple

According to Long, Tallontire and Young (2015),the emphasis of the Apple Inc. on the performance of Corporate Social Responsibility could be interpreted to be oriented towards maintaining the interests of the organisational stakeholders, both internal and the external ones. The fulfilment of the planned objectives of the organisation is also directly associated with such an emphasis and associated procedural efforts by the Apple Inc.

From an academic perspective, it could be determined, as has been propounded through the research of Ni and Van Wart (2015), the most imperceptible challenge for Apple Inc. could be ascertained as the inherent difficulty for the company to successfully ensure the entire range of CSR policies without having to jeopardise the retention of the prospects of the most advantageous competitive edge maintenance in the global electronics market. This problem has been exacerbated consistently by the element of the extensive brand recognition of the products and services which are offered and endorsed by the company. In this context, Rao and Tilt (2016) has stated that one of the most glaring challenge for the Apple Inc. is to ensure the human and labour rights management under the CSR based doctrines since one of the fundamental CSR policies, for any business organisation is to make sure that the human rights and the rights and entitlements of the workers as well as their welfare could be upheld under every condition. However, this brings forth the prospect of jeopardising the relationships with the suppliers of critical components and raw materials for the company under consideration. Another limitation on part of the Apple Inc. in maintaining the most effective administrative format to ensure proper representation of CSR policies in the organisational activities could be comprehended as the dearth of proper engagement with the stakeholders in terms of the development of the overall strategy concerning CSR and this has profound implications on the relationship between the suppliers and the company under consideration.

To overcome such challenges and for the effective achievement of the CSR policy based objectives, Apple has been consistently focusing on the achievement of standardised performance of corporate governance to fulfil the expectations and necessities of the stakeholders such as the customers, shareholders, investors, employees and suppliers. In this context, the role of the CSR policies and activities of Apple Inc. could be determined to be that of a facilitative instrument through which the broader organisational objectives of the company under consideration could be fulfilled and served. The impacts of such role fulfilment by the CSR strategies of Apple could be understood to be that of multiplicity in terms of nature and number. The first one has been observed by Reinecke and Ansari (2016) to be that of value and ethical consideration based business practices on the principles of social responsibilities towards both the internal as well as the external stakeholders of the organisation. This could be alternatively comprehended to be the organisational commitment towards developments of socio-economic nature.

In terms of the principles of socially beneficial practices undertaken by Apple Inc. in the context of the particular mandates of the developed Corporate Social Responsibility, it could be understood that renewed focus on the suitability of the aspects such as salary and hours of work, has been a consistently undertaken responsibility by the company management and administrative hierarchy of the organisation under consideration. The focus, in this context, as has been determined by Russell, Russell and Honea (2016), has been on the particularities of industry standardisation regarding all of the human resource and production maintenance policies which the Apple Inc. develops and applies in the regularised working processes. The objectives in this regard could be identified to be dual fold in nature. The first one could be identified as the maintenance of the most effective working relationships between the overall structural working architecture of the company and those of the employed human resources. The second objective could be outlined in this context as the preservation of the loyalty of the human resources which are employed by the Apple Inc. so that employee turnover rates could be kept to a minimum. Schrempf-Stirling and Palazzo (2016) has observed that the primary effectiveness of the Apple Inc. lies in the ability to provide competitively higher quality of products and services and to meet the customer expectations in the current hyper competitive market scenario. The consistent effort investment in adopting new technologies and cutting edge innovative practices in research and development as well as in manufacturing could be considered as the processes through which the organisation under consideration fulfils the business objectives and gains competitive leverage in the market. Thus, a fundamentally significant CSR objective of the Apple Inc. is to arrange for the consistent employee skill and knowledge improvement. However, one of the limitations of such responsibility management concerning the organisation CSR operational efficacy maintenance could also be identified in this context. Schwartz (2017) has defined such a limitation to be that of the fundamental challenge for any multinational corporate organisation to ensure the proper balance between highly qualitative service maintenance and setting of effective and profitable price ranges of the manufactured or produced services and product offerings.

This has to be taken into perspective as the fundamental tussle between the necessity to maintain highly effective CSR operations and the imperatives of profit maximisation based objectives. Such a challenge could be also elaborated from the perspective of the generally high price ranges which are associated with the products of Apple such as the smartphones. In this respect, it could be observed, as has been suggested by Vitell (2015), that the overarching objective of the Apple Inc. is to effectively plan for the environmental as well as social welfare of various dimensions, including that of the human resource ones which are controlled by the company in the forms of employees.

