Social Responsibility Is Inevitable

by Keith Davis


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Fall 1976

Volume 19
Issue 1


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Abstract

The article focuses on the substantial social responsibility by business, which is inevitable. It is a fundamental development that is a long-run secular trend regardless of temporary cyclical swings. The philosophy is that social outputs of business are a significant variable in the quality of life, therefore, business can no longer think almost exclusively of economic outputs. Social considerations should carry major weight in all business decisions and actions. This general concern about the social outputs of business will be called the social responsibility model. The idea of social responsibility implies that business decision makers recognize some obligation to protect and improve the welfare of society as a whole along with their own interests. The net effect is to enhance quality of life in the broadest possible way. The businessman becomes concerned with the total effect of his economic and institutional actions on society. It accepts the fact that business is attached to an extended social system on which it is partly dependent; consequently, certain obligations or social responsibilities arise from this attachment.

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