The essay is part of the module of law and ethics in Companies and Finance. We only had one lecture on the matter, however the essence of the lecture was to show that companies do have more social responsibilities than only maximizing the shareholder’s value. Milton Friedman’s approach is regarded as an ‘Instrumental Theory’ (Garriga and Mele 2004) where the sole social responsibility of the corporation is to make profit. However, new theories emerged after 1970 (when Friedman made his statement). Due to climate change and other problems which arose through the years, the social responsibilities of companies are not only restricted to profit maximization. We do not have many details on how to discuss the issue, however i assume that it is expected to critically discuss the issue in the corporate responsibility context and ethics. The main issue to critically discuss whether the corporations main social responsibility is to maximize profits.
SOS – Note that references and bibliography DO count in the word count!
