SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND

GOOD GOVERNANCE

Submitted by:
Maria Cecilia Z. Dela Peña
PA 21

Submitted to:
Mrs. Shiela M. Estrada
Professor
 CRITICAL THINKING ASSESMENT
(ESSAY)

1. In one paragraph, discuss the inter-relationship of the 3 major actors in

governance. You may provide a matrix or diagram to illustrate your
answer.
The perspective on good governance brings the effective partnership among three institutions;
government, civil society and business community. Such partnership make sense specifically at this point
when the government is experiencing unexpected downturns and shortfalls in financing the needed
development of the country. The government is almost always the main actor in governance, because it
provides an enabling environment for the other actors of governance to participate and respond to the
mandate of the common good. The civil society includes non-governmental organizations, and other
community-based and sectoral organizations, such as association of farmers, charitable institutions,
cooperatives, religious communities, political parties, and research institutes. These organizations are
private in nature but have public functions or objectives. The business community can make various
contributions to the goals and functions of the government by providing decent jobs and generate
prosperity for all is an essential component of a successful sustainable development strategy. The
relationships among government, civil society and the business community are key determinants in
whether a nation is able to create and sustain equitable opportunities for all of its people.
 2. In your own perspective, what is the view on the role of government in
any governance efforts?

The role of the government must be limited, and there should be no room for self-enrichment,
since we must assume that these people are in government because of their love for the people and their
country and not due to their own desires for financial and political gain. They should ensure a secure and
stable environment to enable free trade, innovation, development and production through securing our
national borders, and protecting against internal threats such as racketeering, intimidation, violence and
corruption, and defend the country from any external threat to our way of life. They should enable the
citizens of the country to better themselves in every possible way thought quality education by the means
of creating quality infrastructure such as housing and roads; delivering basic services like running water
and electricity to each home and telecommunication for further development in regards with education.
Financial institutions should be regulated in regards with the amount of personal loans they give out to an
individual, and the interest charged on these loans, as well as keep an eye on bank administrative charges.
Lastly, the salaries of serving political figures and leading figures in the public sector like the police and
defense force should be voted on by the public themselves. In short, the role of government is to provide
quality of life improvement of the citizens in every sense.

3. What can you suggest to the government, the private sector and the civil
society to further improve their services?

Governments should always strive to be effective and efficient in achieving the clearly stated
objectives of their programs and policies with specified outcomes and transparent monitoring and
reporting. If a government does not function efficiently and effectively, scarce resources will be wasted.
If it does not have legitimacy in the eyes of the people, it will not be able to achieve its goals or theirs. If
it is unable to build national consensus around these objectives, no external assistance can help bring
them about. If it is unable to foster a strong social fabric, the society risks disintegration and chaos.
Equally important, if people are not empowered to take responsibility for their own development within
an enabling framework provided by government, development will not be sustainable. Private sector must
play a role in social and economic development. They must ensure that human, financial and natural
resources are combined equitably. And also, they must be directly contributing to economic growth,
poverty reduction, and jobs, the private sector also provides essential services such as infrastructure like
transport, telecommunications, water, power, health, education, and finance that are important to growth
and to improving people’s lives. The civil society must engage in responsive, inclusive, participatory, and
representative decision-making. They must also promote societal prosperity through just, fair, and
inclusive economies. Knowing that the foundation of systems and structures in societies that can enable
businesses to predictably thrive are characterized by social stability, greater transparency, low corruption
and a strong rule of law, and leaders will be encouraged to view active civil society as an enabler for a
healthy economy.
ETHICAL ISSUES AND PROBLEMS IN BUSINESS AND THE
CORPORATE WORLD

1. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
 Sexual harassment is an issue in the corporate world that must be looked into because it can
create a hostile and unhealthy workplace for the employees. For this reason, the Congress of the
Philippines enacted the Anti-Sexual Act of 1995 or RA 7877 declaring sexual harassment unlawful in the
employment, education or training environment, and other purposes. Sexual harassment occurs due to the
power struggle between men and women as a response to a real or imagined loss of power or as an
expression of retaliation or a flexing of the new power. This also happens because some organizations and
managers allow it to happen.

2. THE PROBLEM OF JUST WAGE AND UNFAIR COMPENSATION

A Just Wage is defined as that remuneration which is enough to support the wage-earner in
reasonable and frugal comfort, “a just wage is the legitimate fruit of labor” Philippine Constitution and
Republic Act 6727 (The workers are entitled to a living wage)
The Wage Rationalization Act declared the policy of the State to rationalize the fixing of minimum wages
and to promote productivity-improvement and gain-sharing scheme to ensure a decent standard of living
for the workers and their families.

