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Essay / An Analysis of Public Trust and Corporate Ethics
Just when the world thought it had seen it all with the big corruption boom that Vijay Mallya staged and got away with, the Nirav Modi's debacle came as a slap in the face to human confidence in the infallibility of greatness. The existence of a happy and healthy commercial economy constitutes the central principle of humanity. With the advent of good old capitalism and the expansion of corporate culture, the definition of business has changed to its roots. There is a general trust in large entities owned by the people. The belief that the bigger a company is, the less likely it is to rip you off. The exploits of the economic giants mentioned above distort this belief and shatter it completely. So, if there is no confidence in the infallibility of greatness, how can the ever-growing corpus of the global economy be fueled by a tireless, twenty-five-hour-a-day work ethic, who no longer has anything ethical? ?Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Throughout history, law has been built around the logical ramifications of immoral actions. Legality and morality are largely intertwined in most contexts given the principles of justice, fairness and good conscience that accompany any thought wandering in the direction of jurisprudence. We see many legal principles aimed at upholding the accountability of the people who run businesses. The whole idea of this application is based on the principle that people have the utmost good faith in the system in which they invest their savings. The system only works as long as faith does. But cases of large-scale fraud arouse in people's minds an apprehension that is quite difficult to dispel. Thus, if the size of an entity is no longer a testimony to its infallibility or moral uprightness strictly controlled by innumerable legislations and bodies, like SEBI, there is no longer any way for an investor to rest peacefully after investing money in someone's business. Not only does this lead to immediate consequences for the investor in terms of significant money losses, but it also creates a general distrust in the concept of investing. This, however, brings to mind a simple question. Scams happen all the time. Not to mention corporate entities (whose obvious motive and very textbook definition centers on making profits); Governments themselves cheat people out of their money. When there is no trust in an institution that exists to protect the public interest, how exactly can one have such trust in larger companies? Over the years, the culture of corporate social responsibility has become increasingly important. The idea is that since businesses arise from society and cannot thrive without social support, whether in terms of generating demand, resources, or ways of obtaining and using those resources, it is absolutely obligatory for companies to reciprocate. On its face, this argument is reasonable. Let's look at the most obvious goal of running a business: profits. Profits are measured in terms of piles of money and its variants. However, money itself has no real value beyond the social legitimacy it gains through the daily operation of the global economy. This makes the company the most indispensable part of any business. Consideringalso because commerce only appears at the heart of socio-political contexts, we must recognize the compelling need to return favors to society. As long as corporations thrive, their businesses thrive. Here again, one might ask: is it necessary to undertake special actions in the name of social responsibility? Logically, an economy is only as prosperous as its businesses. When large industries and businesses thrive, the economy generates greater GDP, leading to a happier population. Therefore, a country with a greater number of infallibly large companies in sectors that contribute strongly to economic prosperity indices and bring in tons of foreign exchange is in itself a contribution to society. Mahanobolis, in the Second Five-Year Plan, sought to extend this argument by means of the “trickle down effect,” the merits of which are, of course, widely questioned, but the idea remains. That when the economy as a whole grows, the population does better. Large companies enable economic growth, which provides a sense of comfort to the consumer. Psychologically, people would be more likely to deposit their money with a well-established, multi-branched, government-affiliated bank, rather than a lesser-known, newer, less reliable bank. Indeed, there is a general belief that large institutions support the pillars of society and are less likely to commit scams. Not to mention that their drops would be bigger and harder to ignore, making the resulting losses easily recoverable. What does this mean for businesses themselves? We see entities like Reliance growing and diversifying by the minute, and at the same time, companies whose growth we have not only observed, but also helped in some cases, have left us with a huge hole in the metaphorical public pocket. This raises doubts about whether Reliance is in fact the next Kingfisher, or whether one day Salil Parekh would be a Nirav Modi. Public trust is greatly diminished due to these spectacular cases where people achieve untold fortunes overnight and run away, never to be found again. In 2015, on the occasion of the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the PR company Edelman announced the results of the 15th annual trust barometer, the essence of which was not optimistic. According to the report, citizen confidence in the business sector was at its lowest level since the 2008 depression. The situation only deteriorated in subsequent reports. In sociology, Max Weber expounded the concept of legitimation. . Here he explains that all concepts of society are attached to the value that people place on it. In the absence of value, there can be no question of importance. According to this logic, the success of a business is linked to the trust and value that people place in it. This is why goodwill is so essential to the survival and growth of any business enterprise. The equations for inputs and outputs are not linear or even purely mathematical or logical. To a large extent, business success relies on human and popular trust. Cases such as those of Mallya and Modi taint this faith. These examples bring us back to the central importance given to the institution of corporate ethics. In its broad sense, business ethics is largely inapplicable because it cannot be traced to specific details – only to lines.