Corporate Social Responsibility: Is It a Matter of Ethics?

Mohammed Laeequddin and K. Abdul Waheed
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Mohammed Laeequddin: Mohammed Leequddin is General Manager at Express Flexi Pack, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He did his MTech in Industrial Engineering and Management from JN Technical University, Hyderabad, and PhD from GGSIP University, Delhi, India. He is having over 20 years of experience in printing and packaging industry in the area of operations management in India and Middle East. His research papers have appeared in various national and international refereed journals. His research interests are trust, risk and ethics in supply chain management. [E-mail: laeeq@mail.com]
K. Abdul Waheed: K. Abdul Waheed is Associate Professor of Marketing and heads the Office of Internships & Projects at IMT, Dubai. He holds a PhD from School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Prior to joining IMT, Dubai, he was a faculty member at BITS, Pilani, and National Institute of Textile Management, India. His research interests are trust in buyer–seller relationship, brand personality and societal marketing. His research papers have been published in various national and international refereed journals. [E-mail: k-abdul-waheed@yahoo.com]

South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, 2012, vol. 1, issue 1, 51-57

Abstract: Recently, there has been an increasing trend of manufacturing organizations adopting the strategy of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and expecting their suppliers, too, to adopt the CSR guidelines developed by them and be accountable. From a supplier’s perspective, it is important to comply with the key customer’s requirements to maintain the business relationships but adopting the customer’s operating principles may not always be feasible and practical. Situations in which disqualifying suppliers who fail to comply with CSR criteria could limit the number of suppliers or create higher dependency relationships on limited number of suppliers adding cost to production. What is ethical to a customer may not necessarily be ethical to its supplier. This is one of such cases, seeking to bring out the ethical dilemma of Mr Kumar, the General Manager of Pack-tech, a medium-sized flexible packaging company based in United Arab Emirates. The questions that are bothering him are as follows: Should he accept and implement the CSR principles of its customers? Should he follow the suggestions of his workers and manipulate the records to show compliance? And, can CSR principles payback the cost of its implementation?

Keywords: Supply chain relationship; CSR; ethics; trust; Pack-tech; flexible packaging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sajbmc:v:1:y:2012:i:1:p:51-57

DOI: 10.1177/227797791200100106

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