According to the FT this morning:
Boards must take control of setting a company's ethical values and be prepared to dismiss chief executives whose values are not compatible with the culture they seek, says the Institute of Business Ethics.
As they note:
The study comes as trust issues continue to dog corporations, seven years after the start of the financial crisis.
Those boards may be wise to take note of a survey by KPMG reported in The Grocer, which says:
Company tax arrangements are more important to consumers than Fairtrade and the environment, new research has found.
Noting Tax Research UK's role in changing public opinion, The Grocer notes that KPMG's report found that unsurprisingly fair pricing and quality issues were vital to brand perception but that paying fair tax was more important to consumers than treating suppliers fairly, employees fairly, minimising environmental impact and charity support.
Two thirds of consumers felt large companies were doing the bare minimum to engage with ethical issues. KPMG urged companies to communicate better.
They might want to apply for the Fair Tax Mark. And yes, of course I declare an interest in saying so. I am one of its directors.
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Companies – at least the mega-corps are in business to make cash – nothing else matters to them otherwise they wouldn’t offshore jobs etc.
I think any talk of social responsibility is garbage. If they could get away with doing ‘X’ and ‘X’ makes cash for the business, then the company would.
It’s not a ‘right’ or ‘left’ issue….it’s just the way it is. If running the odd social responsibility programme keeps the heat off a ‘mega-corp’ or not using every allowance or scheme makes them look good and thus attract customers they’ll do it…but it’s about self-interest not altruism.
That’s just offering an excuse for abuse
It’s almost the same as the sex abuser’s “I can’t help it” claim
It’s just not true. People do not ceased to be moral when they go to work
“People do not ceased to be moral when they go to work….”
Respectfully, I think the amount of cover-ups involving the mega-corps and HMG would suggest otherwise.
That says people are not moral
Your analogy is crass.
But putting that aside, I don’t think the comment was trying to excuse anything, it was making the point that ‘CSR’ is as much a PR thing as it is a desire to act ethically. That doesn’t mean that those who promote CSR initiatives and principles would not be interested in them without that PR.
In my days working for a large organisation we were all offered the chance to spend a day working on a community project. We were helping with the renovation of a youth centre or something of that ilk. It was a really worthwhile day, and we contributed greatly to the project. I was quite proud, but then the local press photographer turned up, and we were all handed our nice clean branded t-shirts to put on for the picture. I didn’t feel so good then (having been refused permission to skip the photo, I actually went and hid because I didn’t want to be in it.. and got into a bit of trouble as a result).
The point of that anecdote, is that it was obvious that PR was the clinching factor. Individually we probably all thought what we did was worthwhile, but for it to work for the organisation it needed a kicker.
Perhaps you could paid that as a negative feature of private enterprise within our system (perhaps it is one) but CSR is something that only ‘works’ if you shout about it. That’s the principle behind your Fair Tax Mark too – the badge is for companies who do the right thing and jump though your PR hoop – not just companies who do the right thing and don’t feel like making a fuss about it. That’s not a criticism of FTM (I don’t see an alternative) just an observation.
Organisations don’t feel that it’s enough to simply do the right thing, they must be SEEN to be doing it. That’s why the PR ends up being more important than the ‘morality’.
I accept the PR point
My argument was with a crass comment
I note I was not the only one to note the absurdity of the comment
Aha! The ‘it’s just the way it is argument’-the argument by ‘human nature’! We’ve all heard this one many times before and it’s the last refuge of a scoundrel and evidence of a culture dumbed-down to death for the last 40 years from Thatcher onward. This sort of non-thinking has become a sort of unnoticed mental wallpaper which is why it is so pervasive and dangerous -it denies genuine agency in human action.
The PR comments are right. Business is all about profit and the only reason for CSR or FTM etc is because the PR of doing so (or failing to do so) might impact profits.
(Perhaps sadly?) this is the capitalist world that we live in.
“(Perhaps sadly?) this is the capitalist world that we live in.”
Many avowed capitalists would not agree that what we have today IS actual capitalism-oligarchy, plutocracy, kleptocracy, reverse socialism-YES-but not capitalism.
Yes, we do have socialism for the rich. It has become much more obvious since the bank crash , but it has been going on for many years. There is no such thing as the free market. Big business and corporations have always received big subsidies, grants and loan guarantees from governments for years.
How does you claim square with the fact that Amazon have such huge UK sales given that (in your subjective view) they aren’t fair taxpayers…..
Is that the bulk of the population don’t really car that much about fair tax if it means cheaper prices or is it that they dispute your claims about Amazon’s tax position?
The point was referred to in the article
You are reminded of the comments policy of this blog
Personally I think people say the “right” thing when asked in a survey, but when the want to buy the latest gadget they go online and find the cheapest price (which is why they are so many price comparison websites)
Anth – good point.
Fair tax is a factor like CSR etc but when making a decision to buy, price is likely a more significant factor.
For a majority – as the report made clear
But not all
And if there is a choice then other factors come into play
When journalists and bloggers cite studies, it is always helpful to have a link to the underlying information. Here is the link to the KPMG study. http://www.kpmg.co.uk/email/06Jun14/OM018666A/PT2/index.html#14/z
If you look at page 13 it seems to me that the factors ranked there are skewed. After the top four, it could be argued that all the rest are directly related to ethics. If you total the rankings for all of those explicitly ethical factors, it comes to more than those ranking paying appropriate tax as a major factor.
On this basis, I think that the quote you cite from The Grocer is misleading. YMMV.
I think you could also argue paying tax is about ethics too
I think you are seeking to skew the data
Indeed, paying appropriate tax is obviously related to ethics but I understood that you, citing the article from The Grocer, were arguing that it stood out as more important than all the other ethical issues. It’s a small scale market research survey and the factors for ranking have been poorly differentiated. I’m not sure what you mean by skewing the data: I’m just pointing out that there could be a different interpretation.
I believe that your readers should have the opportunity to judge for themselves the authority of material you cite in support of your arguments, especially where secondary citation is involved.
The Grocer used the ranking KPMG used
I do not think the report skewed the data
I could not find the survey at the time