Author(s): Metsiou Anastasia
In recent years, more than ever, there has been a growing need for corporate ethics, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance as well as human resource management. Undoubtedly, businesses are part of every social formation and their relationship with society is characterized interactional. Thus, every action taken by a business has multiple impacts to the society. These multidimensional effects are connected with the company’s production, distribution system, the company’s relationship with the consumers and its suppliers, with the human resources and all in all, with what are considered as “corporate culture and presence”. Therefore, a company must be interested in the well-being and development of the society in which it operates, by performing “Corporate Social Responsibility” and “Business Ethics”, involving actions like charities, taking precautions and actions that can help in solving social issues and problematic situations, by committing to the quality of products and services it provides to the society, by shielding the human rights, the health and safety of the people as well as the environment. A subject that has also aroused an important interest is the relationship developing between business and society, and especially small societies, where the owners are well-known, as in the prefecture of Western Macedonia and it has become clear that the operation of businesses is connected with, and also affects, a significant number of different social groups inside or outside the boundaries of their activity. Thus, companies should be committed to their ethical and social responsibility themes in order to ensure the people’s appreciation and their company’s fame and social “image”. That must be obtained to all society’s members the older and especially the younger ones, because the younger generations of consumers, those who will dominate the market for decades to come, show a great appreciation to the companies that take socially responsible actions and show business ethics and are also willing to live up to the expectations of social responsibility and people’s and the environment’s well-being. This article shows the outcomes of practicing social responsibility and ethics to the prefecture of Western Macedonia by companies that thrive in the region, showing that a good fame is as important as earning money, in a sense that they choose to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics because they believe in it and not because they are driven to it by the need to cover up some other non- sustainable practices or because they good intentions are imposed on them.