Pay or compensation discrimination occurs when employees performing similar work do not
receive similar pay. Pay discrimination also occurs when a difference in pay has an unlawful basis such as
race or sex. Pay discrimination based on an employee's membership in a protected category like race,
disability, or sex, is prohibited by anti-discrimination laws. It is job content and not job titles that
determine whether or not jobs are substantially equal. Federal law looks to see that individuals
performing jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort, responsibility, and under similar working
conditions are compensated equally for their time. All forms of pay are covered by the law, including
salary, overtime pay, bonuses, stock options, profit sharing and bonus plans, life insurance, vacation and
holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses,
and benefits.

3. UNJUST DISMISSAL
A wrongful dismissal occurs when an employee is dismissed, or terminated, by their employer,
but not given reasonable notice. Notice upon termination may be provided as working notice (meaning
that you continue to work up until the date of your termination), severance pay in the form of salary
continuance, and severance pay offered in one lump sum.
Generally speaking, there are three types of wrongful dismissal claims:

 Where an employer terminates employment without cause, but refuses to pay adequate

compensation.
 Where an employer inappropriately terminates an employee for cause and fails to pay any
compensation.
 Where an employer, by altering fundamental terms and conditions of employment and/or by
making the work environment intolerable, “constructively” dismisses an employee.

4. GIFT GIVING AND BRIBERY

 A gift is something of value given without the expectation of return; a bribe is the same thing
given in the hope of influence or benefit. Gifts and bribes can be monetary, actual items or they can be
tickets to a sporting event, entertainment, travel, rounds of golf or restaurant meals

Gift-giving is merely an act of extending goodwill to an individual in an effort to share something

with them. Giving gifts to customers, clients, and business partners in a common practice in the business
community. It is normally observed during special occasions like Christmas, New Year,
and sometimes even during birthdays. Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item
of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty.

5. MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING AND PYRAMIDING

Multi-level Marketing (MLM) or network marketing, is individuals selling products to the public
- often by word of mouth and direct sales. The main idea behind the MLM strategy is to promote
maximum number of distributors for the product and exponentially increase the sales force. The
promoters get commission on the sale of the product as well as compensation for sales their recruits make
thus, the compensation plan in multi-level marketing is structured such that commission is paid to
individuals at multiple levels when a single sale is made and commission depends on the total volume of
sales generated.

Pyramid Schemes are, however, fraudulent schemes, disguised as an MLM strategy. The

difference between a pyramid scheme and a lawful MLM program is that there is no real product that is
sold in a pyramid scheme. Participants attempt to make money solely by recruiting new participants into
the program. The hallmark of these schemes is the promise of sky-high returns in a short period of time
for doing nothing other than handing over your money and getting others to do the same.

6. WHISTLE BLOWING

Whistleblowing is the term used when a worker passes on information concerning wrongdoing.
In this guidance, we call that “making a disclosure” or “blowing the whistle”. The wrongdoing will
typically (although not necessarily) be something they have witnessed at work. To be covered by
whistleblowing law, a worker who makes a disclosure must reasonably believe two things.

The first is that they are acting in the public interest. This means in particular that personal
grievances and complaints are not usually covered by whistleblowing law. The second thing that a worker
must reasonably believe is that the disclosure tends to show past, present or likely future wrongdoing
falling into one or more of the following categories: criminal offences (this may include, for example,
types of financial impropriety such as fraud), failure to comply with an obligation set out in law,
miscarriages of justice, endangering of someone’s health and safety, damage to the environment, covering
up wrongdoing in the above categories.

Whistleblowing law is located in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (as amended by the Public
Interest Disclosure Act 1998). It provides the right for a worker to take a case to an employment tribunal
if they have been victimized at work or they have lost their job because they have ‘blown the whistle’.
 7. CONFLICT OF INTEREST

A conflict of interest in business normally refers to a situation in which an individual's personal

interests’ conflict with the professional interests owed to their employer or the company in which they are
invested. A conflict of interest arises when a person chooses personal gain over the duties to an
organization in which they are a stakeholder or exploits their position for personal gain in some way.

A conflict of interest may lead to legal ramifications as well as job loss. However, if there is a
perceived conflict of interest and the person has not yet acted maliciously, it's possible to remove that
person from the situation or decision in which a possible conflict of interest can arise. Using the prior
example of a board member who owns a truck company, they could simply remove themselves from all
decisions that could positively or negatively affect their personal business.

8. MONEY LAUNDERING
Money laundering is a way to conceal illegally obtained funds. Money laundering works by
transferring money in elaborate and complicated financial transactions which mislead anyone who may
seek to trace and review the transactions. The objective is to make it difficult to identify the original party
to the transaction, known as the launderer.

Money laundering is the generic term used to describe the process by which criminals disguise
the original ownership and control of the proceeds of criminal conduct by making such proceeds appear
to have derived from a legitimate source.

