Question: 1. What is the relationship between corporate governance and social responsibility?
2. What is your opinion of Gap International's having a code of conduct for its suppliers? What would Milton Friedman say? Contrast his view with Archie Carroll's view.
3. Does a company have to act selflessly to be considered socially responsible? For example, when building a new plant, a corporation voluntarily invested in additional equipment that enabled it to reduce its pollution emissions beyond any current laws. Knowing that it would be very expensive for its competitors to do the same, the firm lobbied the government to make pollution regulations more restrictive on the entire industry. Is this company socially responsible? Were its managers acting ethically?
4. Are people living in a relationship-based governance system likely to be unethical in business dealings?
5. Given that people rarely use a company's code of ethics to guide their decision making, what good are the codes?