Corporate Business Ethics And Social Responsibility

Discussion

Discuss about the Corporate Business Ethics and Social Responsibility.

The most popular search engine that the world uses on everyday basis is Google, which has emerged as the most profitable internet company in the world (Google.com 2017). Google has created many products such as you tube, Android, Google Glass Google Plus and Google wallet. Google is currently facing the issue concerning the privacy policy and usage of the personal information of the users. There are many risk and ethical issues faced by Google and it needs address on constant basis. In the technology industry, Google has always the ethical conduct.             Despite this, Google has been accused of having a clavier attitude towards the privacy policy. It has been accused of violating the user’s privacy. Various privacy issues faced by Google has lowered the trust of the customers and trust is very essential for the customers in making interaction with the company. Google has faced challenges concerning the privacy despite the adoption of different approaches in handling the privacy. There is a need to address the ethical and the privacy issues faced by the company while maintaining its profitability (Hartman et al. 2014). It is not acceptable on the part of the multinational such as Google to purse profitability without taking into accounts the needs of its employees, consumers, communities and environment.

The strategies taken by Google are diversified because of the wide array of the products provided. Stakeholders of Google comes from different groups and they are impacted by the varied business of the organization. They include users, employees, investors, advertisers, communities and government. Users are considered the most significant in terms of the effect on the firm. Google has program and policies that addresses the interest of all group of stakeholders. The strategy of the company is to focus on the users and this led to popular and useful products that are beneficial to the user, investors and customers and thereby making the business profitable (Grant 2016). The advent of mobile technology and internet has enable the organization such as Google to serve the needs of its stakeholders. It has the responsibility to ensure that the rights of the stakeholders are protected. All the strategies are intended to improve the reputation and the credibility among the stakeholders. In social responsibility, Google has made great strides and there has always been room for improvement (Crane et al. 2013).

Strategies taken by Google

Google has taken several initiatives to serve the existing shareholders by offering diversified products. The stakeholders of the company have been seen to be existing in the different types the different groups that are operating in varied businesses.  Some of the stakeholders groups of the company have been seen in terms of users, employees, Governments, investors, users, communities, advertisers and other customers. Google has taken several initiatives related to the implementation of the Corporate Social Responsibilities (Khan et al. 2013). The most critical stakeholders include the users of Google’s search engine and Chrome. Hence, company has taken several initiatives to provide seamless service in the associated area. In several other instances the developments related to the associated improvement related to the stakeholders has been seen in terms of the continuous developments, which are being made in these platforms.

The employees of the company are seen as the second most important priority for the company. It has been seen that the employees are in tested in terms of receiving of adequate level of compensation and rewarding experience for the company. The compensation strategy set by Google is seen to be higher in terms of the other exiting software companies. It has been further seen that the company is responsible providing higher salaries and incentives to the employees. Some of the initiatives taken by Google for the employees are seen in terms of developing strategies, which will offer fun working conditions. The workers are given the flexibility to exercise, enjoy sharing ideas and play games. The main code of conduct has been seen to be supplied by “Google Supplier Code of Conduct” which has been seen to be considering factors such as health and safety of the employees (Meyer 2015).

It has been also seen that from the year 2004, Google started to consider the investors a major form of stakeholders of the Google. Hence, it has been seen the company is able to devise strategy, which has ensured the retained interest do the shareholders of the company.  The continuous facilities provided by the R&D team of the company have been able to ensure that the company is able to increase the usefulness of the products and apply the same for the profitability of the company (Morris et al. 2014). Government is also seen as a major form of stakeholders of the group. It has been seen that company receives several support from the government in form of the collection of the data related to the geographical and spatial information. It has been further seen that the Government is seen to be interested in ensuring Google’s regulatory compliance (Kuenkel, Petra and Andrew 2015). These stakeholders of the company are seen to be taking an important step in terms of approving Google’s business operations in their respective jurisdictions. The company has been further seen to be serving the other customers to improve the popularity of the product and improving the overall market reach. In this way, it has been able to contribute to the firm’s services (Baumann-Pauly et al. 2015).

