Not everyone agrees with the position of organizations assuming social responsi-
bility. For example, economist Milton Friedman remarked in Capitalism and Freedom
that “few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free soci-
ety as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make
as much money for their stockholders as possible.”^104
Joel Bakan, professor of law at the University of British Columbia, author of The
Corporation,10 5and co-director of the documentary of the same name, is more critical of
organizations than Friedman, though he finds that current laws support corporate
behaviour that some might find troubling. Bakan suggests that today’s corporations
have many of the same characteristics as a psychopathic personality (self-interested,
lacking empathy, manipulative, and reckless in their disregard of others). Bakan notes
that even though companies have a tendency to act psychopathically, this is not why they
are fixated on profits. Rather, the only legal responsibility corporations have is to max-
imize organizational profits for stockholders. He suggests more laws and more restraints
need to be put in place if corporations are to behave with more social responsibility, as
current laws direct corporations to be responsible to their shareholders and make little
mention of responsibility toward other stakeholders.
Interestingly enough, a recent study shows that MBA students change their views
about social responsibility during the course of their program.10 6Students from 13
international business schools, including the Richard Ivey School of Business at the
University of Western Ontario and the Schulich School of Business at York University,
were asked at the beginning and the end of their MBA programs about their attitudes
toward corporate social responsibility. At the start of their program, 40 percent reported
that one of the primary responsibilities of a company is to produce useful, high qual-
ity goods and services. By the time the students graduated, only 30 percent of them
thought this was a valuable corporate goal. Instead, 75 percent of the students sug-
gested that a company’s primary responsibility was to maximize shareholder value.
Some Canadian companies do practise social responsibility, however. Both Vancouver-
based Vancity and Bolton, Ontario-based Husky Injection Molding Systems have “taken
comprehensive steps to include customer, employee, community and environmental
concerns in both long-term planning and day-to-day decision making.”^107 Vancity’s
electronic banking arm, Citizens Bank, has an “Ethical Policy,” which states, for instance,
that the bank is against excessive environmental harm and will not do business with com-
panies that either violate the fundamental rights of children or are involved in
weapons.10 8This chapter’s Case Incident—Syncrude Wants to Be a Good Neighbouron
page 328 describes a socially responsible approach to running a business located near
an Aboriginal community. For more on the debate about social responsibility vs. con-
centrating on the bottom line, see this chapter’s Point/Counterpointon page 324.SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS
1 Is there a right way to make decisions?The rational decision-making model
describes the six steps individuals take to make decisions: (1) Define the prob-
lem, (2) identify the criteria, (3) allocate weights to the criteria, (4) develop alter-
natives, (5) evaluate the alternatives, and (6) select the best alternative. This is an
ideal model, and not every decision thoroughly follows these steps.
2 How do people actually make decisions?Most decisions in the real world do
not follow the rational model. For instance, people are usually content to find an
acceptable or reasonable solution to their problem rather than an optimizing one.
Thus decision makers may rely on bounded rationality, satisficing, intuition, and
judgment shortcuts in making decisions.320 Part 4Sharing the Organizational Vision
Vancity
http://www.vancity.com
Husky Injection Molding
Systems
http://www.husky.ca
SNAPSHOT SUMMARY1 How Should Decisions
Be Made?
The Rational Decision-
Making Process