Ethical Intensity, Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework

Businesses around the world have been concerned about profit maximization as the main motive of a business organization. It is argued time and again that businesses can make long term profits and gains only when they follow ethical practices in their business and have policies to promote long term sustainability in business. Changes in values, behavior, attitudes and actions are a prerequisite for sustainable business policies. Bringing about a positive change in people’s attitude and behaviour promotes ethics at workplace, which in turn induces a sense of responsibility among the managers of the firm (corporate citizenship). This results in a long term sustainable business enterprise. This study emphasises the concept of ethical intensity, and its possible influence on managerial actions. Managerial actions are the guiding force for corporate social responsibility. As documented in literature a CSR activity has many forms, such economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility. Fulfillment of a particular type of corporate social responsibility practice depends on the ethical and moral intensity of a manager. In this context, the role of a business concern is crucial. In organisations, there is a need to look beyond profit and employee remuneration and take a step towards being socially responsive, thereby anticipating the societal needs and taking a proactive action towards addressing those unseen issues. It is about not only fulfilling economic and legal expectations, but going beyond compliance and investing in human capital, the environment and relations with stakeholders. The triple bottom line approach to corporate social responsibility highlights the three areas namely people, profit and planet and is a sustainability related construct that was coined by Elkington (1997). The term “sustainability” has gained much of importance over the years. The business organisations which follow ethical practices feel the need to undertake corporate social responsibility of higher order, which in turn leads to long term sustainability in an organisation. In this paper an attempt has been made to integrate the concept of ethical intensity, corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability by documenting the existing literature and drawing significant connections among these three important constructs of a business organization. The aim here is to advance the understanding of ethical intensity among managers and sense of social responsibility among them. It is one among the first few to investigate the relationship between ethical behaviors and CSR levels in emerging market specific contingencies. Such analysis is required because ethical initiatives are highly context-specific and strongly embedded in cultural norms and social practices (Bailey and Spicer 2007). Areas that remain under-researched are the questions of whether social credibility contributes to long-term firm performance (corporate sustainability) and how emerging economy specific traits affect the link among ethics, CSR and sustainability.