Tripple Bottom Line

The TBL is an accounting framework that incorporates three dimensions of performance: social,
environmental and financial. This differs from traditional reporting frameworks as it includes ecological (or
environmental) and social measures that can be difficult to assign appropriate means of measurement. The
TBL dimensions are also commonly called the three Ps: people, planet and profits. We will refer to these as
the 3Ps.

Well before Elkington introduced the sustainability concept as "triple bottom line," environmentalists
wrestled with measures of, and frameworks for, sustainability. Academic disciplines organized around
sustainability have multiplied over the last 30 years. People inside and outside academia who have studied
and practiced sustainability would agree with the general definition of Andrew Savitz for TBL. The TBL
"captures the essence of sustainability by measuring the impact of an organization's activities on the
world ... including both its profitability and shareholder values and its social, human and environmental
capital.

An example of an organization seeking a triple bottom line would be a social enterprise run as a non-profit,
but earning income by offering opportunities for handicapped people who have been labelled
"unemployable", to earn a living recycling. The organization earns a profit, which is controlled by a
volunteer Board, and ploughed back into the community. The social benefit is the meaningful employment
of disadvantaged citizens, and the reduction in the society's welfare or disability costs. The environmental
benefit comes from the recycling accomplished. In the private sector, a commitment to CSR implies a
commitment to transparent reporting about the business' material impact for good on the environment
and people. Triple bottom line is one framework for reporting this material impact.
Common rights of an investor
The common rights of investors are enumerated below:
1. Voting Power
This power includes electing directors, which takes place at the company's meeting annually. Voting for
proposals for fundamental changes affecting the company such as liquidation or mergers is also a part.
2. Ownership
Common investors own a piece of a portion of the Company that has value, when business thrives. In other
words, they have a claim on a portion of the assets owned by the company.
3. Transfer Ownership
Investors are allowed to trade their stock on an exchange that is they can exercise the right to transfer
ownership. Although it might seem mundane, but the liquidity provided by stock exchanges is extremely
important. As stocks are so liquid, it is very easy to move your money into other places instantaneously.
4. Dividend Entitlement
Investors have a right to claim any profits a company pays out in the form of a dividend, along with a claim
on assets. A company management has two options with profits: reinvest them back into the firm or pay
out in the form of a dividend. The board of directors decides on what percentage of profits should be paid
out.
5. Inspect Corporate Books and Records
The investor can avail this opportunity provided through a company's public filings, including its annual
report. Today, its not a big deal as public companies are required to make their financials public.
6.Suing
Suing a company for wrongful acts usually takes the form of a shareholder class-action lawsuit. Giving
shareholders and investors an inaccurate view of its financial health by a company can be sued upon.
Inventors rights vary from state to state, and country to country. Check with your local authorities for the
latest information and standard for the purchase of any common stock. The common rights of investors
are very important for the protection of shareholders against poor management and wrong actions or
inactions of the existing set of officers and directors.

Normative Ethics
Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the
set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking.
Normative ethics is the attempt to provide a general theory that tells us how we ought to live.
Unlike metaethics, normative ethics does not attempt to tell us what moral properties are, and
unlike applied ethics, it does not attempt to tell us what specific things have those properties. Normative
ethics just seeks to tell us how we can find out what things have what moral properties, to provide a
framework for ethics.
Normative Ethics
For any act, there are three things that might be thought to be morally interesting: first, there is the agent,
the person performing the act; second, there is the act itself; third, there are the consequences of the act.
There are three types of normative ethical theoryvirtue, deontological, and consequentialisteach
emphasising one of these elements.
Internal Stakeholder employees, managers, board members, trade unions

Internal stakeholders are people who are already committed to serving your organization as board
members, staff, volunteers, and/or donors.

Employees at all levels are an important internal stakeholder group. Reed Elsevier needs to retain its
diverse and talented employees who bring professionalism and energy to their roles. This helps the
business to provide the highest levels of customer service attract new customers and retain existing ones.
Internal Stakeholders

Board members, Former board members, Staff members, Former staff members, Volunteers , Former
Volunteers, Donors

Morality v/s Legality

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of
intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good or right and those that are bad
or wrong.[citation needed] Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of
conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person
believes should be universal.[1] Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or
"rightness."