Stakeholders of Google

It is possible to improve the lives and gain the trust of stakeholders if the Google find ways to secure the private information form the users so that it is not publicly spread. Google should create several secure files of the information they have gathered for the purpose of protection. Any information that identifies the users and which needs to be shared with the outsider or the third parties must have consent of the stakeholders. Google needs to take some additional strategies in protecting the privacy of the users because fulfilling the objectives of the stakeholders is sometimes at the cost of the information of the users. Such information are used to tailor the advertisement and this information should be shared with the outsiders with the consent of the users.

Google can respect privacy and still maintain its profitability but the battle of the users privacy are something that the Google needs to deal with for some time. In order to maintain the profitability, Google relies on tracking along with some other activities to maintain its profitability. Google use the information generated from the tracking for customizing the services to the individual users. Google has constantly updated the privacy policy of Google so that it had better comply with the needs and wants of the users when it comes to their private information. Google revamped their privacy policy in the year 2012 by combining the information gathered from the different Google services (Pearson 2013). It was stated by the Google that the users are provided with the option of turning certain features that collects the information. The new policy would remain highly committed to the privacy of users and would not affect the amount of data deleted or gathered.

Google has experienced its share of ethical issues being a large company. One of the major criticism concerning privacy about the Google is keeping track of users searched items and securing information of some disturbed hack attacks (Murphy and Schlegelmilch 2013). The new policy adopted by Google committing to the privacy of the users without any clash with the profitability would make the organization to perform its operations seamlessly. Keeping the profitability and the users’ privacy separately without one influencing the other can be explained by the example. Most of the users use the Google search engine making sure that their private information is not leaked to hackers and it secured. In this regard, Google has the power to maintain the two issues separately.

Privacy Issues and Challenges Faced by Google

Some of the significant change concerning the privacy can be taken by Google, which will help it in maintain its profitability. Google can put a price on privacy and the default search engine for signed in users can be enhanced. It can move to secure servers and the standards needs to be changed.  It need to draw a fine line between maintaining profitability by using information’s of users and violating privacy of users (Slavin et al. 2016). Google mainly depend on tracking to maintain its profitability and therefore in this regard, it try to increase transparency in its operations and improve its privacy practices.

In relation to WiFi, applications and mobile devices, the users of Google is provided with the terms and conditions that are needed to be accepted in order for the installation of any services. Google would make profit once the users accept the terms and conditions, whether the users acknowledge the terms and condition or not. If Google works on maintaining the privacy of its users and changing the standard, which suits to the need of the users while protecting their privacy, this is automatically create the platform of generating the profitability (Bygrave 2014).

Google need to make cost effective investment in maintaining the customer information policy. Various factors influencing the privacy of the users should be analyzed and accordingly the investment should be made. From the perspective of an organization, privacy protection is just another element of overhead until there is a loss of the private information of the customers. This way would help Google in achieving the profitability. The privacy of Google would provide the platform and give a blow to the operating activities of Google and thus maintaining the profitability. Investigations launched by Federal Trade commission revealed that the organization has violated the privacy policies (Fleming et al. 2013).

The biannual privacy audit by allowing the parties regarding the use of the user information by the company. Such audit would take place for twenty years and these audits has given blow to the profits of Google indirectly. Imposing such audit would make the company tread more carefully regarding how it collects and uses the data of the users. This would provide the company with the opportunity to improve the internal control along with its internal policies to ensure that the data of the users are protected. This would help the organization in gaining the trust of the users and preventing the future legislation action against the company, which is also a way of adding up the cost (Ferrell and Fraedrich 2015). This would significantly influence the future activities of Google and its profitability.