According to Wu et al (2015), the impact of CSR strategies of Apple, such as legal compliances on factors such as transparency and accountability, preservation of the most effective market relations and implementation of extensive monitoring and supervision based corporate governance mechanisms, could culminate in the proper management of operational risk by Apple, protection and enhancement of brand equity, expansion and reinforcement of the brand reputation, effective utilisation of the existing and prospectus resources as well as ensuring better possibilities in terms of obtaining legal licenses for further market penetration with newly developed products with greater innovative aspects. Another dimension has been identified by Kolk (2016) as maintaining of the business relations with the existing partners, investors, employees as well as with other valuable contacts at the regional community levels. The overall effect could be determined to be a positive image formulation for the company under consideration for a considerably longer term than what could be expected of the competitors of Apple Inc.

Recommendation appropriate strategies and procedures for introducing, communicating, sustaining and monitoring a CSR strategy in this organization. Include a review of relevant regulatory standards.

According to Long, Tallontire and Young (2015), from the perspective of effective strategic as well as procedural recommendation formulation for the CSR policy based operations of Apple, such as maintaining communication, sustainment and monitoring effects concerning such CSR operational applications, it is necessary for the organisation to implement a triple bottom line based thinking process. According to Ni and Van Wart (2015), the concept of triple bottom line based thinking is generally assistive towards development of the proper understanding regarding the issues related with social and environmental aspects of any business domain. The focus is always on the maximisation of operational efficacy concerning margin of profitability enhancement within the existing situational constraints. One other specific recommendation could be considered in the manner of utilisation of a holistic approach towards sustainability management on the contrary to dated approaches. According to Rao and Tilt (2016), this could be better understood to involve three critical actions on part of the organisational hierarchy of the company under consideration. These three actions could be acknowledged as the provisioning of updated information to the internal and external stakeholders such as name of the suppliers, report on sustainability operational outcomes and on the various segments of the organisational supply chain which Apple relies upon for the manufacturing of the endorsed products.

A third recommendation could be considered from the perspective of Reinecke and Ansari (2016) to be that of the involvement of the considerations related to CSR management at the crucial decision formulation junctures within the company hierarchy of Apple Inc. This could be done from the perspective of overall business strategy formulation where CSR objectives and associated policies could be integrated into the mainstream business strategies as an integral operating procedure by the Apple hierarchy. Through such integrative approach implementation, Russell, Russell and Honea (2016) has stated that Apple would be able to gain the most effective knowledge and information concerning the necessary changes and upgrades which could make the existing CSR strategies into more effective processes for future endeavours of Apple.

Ultimately, it could be observed that Apple Inc. could utilise the recommendation of providing effective skill development opportunities to the employees through training and educational services. This could enhance the existing scenarios in the motivational aspects of the employees and furthermore, betterment of remunerations and incentives could as well be considered by Apple as a prospective recommendation for the future operations regarding the CSR development strategies.

Fundamentals of ethical philosophy and application of moral reasoning to business decision-making

In this respect, Schrempf-Stirling and Palazzo (2016) have observed that the fundamentals of ethical philosophy as well as the application moral reasoning concerning the issues of development and utilisation of adequate policies related to CSR, could assist in the research based understanding development concerning the associated implications of the observed CSR policies of the company under consideration. The moral reasoning application has been further effective, in terms of the formulation decisions, regarding the impartation of the significance of the organisation imperatives concerning the preservation of advantageous competitive leverage in the current business disciplines. This could be further acknowledged from the research perspectives of Schwartz (2017) to be the realisation that in the current globalised competitive corporate world, it is always insufficient to gain effective market leverage only through delivering of standardised performances or by increasing the volume of sales and profitability. What is required of every leading multinational organisation of the world such as that of the Apple Inc. is to concentrate upon the performance of corporate social responsibilities in the form of development of the human resources associated with the company through the processes of investment in the ensuring of safety and welfare of the environment as well as that of the society in general.

Conclusion

The preceding study has been deliberative concerning the analysis of the multiple perspectives of the Corporate Social Responsibility based implications on the operational efficacy of Apple Inc. The study has also taken into specific consideration the application of focused research efforts regarding the delineation of various aspects related with the ethical practices which could be observed to be related to that of the CSR policies of the selected organisation of the Apple Inc. Generation of effective recommendations for the selected company to enhance the efficacy of the existing CSR policies of the organisation under consideration has been also performed at the culminating phase of the study.

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