Legality can be defined as an act, agreement, or contract that is consistent to the law or state of being
lawful or unlawful in a given jurisdiction.

Ethics rationalizes morality to produce ethical theory that can be applied to any situation.

Morality is concerned with the norms, values, and beliefs embedded in social process which define right &
wrong for an individual or a community.

Ethics is concerned with the study of morality & the application of reason to elucidate specific rules &
principles that determine right & wrong for a given situation. These rules & principles are called ethical
theories.

Deontological Moral Theory

Deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action
based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules.[1] It is sometimes described as "duty-" or "obligation-" or
"rule-" based ethics, because rules "bind you to your duty."[2] Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted
to consequentialism,[3] virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important
than the consequences.

Because deontological theories are best understood in contrast to consequentialist ones, a brief look at
consequentialism and a survey of the problems with it that motivate its deontological opponents, provides
a helpful prelude to taking up deontological theories themselves. Consequentialists hold that choicesacts
and/or intentionsare to be morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about.
Consequentialists thus must specify initially the states of affairs that are intrinsically valuableoften
called, collectively, the Good. They then are in a position to assert that whatever choices increase the
Good, that is, bring about more of it, are the choices that it is morally right to make and to execute. (The
Good in that sense is said to be prior to the Right.)
In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action
itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are
morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics are such
expressions as Duty for dutys sake, Virtue is its own reward, and Let justice be done though the
heavens fall.

Teleological Ethics
The case of Truman's difficult decision reveals something important about the manner in which we make
moral judgments in many situations: our judgments often boil down to thinking through the consequences
of our actions, and doing what in the end we believe will bring about the greater good. Ethicists commonly
call this approach to moral judgment "teleological ethics" (from the Greek roots telos= end or aim + logos =
reason), or "consequentialism." The basic intuition behind teleological ethics is that the purpose of moral
judgment is to bring about what is good in the world, and avoid what is bad or evil. The task of teleological
ethical theory is to define in explicit terms the principle behind consequentialist moral judgment, and
resolve some fundamental issues concerning its application.

Teleological ethics, (teleological from Greek telos, end; logos, science), theory of morality that derives
duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. Also known as
consequentialist ethics, it is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek deon, duty), which holds
that the basic standards for an actions being morally right are independent of the good or evil generated.
Modern ethics, especially since the 18th-century German deontological philosophy of Immanuel Kant, has
been deeply divided between a form of teleological ethics (utilitarianism) and deontological theories.
Teleological theories differ on the nature of the end that actions ought to promote. Eudaemonist theories
(Greek eudaimonia, happiness), which hold that ethics consists in some function or activity appropriate
to man as a human being, tend to emphasize the cultivation of virtue or excellence in the agent as the end
of all action. These could be the classical virtuescourage, temperance, justice, and wisdomthat
promoted the Greek ideal of man as the rational animal; or the theological virtuesfaith, hope, and
lovethat distinguished the Christian ideal of man as a being created in the image of God.
Utilitarian-type theories hold that the end consists in an experience or feeling produced by the action.
Hedonism, for example, teaches that this feeling is pleasureeither ones own, as in egoism , or
everyones, as in universalistic hedonism, or utilitarianism, with its formula the greatest happiness
[pleasure] of the greatest number. Other teleological or utilitarian-type views include the claims that the
end of action is survival and growth, as in evolutionary ethics (the 19th-century English
philosopher Herbert Spencer); the experience of power, as in despotism (the 16th-century Italian political
philosopher Niccol Machiavelli and the 19th-century German Friedrich Nietzsche); satisfaction and
adjustment, as in pragmatism and freedom, as in existentialism.
Corporate Culture
Organizational culture is the behavior of humans within an organization and the meaning that people
attach to those behaviors. According to Needle (2004),[1] organizational culture represents the collective
values, beliefs and principles of organizational members and is a product of such factors as history,
product, market, technology, and strategy, type of employees, management style, and national culture.
Culture includes the organization's vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs,
and habits. Ravasi and Schultz (2006) wrote that organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions that
guide what happens in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. [2] It is also the
pattern of such collective behaviors and assumptions that are taught to new organizational members as a
way of perceiving and, even, thinking and feeling. Thus, organizational culture affects the way people and
groups interact with each other, with clients, and with stakeholders. In addition, organizational culture
may affect how much employees identify with an organization.[3]