Google’s Responsibility towards Stakeholders

Being a multinational company, Google has to abide by numerous rules and regulations depending upon on the laws and legal requirement of different countries. The regulations of the Government in China has affected the operation of Google. The government in China is very strict with internet. Google has many opportunities when it entered China but faced many rule and regulations. The government blocked many sites of Google and this caused abundant problems with the search engine of Google. This compelled Google to leave the Chinese market and moved to Hong Kong. Tracking problems and privacy violations is another issue concerning governmental regulation, which Google has on its operations (Johnson et al. 2013).

As discussed in the case study, it is evident that the European union Justice Commissioner questioned the new policy adopted by Google. It indicated that the policy of Google might not be adhering to the internet transparency law of European Union. It was discovered by the company that some of the activities, which are legal in one country, could not be legal in other countries. This would affect the operations of the Google and therefore, there arises the need to increase the global regulation of privacy to address the consumers concern over privacy promptly. However, this regulation might have few negative affect on the operations of Google.

The various operating activities of Goggle such as tracking would be seriously limited. Some of the evidence in this regard can be taken form the case study. The legislation cold become serious threat to Google and some of the legislation was protested along with other company. The protect IP Act and Stop online piracy Act are some of the regulations that was protested by Google as it would restrict the usage of material by the website that might be subject to copyright. Another legislation such as Do not Track Mechanism and the Bills of rights make it mandatory for the firm or organization to adhere to certain privacy practices (Moon 2014). This would seriously affect the methodology used by the company in collecting various useful information.

Another legislation such as “Do not call Registry” does not allow the company to sell the products to the customers that are on the National Do not Call Registry (Koene et al. 2016). Companies would be subjected to fines when doing so. The sources of collecting the information of the users for improving the services would get limited and severely affect the operations of Google.

Google’s Initiatives towards Corporate Social Responsibility

Google is exposed to the risk from some of the proposed legislation that would be passed in the future. There are range of laws and new interpretation of the existing laws that would affect the business of Google. Several act such as Digital Millennium Copyright act contains the provisions that imposes limit but it is not necessary that they eliminate the liability of the company for hosting the third party listing, which include material that infringe copyrights (Winkler and Zeadally 2016). Concerning the area of data protection, state has passed act such as California’s Information Practices Act, which requires giving notification to users whenever there is a breach for personal data. In the future, the cost of compliance may increase because of changes in the interpretation.

Moreover, Google would be subject to significant liabilities in the event of failure to comply with any of the law. The ability of Google to deliver the services to Google would be restricted and there will be exposure to substantial liability due to the application of law in an anticipated manner. There is also risk related to the operating activities of Google in the event of the failure of the government of different countries to preserve the basic neutrality of the internet as to the sites and services that the users can access through their broadband service provider (Campbell et al. 2015). Such failure on part of government and the restrictions imposed by the various legislations would limit the pace of innovation of the internet and the ability of large business such as Google to develop and deliver the new product and services. This will ultimately harm the operation of the business and eventually its profitability.

Such rules and regulations related to privacy would result in preceding against the government, which would affect the business operation. The data protection law and the application of application to the internet is in a state of flux and unclear (Yus et al.  2014). Such laws would be interpreted different countries and applied in a conflicting way from one country to another country. These laws might be imposed in a manner that is not consistent with the current practices of data protection of Google.

It is not possible on part of Google to forgo the legislations, which restricts some of the activities of the organization. Steps taken by Google in this regard could by working with the regulators for considering the various regulations so that the negative impact on its operations is minimized or reduced.

Improving Stakeholder Lives and Gaining Trust

Conclusion:

The detailed discussion of the case study provide with the conclusion that Google has faced many privacy challenges. It has been addressed by the organization and it is not possible to completely remove such challenges, as the privacy issue would not be solved anytime soon. Google has large stake in privacy issues as it depends upon the tracking for its profitability. It is necessary to address the interest of stakeholders in order to maintain the leadership position as an innovative technological organization. Google should choose to improve its practices concerning privacy and the operations should have more transparency. History, size and the reputation of Google would provide a unique opportunity that would positively influence the interaction of the company on the internet.

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