"... Industry is the place where we aren’t simply limited to transformation and production, but we also utilise knowledge, professionalism, human resources and technology ..." (ETHICS AND BUSINESS Convention- presented by the Young Industrialists Group of Cremona - Cremona, January 27th, 2005).
On this basis, it is reasonable to think that the relationship with society has changed – even if some may still find it difficult to admit that modern company has a social role!
Current-day company management, despite having the optimisation of profits as their main objective, must however achieve these goals respecting moral rules, legal, social regulations and laws: we are talking about business ETHICS.
The company itself becomes, therefore, the bearer of ethical values without suffering or living them as constrictions. Ethical factors transfused into and from a company or transmitted to multiple subjects with whom that company has relationships do not need to be or become legally binding "Norms”, a cage or, worse, the fine print on a certificate to adorn oneself with or only for appearances sake, but rather a “moral duty” to take on a central Social role and positively affect that Society. It’s like a Certificate of Quality for company procedures: if you're not open to living these procedures as an element for growth (and thus modifying them when necessary), but you undergo them as a requirement, they will only become moulded papers clogging up your desk drawers!
Company ethics should be a lighthouse that helps company-ship to avoid the sea-shoal, rocks or wreck in search of pure and simple profit. A sort of practical guide for several ethics which must live together and must be constantly cultivated in a company: environmental ethics, social ethics, political ethics, business ethics. Summing up this is what the European Commission Green Paper defined as CSR in 2001 (Corporate social responsibility) “corporate integration in social and ecological issues in their business and relationships with stakeholders.”
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