Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work. Answer: Introduction: Business ethics otherwise known as corporate ethics examines the principles and ethical issues that arise within the environment of the organisation or business. Ethics is an important aspect of an organisation relevant to employee and employer conducts and entire organisation. While working in an organisation I came to know that effective business ethics provides opportunity to attract customers towards the organisation products as well as helps in boosting the profit and sales performance of the organisation. Proper business ethics also attracts more employees towards the business and reduces employee turnover by approximately 85% hence provides the company an opportunity to build an efficient team of talented and productive employees that meets organisational objectives (Belle 2015). Lack of ethics within organisation also causes organisation to get into legal issues and deteriorates employee relation. According to Crane (2016), effective ethics within an organisation also attracts around 75% investors that helps in keeping share price of companies high hence protecting the organisation from taken over. I came to know that without proper ethics at business or organisation cause degradation of the workplace environment. Business ethics governs the organisation culture as it provides guidance to the actions as well as decisions taken by the organisation. During my career I came to know that there are three parts of business ethics which are micro level ethics that is ethics on personal scale, intermediate ethics that is ethics on professional scale and macro level ethics that governs the corporate scale. As per Fernando (2015), ethics plays an important role in each level of environment within the organisation. I saw within my company that proper ethics provided the employee motivation as well as helped them to increase their productivity level. The job satisfaction my fellow colleag ues as well as mine were also high due to proper ethics within our organisation. Sustainability in corporate context: A corporate world is a tough one, and there are a thousand hurdles that present themselves every single day in a business operation that needs to be overcome in order to move forward in the path of success. As a business student myself, I have came to the understanding that in order to survive the dynamic economy, it is imperative for a business venture to have sustainable in order to be viable and productive (Carroll and Buchholtz 2014). We have to consider the dynamic economy that we live in and threats that are prevalent in the cut throat corporate world. Now the question is why sustainable development is so important in the business world. In order to answer that question, we have to consider different aspects of the world of business. In this world up biting competition, a business venture is judged by the potential productivity of the business operation. Now incorporating the concept of sustainability into the business operation will ensure that the long term economic and productive growth of the business is protected and the business processes of today pose no threats to the growth and reputation of the company in the future (Schaltegger, Ldeke-Freund and Hansen 2012). What I have understood about the concept of corporate sustainability is that a green buisne4ss business attracts the eyes of key investors easily. Along with that maintaining a green business will also open the doors for government grants according to the current legislations (Carroll and Buchholtz 2014). Lastly I would also like to mention that we need to take the responsibility of our actions and there cannot there are no better ways for a business organization to take responsibilities for their actions other than maintaining a sustainable business practice. Triple bottom line: In the context of business and accounting, I have understood the fact that the phrase Triple Bottom Line refers to a framework based on accounting and it consists three particular parts. Social, environmental or ecological and financial aspects are three fundamental aspects of the aforementioned accounting framework. I have identified the fact that Triple Bottom Line or TBL has become a convenient structure that is being adopted by most of the business organizations of the contemporary era. I have found out that most of the business organizations nowadays apply the TBL format in order to acquire a fruitful evaluation of their performances in a wider perspective for establishing sufficient business value. In this context, I should mention that John Elkington first coined the term TBL or Triple Bottom Line in the year 1994 (Henriques and Richardson 2013). In this respect, I should elaborate the fact that in the conventional business accounting as well as for the common utilization, the term bottom line is indicative of the profit or loss that is recorded at the bottom line of a statement related to expenses as well as revenue. I would like to mention here that in the era of 21st century, the phrase Triple Bottom line refers a significant aspect of accounting in business that attempts to broaden the concentration particularly on the financial bottom line (Ralston et al. 2015). In other words, I would like to mention that TBL is applied in the premise of financial bottom line for including both social and environmental responsibilities. However, I have also identified and understood that according to Elkington, who has fundamentally propagated the word, there is a challenge related to the fundamental framework of TBL that is the difficulty in properly measuring the social and environmental bottom line. Finally, I want to mention that the triple bottom line has the fundamental responsibility to develop the aim of sustainability in the practice of business. The idea of CSR, otherwise known as Corporate Social Responsibility has helped me understand the importance of conducting business in a responsible