As a part of organization

When one views organizational culture as a variable, one takes on the perspective that culture is
something that characterizes an organization. Organizational culture can be manipulated and altered
depending on leadership and members.[13]
The same as the organization

Culture as root metaphor sees the organization as its culture, created through communication and
symbols, or competing metaphors. Culture is basic with personal experience producing a variety of
perspectives.[13]
The organizational communication perspective on culture views culture in three different ways:

Traditionalism: views culture through objective things such as stories, rituals, and symbols
Interpretivism: views culture through a network of shared meanings (organization members sharing
subjective meanings)
Critical-interpretivism: views culture through a network of shared meanings as well as the power
struggles created by a similar network of competing

Financial implications of CSR

It is evident from the literature that many companies realize the link between being socially active,
increasing stakeholder expectations, and creating profit. One issue that became apparent in our research
was the notion of CSR-business strategy. It was apparent that including CSR as an integral part of business
strategy is highly beneficial in terms of CSR evaluation and measurement, and determining its impact on
profit.
Business awareness of the relationship between socially responsible investment and reputation, linked to
their desire to have a positive impact on the societies in which they operate, indicates that business
strategies play an important role in CSR; also, that such an approach to CSR may result in higher financial
flexibility in terms of increased social investment. From a supply-chain perspective, a company's desire to
be seen as socially responsible is not necessarily shared by other players in the chain. For instance, if a
supplier acts opportunistically, the buyer will probably not engage in future transactions. Moreover, the
buyer might tell other companies that the supplier is an unreliable partner. On the other hand, there might
be costs associated with establishing and maintaining a reputation as an effective business strategy. The
supplier's choice of action therefore depends on a value of the costs and benefits of being a reliable
 partner. Relying on this protective mechanism requires an analysis of the power structures in the
relationship, the characteristics of the transactions, and the external environment.

As the business environment gets increasingly complex and stakeholders become vocal about their
expectations, good CSR practices can only bring in greater benefits, some of which are as follows:
Communities provide the license to operate: Apart from internal drivers such as values and ethos, some of
the key stakeholders that influence corporate behavior include governments (through laws and
regulations), investors and customers. In India, a fourth and increasingly important stakeholder is the
community, and many companies have started realizing that the license to operate is no longer given by
governments alone, but communities that are impacted by a companys business operations. Thus, a
robust CSR programme that meets the aspirations of these communities not only provides them with the
license to operate, but also to maintain the license, thereby precluding the trust deficit.
Attracting and retaining employees: Several human resource studies have linked a companys ability to
attract, retain and motivate employees with their CSR commitments. Interventions that encourage and
enable employees to participate are shown to increase employee morale and a sense of belonging to the
company.
Communities as suppliers: There are certain innovative CSR initiatives emerging, wherein companies have
invested in enhancing community livelihood by incorporating them into their supply chain. This has
benefitted communities and increased their income levels, while providing these companies with an
additional and secure supply chain.
Enhancing corporate reputation: The traditional benefit of generating goodwill, creating a positive image
and branding benefits continue to exist for companies that operate effective CSR programmes. This allows
companies to position themselves as responsible corporate citizens.

Integration of Personal goals with Organizational goals

We all have our own goals and priorities. As a business manager, your goal is to make your business thrive
and ensure that your team stays happy and productive. For employees, goals often center around
individual careers and needs.

Personal goals affect how an employee performs. While they can serve as motivation to be more
productive and more successful, they can also cause conflicts between staff or between work and home.

Businesses are most successful when employees personal goals are aligned with corporate goals. This can
be difficult to do at times, but it is possible. Some companies, like Valve Software, make this happen
by allowing any employee to make any business decision. If youre not ready to do that, read on.

The Team Goal Must be Understood

Before personal goals can leveraged in the pursuit of team objectives, employees first need to clearly
understand what the team goals are. A clear understanding of your organizational values and goals will
prevent any potential conflict and confusion.

Once employees understand team goals, theyre better able toand more likely tointegrate them into
their personal goals. Team leaders, HR, managers, and senior executives can help to smooth this process
by offering feedback and having one-on-one consultation sessions.

