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responsibility has become almost inextricably confused with the matter of ethics. It is important to 
remember the distinction. Social responsibility and ethical behaviour are not the same thing. 
In this context, you should remember that a business managed with the sole objective of maximising 
shareholder wealth can be run in just as ethical a fashion as one in which far wider stakeholder 
responsibility is assumed. On the other hand, there is no doubt that many large businesses have 
behaved irresponsibly in the past and some continue to do so. 
5.1.1 Strategies for social responsibility 
Proactive strategy 
A strategy which a business follows where it is prepared to take full responsibility 
for its actions. A company which discovers a fault in a product and recalls the 
product without being forced to, before any injury or damage is caused, acts in a 
proactive way. 
Reactive strategy 
This involves allowing a situation to continue unresolved until the public, 
government or consumer groups find out about it.
Defence strategy 
This involves minimising or attempting to avoid additional obligations arising 
from a particular problem.
Accommodation 
strategy 
This approach involves taking responsibility for actions, probably when one of 
the following happens. 

Encouragement from special interest groups 

Perception that a failure to act will result in government intervention 
5.2 Against corporate social responsibility 
Milton Friedman 
(1970)
 
argued against corporate social responsibility along the following lines. 
(a) 
Businesses do not have responsibilities; only people have responsibilities. Managers in charge of 
corporations are responsible to the owners of the business, by whom they are employed. 
(b) 
These employers may have charity as their aim, but 'generally [their aim] will be to make as 
much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied 
in law and those embodied in ethical custom.' 
(c) 
If the statement that a manager has social responsibilities is to have any meaning, 'it must mean 
that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers.' 
(d) 
If managers do this they are, generally speaking, spending the owners' money for purposes other 
than those they have authorised. 
5.3 The stakeholder view 
How much organisations consider the interests of other stakeholders will depend on their