Business Behaving Well

Social responsibility has become a goal for both employers and employees in the business community. But what does the term social responsibility mean, and what paths must businesses take to have a positive impact on society? Business Behaving Well provides a rationale and roadmap that will enable businesses to integrate social responsibility into their purpose and operations. Using real-world examples from a broad variety of industries, including health care and education, editor Ron Elsdon and his fellow authors describe how nonprofit and public sector entities can structure effective relationships with private firms for everyone's benefit. Addressing strategic issues as well as practical implementation, Business Behaving Well is for anyone who is actively engaged in the business world, individuals working in the public and nonprofit sectors, and students and faculty who study the relationship between business and social issues. It provides both the tools and structure to apply principles of business social responsibility, while inspiring readers with enthusiasm and the confidence to take action.

Companies can no longer expect to engage in dubious or unethical corporate behaviour without risking their reputation and damaging, perhaps irrevocably, their market position. Irresponsible corporate behavior not only deprives shareholders of long-term returns but also ultimately imposes a cost on society as a whole. Sustainable business is about ensuring that entities contribute toward positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes. Bad business behaviour is costly for stakeholders, for markets, for society, and the economy alike. To ensure that a company behaves well, the buy-in of the leadership team is crucial. The full commitment of the board of directors, in conjunction with the senior managers of the organization, is required if an organization is to be socially responsible. In this sense, leadership does not reside with an individual (the CEO) within the organization but with all of those at the apex of corporate power and control. Effective change management requires enlightened and capable leadership to instigate and drive the process of embedding a sustainable and socially responsible corporate philosophy and culture that supports good business decision-making. A profound understanding of the requirements of such a leadership process will help corporate managers become highly effective change agents. Governance will be the main driver of this change. For the economy and financial markets to become sustainable and resilient, radical changes in corporate leadership need to take place. Integrated reporting, government regulation, and international standards will all be important factors in bringing about this change. As well as understanding the effects of corporate behavior on financial markets, such an understanding is also now imperative in relation to the social and environmental contexts.

Organizational ethics involves the institutionalized principles, guidelines, and norms that influence how a company and its employees function in an ethical manner. Ultimately, these processes collectively influence a firm's 1) overall sense ofbusiness ethics, 2) management of employees, and 3) interactions with partners outside of the immediate work environment. Researcher and practitioners are interested in organizational ethics because the different approaches used to develop such a context generate many other positive business outcomes. While the connection between organizational ethics and employee/stakeholder well-being has been explored, moving forward with a number of new investigations should push the literature forward. This book seeks to explore these important topics and present a more comprehensive overview of organizational ethics and stakeholder well-being in the business environment. Such inquiry is important because the linkages between business ethics and stakeholders, if wellmanaged, have the capacity to benefit both companies and employees. In addition, the content of this book should serve to guide future investigations within this area of business ethics.

In recent years, employee health and well-being have been of increasing importance to companies as they attempt to move toward more sustainable business models and futures. Taking health into account in business policies helps ensure sustainable production systems. The role of ergonomics in companies can contribute to creating a more sustainable work environment, which accelerates the performance of the organization and promotes professional development, impacting the health and well-being of workers in a broad and positive way. Ergonomics and Business Policies for the Promotion of Well-Being in the Workplace presents the new trends in sustainable work through the analysis and application of methods to evaluate and improve the interaction of human beings with their work, their work area, and their environment. Covering topics such as mental health and organizational environments, this publication is ideal for academics, researchers, industry professionals, policymakers, business owners, instructors, and students.

Volume 18 of Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being is focused on the stress and well-being related to Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses. This volume focuses on entrepreneurial and small business owners’ stress, health, and well-being as it relates to personal, work, and success outcomes.

Toward a more sustainable society

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Generating insights and key takeaways into the role of family businesses in fostering safety and equality in healthcare systems and infrastructure across the globe, this book focuses on SDG#3: good health and well-being.

To achieve sustainable progress in workplace and societal functioning and development, it is essential to align perspectives for the management of health, safety and well-being. Employers are responsible for providing every individual with a working environment that is safe and does not harm their physical or mental health. However, the current state of the art indicates that approaches used to promote health, safety and well-being have not had the anticipated results. At the level of the enterprise it is widely understood and accepted by all stakeholders that employers share the responsibility of promoting and managing the health of their workers. Evidence indicates that most employers put in place procedures and measures to manage workers’ health and create healthy workplaces to meet legal requirements, as a response to requests by employees, as a need to improve company image/reputation, and to improve productivity. This highlights that in addition to legal requirements, the key drivers for companies also include the ethical and business case. While much has been written about role of legislation and the business case for promoting health, safety and well-being, not much is known about the ‘ethical case’ for promoting employment and working conditions. In this context, this book examines the potential of the link between responsible and sustainable workplace practices, human rights and worker health, safety and well-being and explores how complementary approaches can be used to promote employment and working conditions and sustainability at the organizational level. It offers a framework for aligning different approaches and perspectives to the promotion of workers’ health, safety and well-being and provides recommendations for introducing such an approach at the enterprise level.