We've documented increases in productivity, morale, and better relations with managers and co-workers as a result of the hotline. But we're not able to quantify the gain in our managers' time. The hotline frees them to focus on customer service instead of employee problems. Most of us still carry around the subliminal idea that ruthless behavior beats the competition and good behavior is money out of pocket. But the data shows that the traditional idea is wrong.
Social responsibility makes sense in purely capitalistic terms.
The Forces Redefining Business Conservative economists, most notably Nobel laureate Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, have long argued that the sole mission of a corporation is to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders and that spending on social causes violates that prime directive. But the new marketplace is proving that profits can best be maximized by embracing, rather than forswearing social concerns. The idea that profitability and social awareness are not antagonistic but interdependent redefines the purpose of business. First, today's consumers have learned by experience that societies and economies, like nature, are not closed systems. When employers don't make health insurance available to workers, the cost of health care for those workers isn't saved, but is shared among all of us in higher health-care costs and taxes that support public emergency rooms.