How do corporate social responsibility, ethics, morality, values and the law differ from one another?
Ethics is not synonymous with either legal compliance or corporate social responsibility (CSR). Ethics involve long term, unchanging values that are not culturally or geographically determined. Examples include respect for life, property, and the environment. By way of contrast, corporate social responsibility is an expression of culturally-determined, changing and changeable values. Appropriate health, child labour, and environmental practices, expectations or corporate best practices are an evolving product of social, religious, national, technological or other considerations. What is morally right in Teheran is often different in Tokyo, Toronto, and Timmins. What is common practice or legal in one jurisdiction may be unethical as well as immoral in not only another but also in that same location. There are three hierarchical levels of CSR – company standards, best practice, and international ethical standards. Be cautious of attempting to fully assess or understand a company’s stand
