UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS ETHICS AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE: CONVERGING AND DIVERGING PARADIGMS

Abstract

The two different approaches of ethics and social responsibility converge at singular understanding in Islamic perspective of equality and justice. If we go by the meanings and implications of the two terminologies i.e. ‘Business Ethics’ and ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ as mentioned in the title of the paper, it appears that these converge to supplement each other at one place and diverge to make two separate entities on the other side where one becomes functional only because other has failed to perform. Ethics and Business Ethics by implication mean endeavoring for the good life. We understand what good is; life that carries the feelings of satisfaction, safety and security. That is not possible without even-wellbeing of communities because accumulation of wealth in few hands creates asymmetric societies where none of the two extremes is satisfied, safe and secure. Those who carry more wealth in their credit are threatened by empty stomachs and vice versa in the urge of securing wealth for growth and struggling for food to survive respectively. Corporate Social Responsibility implies obligations of the corporate sector to pay back to the society. It can be in the form of collective wellbeing as post production phenomenon. It can also follow ethics during business operations as integral part of the business operation. When ethics are followed in business operation as corporate social responsibility, the whole practice becomes converging to complement the collective wellbeing. If pay back to the society is resorted as obligatory corporate social responsibility separately like spending in welfare schemes, environment protection, then it becomes diverging. It implies; there is a vacuum in applications of ethics in business operation that one needs corporate social responsibility. Had the business ethics been followed, there was no need of paying back in the form of corporate social responsibility separately.
So, if you are following ethics during business operation, there is no need of debating corporate social responsibility separately because it is inbuilt within the business mechanism by application and implication. Contrarily if one picks up business ethics as part of corporate social responsibility; separate from business operation and management then it warrants deliberations to pay back to the society / environments in the said form. Therefore, if we take business ethics and corporate social responsibility as two separate entities, then both would be complementing and principally either of the two should exist. In other case, when both have to exist separately, then one would be active because other has not been applied in letter and spirit.