Technology and social responsibility

Technology and Social Responsibility

The objective of this study is to answer the following three questions: (1) What are three major factors fueling international technological growth? Explain the ways in which those factors impede or support corporate social responsibility. (2) What major corporate social responsibility issues arise out of the use of technology and scientific research? And (3) Compare and contrast organizational self-regulation vs. governmental regulation on issues such as eugenics, cloning, and DNA testing. Support your position with theories, models, and references.

Three Major Factors Fueling International Technological Growth and How They Impede or Support Corporate Social Responsibility

Technology offers today's organizations quicker methods for completing tasks and simultaneously cutting the time required for those tasks significantly which in turn creates a larger profit margin for the organization since the individual would have previously been paid to do two to three days work as compared to what might now take only half a day to complete. It is clear that technology drives the organization's profit margin due to labor savings. Furthermore, technology enables the organization in other capacities including the level of innovation and competitiveness potential possessed by the organization, which serves to drive the growth of the development and implementation of new technologies. Finally, demand drives technology use throughout the world.

For example, it was announced by the National Economic Council report entitled "Technological Opportunities, Job Creation and Economic Growth" that it was announced June 28, 2010 that the President had made plans to "nearly double the amount of commercial spectrum available in order to unleash the innovative potential of wireless broadband." (Summers, 2010) It is reported that the Recovery Act was inclusive of in excess of $100 billion in innovative investments to help American use energy more efficiently, high-speed rail to connect our cities and health information technology to create jobs while transforming our health system." (Summers, 2010) For these reason the Recovery Act has made a "substantial investment in bringing broadband to unserved and underserved areas across the country." (Summers, 2010)

II. Major Corporate Social Responsibility Issues Arising from Technology Use and Scientific Research

Pohle and Hittner (2011) write that the Internet "has already triggered lasting change in the structure of industries and the way businesses create value. People now have access to massive amounts of information -- and opinions -- about products and company practices. This information is available in every part of the globe, every minute of every day." Because this is true the requirements of the Corporate Social Responsibility of today's organization has risen making it more important than ever that the organization be characterized by transparency. Transparency can be understood as an organization making all its company information available to the public and specifically in terms of its impact on the ecology and environment." (Pohle and Hittner, 2011)

Pohle and Hittner (2011) report that the Corporate Social Responsibility profile of outperforming companies which are substantially outperforming their peers are those who have formed a CSR strategy that is highly integrated into their business core. The survey reported by Pohle and Hittner states findings that these companies are more than twice as likely to:

(1) Collaborate - Understand their customers' CSR expectations well; Have increased the amount of information they provide about the sourcing, composition and impact of their products, services and operations; and Collaborate with consumers and business partners on their CSR initiatives • Engage their full base of employees in their CSR objectives (i.e. not top down);

(2) Integrate - Place critical importance on, and consider themselves very effective at, CSR supply chain processes; Consider themselves very effective at developing products and services with a positive societal or environmental impact; and Place critical importance on, and consider themselves very effective at, aligning philanthropy with business priorities. (Pohle and Hittner, 2011)

There are also other critical areas that require that the organization practice Corporate Social Responsibility and those include the organizational regulation on eugenics, cloning and DNA testing reviewed in the following section of this study.

III. Organizational Self-Regulation Vs. Governmental Regulation on Eugenics, Cloning and DNA Testing

The uncertainties of biotechnology is stated eloquently in the work of Francis Fukuyama (2002) as being that which is intimately connected to good and evil in that "the same technology that promise to cure your child of cystic fibrosis for your parent of Alzheimer's disease presents more troubling possibilities as well: human cloning, designer babies, drugs that enhance rather than heal and the creation of human-animal hybrids." (Fukuyama, 2002) Fukuyama states that this type of technology should be regulated by governmental bodies and although "biotechnology is clearly unlike nuclear technology, whose destructive potential was immediately clear and war from the outset tightly rigged with political controls." (Fukuyama, 2002)

Eugenics, or the testing of babies for genetic predispositions is becoming increasingly popular and this is stated to be particularly true for individuals in the Jewish communities. This is stated to be due to the fact that so many people wish to avoid carrying on genetically caused diseases and disorders into their offspring which makes sense and will serve to better the health of future generations. However, with every good thing also is the potential for misuse. Fringe medicine has proposed the use of Eugenics in producing siblings for children who need organ transplantation procedures conducted.

The same Eugenics that can be used to produce disease-free offspring can also be used to choose hair and eye color as well as a plethora of individual DNA-information specific outcomes. Adding to the complexity of the issue is that there is practically no regulation by governments in the field of reprogenetics. It is reported that an inquiry by the government and specifically the President's Council on Bioethics conducted a major inquiry into the "state of public policy in areas of biotechnology that touch the beginnings of human life and states findings as follows:

"…there is presently no governmental body (state or federal) exercising monitoring or regulatory authority over the use of PGD," nor is there regulation or oversight of the long-term health effects of PGD on children born using the procedure. Worse, the Council observed, "there are also no governmental or nongovernmental guidelines regarding the boundary between using PGD for producing a disease-free child and using it for so-called enhancement purposes or to produce siblings for children needing transplant donors." (Fukuyama, 2002)