What are the roles of ethics and social responsibility in developing a strategic plan for an energy-related organization?
Businesses operate in environments that have external factors that are affected by the operations of the business; businesses in the energy industry are affected by environmental conservation campaigns; they need to uphold ethics in their processes. With globalization and an increase in people’s awareness of their rights, there have been calls for conducting business ethically. Ethics in business means conducting a business in a socially, economically, politically, and environmentally friendly manner; the energy industry has the potential of affecting a countries environmental and economic situation of a country (Wilson & Sasseville, 1999). The role of ethics and corporate social responsibility in a strategic plan for an energy-related organization are:
- It aims at developing good relations between business and its environs.
- It involves businesses aligning their internal and external operations/process to meet the expectation of society as it fulfills its objectives and goals.
- Business ethics is concerned with integrity, honesty, and truthfulness in business operations (Pearce & Robinson, 2009).
When developing policies and strategic approaches, the management should ensure they
- Develop an ethical code of conduct which should be followed in their organization
- Have a formally recognized code of ethics committees, which are mandated, to ensure that ethical practices are upheld.
- Train and teach their employees on the need for business ethics
- Align their internal processes to abide by to set code of ethics.
Given an organization’s role in the energy sector, what are the ethical and social responsibilities of a company to the community?
The energy sector has the role of producing the much-needed energy for industries and other human activities: from a general angle, companies in the sector have the role of ensuring there is a steady supply of energy at an affordable cost when needed. Their code of ethics should define how processes in an organization are structured and their effects on the end customers and stakeholders who utilize a company’s good directly or indirectly it should focus on the following are the areas that the companies have a responsibility:
- Product quality; the company should aim at producing high-quality goods and services; with this, they will assure their customer value for money.
- Business dealings; Courtesy towards both internal and external customers and suppliers, when making a product, the company should aim at ensuring their processes have minimal damage to the environment and all process are aligned to meet ethical standards met.
- Employee compensation; employees should be part of an ethical process. They should not be left when a business is considering an ethical code of conduct. Their issues include good working environments, compensations, and respect for their rights. Those employees who have been treated in a respected manner have proved to be more productive (Mintzberg, Lampel, Quinn & Ghoshal, 2003).
According to Barney 2007, companies in whichever industry have to uphold good corporate governance in their processes. Corporate governance is how an organization is planned to have an increasing value to its stakeholders; companies in the energy sector have the role of maintaining good corporate governance with others. It is more skewed to the attainment of business objectives and satisfaction of all persons affected by a certain decision in business. This includes the structure of the board (audit, nomination, and compensation committees), management/board relationships, carrying out value-creating activities, shareholders ‘ rights, record keeping, information disclosures, and management compensation and its disclosure. Effective corporate governance should include issues of ethics in their compositions. The way decisions are made should be from a human point of view and should consider that the business is operating in environments that it affects and is affected by people. Having policies as if corporate social responsibilities will ensure that a business develops good relations with its customers and the environment that it is living in.
Ethics, corporate governance, and social corporate responsibilities must be upheld to have productive business ethics practices, four tools in improving ethics in a business are:
Have a good code of conduct that is followed by all levels of employees, managers, the board of directors, and employees
- Undertake regular ethics, social responsibility, and corporate governance audits, by having systematic efforts to assess conformity with company ethics, social responsibility, and corporate governance codes and policies.
- Undertake reviews on the current levels of ethics adopted and improve these levels as required by the prevailing condition.
- Fully invest in areas that benefit society. These include areas of health, education, and water projects. They assist in developing a good working environment between a company and the outside world (Barney, 2007).
How do a company’s mission, vision, and values statements guide strategic planning? How do these documents reflect the company’s corporate values?
When a company has been formed, there is the reason for its formation; the reason is reflected in its corporate mission, vision, and strategic planning. The corporate goals shape the direction of the company it defined the main reason or the so-called overall mission that the company wants to attain. All other decisions and strategies developed in an organization have the aim of fulfilling the overall corporate goals; the overall goals communicate to the world about the company while the individual processes lead to the attainment of the corporate goals. For example, many/all companies in the energy sector aim at protecting the environment; this is in the company’s corporate mission, vision, and value statements, to attain this, other internal processes must be looked into like the technology adopted, the supply chain and the overall performance of the company.
The company’s mission, vision, and values statements guide strategic planning since they offer the platform that other business strategies are developed. The kind of decisions that managers made is determined by the mission that their company was made to fulfill, in case there is a crisis between what the company wants to do and what the managers have decided, the mission, vision, and values statements of the company stands out to offer direction. People interested in investing in an organization have are only reached through the communication they get from mission, vision, and values statements, thus these statements are meant to shape a company’s strategies (Duska, 1999).
Conclusion
The corporate mission, vision, and value statement of a company shape the operating strategies adopted in the business; they are management tools used to focus and keep the business on track. Businesses in the energy sector have the role of conducting their businesses ethically as they play a vital role in the world’s economic, social, and political development. They should also engage in corporate social responsibility activities in the efforts of improving community welfare.
References
Barney, J. (2007). Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Duska, R. (1999). Employee Rights: A companion to business ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., Quinn, J. B., & Ghoshal, S. (2003). The strategy process: Concepts, context, cases. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Pearce, J. A., & Robinson, R. B, Jr. (2009). Strategic management: formulation, implementation, and control. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wilson, W. G., & Sasseville, D. R. (1999). Sustaining environmental management success. New York: John Wiley & Sons.