Find the Middle Ground

Most of the time, personal goals should still be work-related, such as achieving a sales volume, working a
number of hours, organizing a specific project, or improving a specific skills. Finding common ground
between these personal goals and your organizational priorities can be hugely productive.
The easiest way to do this is to simply ask employees what they think the team can do to help them reach
their personal goals. Make sure you follow up by clarifying how their own goals are contributing to the
overall team objective.

When team members help each other to grow personally, they also help the team grow as a whole.

Value Personal Goals

Managers and team leaders should value the personal goals of their team members. Its wise to let
employees grow both within and outside of the business. Dont suffocate your team by focusing only on
corporate objectives. Of course, dont neglect the business by focusing only on personal ambitions, either.

Prioritizing and finding the balance between personal goals and team objectives shouldnt be a battle. Both
are important. Synchronize them, and watch your business soar.

CSR contribution to Social Development

A popular explanation of the term CSR is the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and
contribute to economic development, while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their
families as well as of the local community and society at large. Over the last years an increasing number of
companies worldwide started promoting their business through Corporate Social Responsibility strategies
because the customers, the public and the investors expect them to act sustainable as well as responsible.
In some cases, CSR is a result of a variety of social, environmental and economic pressures while some
other cases many large corporations, it is primarily a strategy to divert attention away from the negative
social and environmental impacts of their lives. It enables the company to leverage its products, employee
strength, networks and profits and up to some extent to create a sustainable change for marginalized
communities. Despite certain criticisms on the CSR activities, more and more companies in the world are
inclined towards corporate social responsibility. The CSR Executives have the task of reconciling the various
programs, quantifying their benefits, or at least sketching a logical connection to the business, and securing
the support of business line counterparts. CSR can not only refer to the compliance of human right
standards, labor and social security arrangements, but also to the fight against climate change, sustainable
management of natural resources and consumer protection. The various practices followed by the
corporate in different parts of the world differ significantly. In the Developed nations, the basic needs of
the population do not need so much support as in the under-developed nations. The demographies,
literacy rate, poverty ratio and GDP of the country have significant role in determining the directions of
CSR initiatives of an organization. In the Asian context, CSR mostly involves activities like adopting villages
for holistic development, in which they provide medical and sanitation facilities, build school and houses,
and helping villages become self-reliant by teaching them vocational and business skills. This Conference is
designed to understand and deal with the unprecedented impacts of CSR on the working population,
society and environment and therefore to elaborate the various frameworks for it with a view towards
developing its practice in an evolutionary way

Religions role in Business Ethics

Most Americans describe themselves as religious and say their beliefs are important to the way they live
their, yet many religious business executives blatantly ignore the moral expectations intrinsic to their
religion.

First lets be clear. Religion isnt only about worship and ritual. Within the holy books of every major
religion are bedrock moral precepts and principles prescribing how true believers are to live their lives.
Thus, you will find references to honesty, justice, fidelity, compassion, and charity that leave no
doubt about the role ethics and personal virtue should play in our daily lives at home and at work.
In his fine book The Business Bible: 10 New Commandments for Bringing Spirituality & Ethical Values into
the Workplace, Rabbi Wayne Dosick tells of a soap maker who challenged a rabbi: What good is religion?
It teaches honesty, but most people are dishonest. The rabbi answered, My dear soap maker, religion
like soap only works when you use it.
The ancient truths and enduring values embodied in traditional religions are more than guidelines or
suggestions about how to behave. To those who profess religious belief, moral and ethical behavior isnt an
option, its a mandate.

To practice religious rituals and claim reverent identity without scrupulous concern for the moral teachings
of ones faith is like going to a fine restaurant and eating the menu rather than the food.

Its also blatant hypocrisy. Integrity is about wholeness, the unity of beliefs, words, and actions. Im not
saying you have to be devout to be ethical.

The moral obligations intrinsic to ones beliefs apply to every decision an executives, entrepreneurs or
salesperson makes. There is no dispensation to mislead, to be disrespectful, unfair or uncaring just because
such behavior may seem like a business norm or because it seems necessary to achieve a business
objective. If religion is important to you, so is ethics no excuses, rationalizations or exemption.