manner. Initially I used to believe that an organization conducts business with the purpose of maximizing its profit only and hence it should focus all its strategies towards the accomplishment of business specific goals. However, I have realized that companies like Coca Cola, Woolworths, Coles invest enormous sum of money in a variety of education funding programs, poverty alleviation programs as well as engage itself actively to ensure that the company is not achieving revenue at the expense of sustainability initiatives. While there are multiple reasons why a company engages itself in CSR initiatives, the major reason is long-term sustenance (Korschum et al. 2014). Most of the CEOs of the eminent organizations of the world state the importance of CSR by claiming that a company can never sustain itself in future if it does not think of the environment or the community it conducts business in. In other words, I believe that a company must invest in reducing the carbon footprints of its company to eliminate its impact on the environment, or it must educate the children of the backward communities of the locality it conducts its business in, to ensure larger customer base (Carroll 2015). Besides, I think that when an organization actively engages itself in programs that ensure the well-being of the world and its people, the employees also feel highly motivated and take immense pride in being a part of the company. Above all, I also think that the company has also its own motive behind investing lump sum amount of money in CSR initiatives. As an organization invests in CSR initiatives, its brand recognition and so does the consumer loyalty that ultimately implies increases revenue (Brown 2013). The economic theory capitalism commonly describes the social system in which we live. It is one of the interest theory I have enjoyed learning. Capitalism is the means of production through private ownership. The features central to capitalism as per my understanding includes capital accumulation, private poverty, wage labour, a price system, voluntary exchange, and competitive market. In private entities, the meaning of ownership means controlling the factors of production and deriving the income from the ownership. This gives the incentives for profit maximisation. The components of supply have a price that is set by the market. It is then distributed as per the law of supply and demand (Merrill 2014). The owners of supply in turn compete among each other for earning highest possible profit with low cost. This ensures efficient production with moderate pricing system. It was interesting to see the concepts of how the forces of competition work. In order to success, there is a need of free market economy. Further, as I understand it appears that free operation of the capital market is another important component of this concept. I find capitalism a best way for an economy to grow. Howeve r, it is vital for the government to maintain a level playing field. It is vital in order to prevent malpractices or unfair advantages due to oligarchies or monopolies. I have understood from my class learning that how capitalism creates economic classes among society. Like the rest of the world, Australia is in a state of crisis in the neoliberal age (Lambert and Herod 2016). I believe that capitalism can offer more to society. It allows an individual to set and progress towards goals. Capitalism ensures that at an acceptable price most desired products are produced. However, I find it a disadvantage that capitalism does not provide for members of society who lack competitive skills such as children, elderly, and those who are developmentally challenged. Overall it was interesting topic to learn from a business perspective. The term corruption is taken as a negative term to denote the practice of bribery, extortion, embezzlement and other means to misuse professional positions and achieve personal and professional interest. Being an Australian citizen, I have witnessed several adverse impact of corruption on business and overall growth of the economy. For instance, the position of Australia in global corruption index itself reflects the sliding the down of the economy. As reported in ABC News, corruption in public service exists in Australia and it has failed to improve its condition in global corruption index. In 2012, the global corruption index of Australia was 8th and the following year, it came to 13th position (ABC News 2017). In terms of business ethics perspective, this is a big gap for Australia which is compounded even more by the lack of federal anti-corruption body in Australia. Considering the need to tackle corruption at business levels, it is imperative that regulatory bodies as well as common citizen understand the impact of this practice on growth of the country. Hence, the immediate action needed for the country would be to establish a anti-corruption body to effectively identify and restrict corruptive practices at all level. Secondly, in an effort to improve the global corruption index ranking, the government of Australia might look to stabilize the position of the country by making changes to the foreign bribery laws (Kaufmann 2015). From a personal perspective too, I believe that government level action is influential in curbing the practice because unless effective laws are implemented, such practices cannot be controlled. I have witnessed several corruption allegations reported in news recently and this has been identified by means of the action of financially rewarding whistleblowers. In the future, tackling corruption will require true partners hip with business, civil society and governments (Kumar 2014). References: ABC News. 2017.Australia fails to improve ranking in global corruption index. 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Business cases for sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability.International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development,6(2), pp.95-119.