The processes by which criminally derived property may be laundered are extensive. Though
criminal money may be successfully laundered without the assistance of the financial sector, the reality is
that hundreds of billions of dollars of criminally derived money is laundered through financial
institutions, annually. The nature of the services and products offered by the financial services industry
(namely managing, controlling and possessing money and property belonging to others) means that it is
vulnerable to abuse by money launderers.

9. INSIDER TRADING

Insider trading refers to the practice of purchasing or selling a publicly-traded

company’s securities while in possession of material information that is not yet public information.
Material information refers to any and all information that may result in a substantial impact on the
decision of an investor regarding whether to buy or sell the security.
 By non-public information, we mean that the information is not legally out in the public domain
and that only a handful of people directly related to the information possess. An example of an insider
may be a corporate executive or someone in government who has access to an economic report before it
is publicly released.

10. MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are defined as consolidation of companies. Differentiating the
two terms, Mergers is the combination of two companies to form one, while Acquisitions is one company
taken over by the other. M&A is one of the major aspects of corporate finance world. The reasoning
behind M&A generally given is that two separate companies together create more value compared to
being on an individual stand. With the objective of wealth maximization, companies keep evaluating
different opportunities through the route of merger or acquisition.

DEVELOPING GOOD WORK ETHICS

1. DEFINITION OF WORK
Work may be defined by the following:
 Is activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
 a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do.
 an activity, such as a job, that a person uses physical or mental effort to do, usually for money

Work is both personal and social activity. As personal activity, it is aimed at developing a person
and as social activity, its purpose preservation of human society. Work therefore, has moral and illegal
implications.

2. THEOLOGICAL MEANING OF WORK ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS

AQUINAS

The angelic doctor of the church, St. Thomas Aquinas enumerates four purposes of work in his
treatise entitled Summa Theologica:

 It provides for one’s daily livelihood

 It prevents idleness which is a source of any evils
 It curbs the rebellious flesh
 It enables man to give alms from his material surplus

3. THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE OF WORK

From a human perspective, work is a crucial human activity and its significance lies in the fact
that as human beings work defines us as who we are and what our standing in the society is. We engage
in work to satisfy our multifaceted needs, such as earning a living, building and creating, developing our
values, satisfying our egos and building our self-esteem, creating a social identity and relating to other
individuals and groups, and gaining independence. On the societal scale, work organizes societies by
often creating social structures and classes. In sum, work is ubiquitous in our individual and social lives.
It is a part of our existence and thus needed to be understood in its plethora of conceptualizations. Work is
“purposeful human activity involving physical or mental exertion that is not undertaken solely for
pleasure and that has economic and symbolic value.” The definition is wide enough to include paid and
unpaid work performed inside and outside the household. It also includes work done in the informal
sector and volunteer activities but does not include leisure activities.

4. WORK AND SPIRITUAL VALUES

Spiritual values at work means that the individuals and organizations consider working in

a spiritual path, in an opportunity to grow and contribute to society in a meaningful way, attempting to
live their values more fully in the work they do.

 Practice the Golden Rule;

 Guard your mouth;
 Stop the green jokes;
 practice ethical behavior;
 learn to forgive;
 Be generous;
 Respect superiors and coworkers;
 Be considerate;
 Perform your work and fulfill your duties to the best of your ability;
 Be a grateful person
 Do not bring the problems at home to the workplace or vice versa;
 Be an inspiration to others;
 Read the Bible every day;
 Develop a personal relationship with God; and
 Smile and enjoy you work

5. BASIC DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS

In general, the basic duties of employers is to (1) provide a reasonable amount of work, (2)
provide a safe and healthy work environment, (3) compensate employees in accordance with the terms of
the contract of employment, (4) indemnify employees against liabilities and losses resulting from
following management's instructions.

 Respect the dignity of the workers;

 Appreciate their work;
 Never treat them as a slave for making money;
 Never assign them tasks beyond their strength, nor employ them in work not suited to their age or
gender;
 Give them commensurate and fair wages;
 Provide for their health and social recreation;
 Instruct them on how to use their money wisely;
  Instruct them to love their family; and
 Provide them with opportunities for promotion.

6. BASIC DUTIES OF WORKERS

 Work honestly and comply with all agreements;

 Never inure capital, nor steal from the employer;
 Never outrage the person of the employer;
 Never employ deceit or violence in presenting a cause; and
 Never consult with "agitators" or men or evil principles.

On a worksite, everyone has varying levels of responsibility for workplace health and safety. You
should know and understand your responsibilities — and those of others. If you’re a worker, you also
have three key rights.

Your rights
 The right to know about hazards in the workplace.
 The right to participate in health and safety activities in the workplace.
 The right to refuse unsafe work.

By law, employers are prohibited from penalizing workers for raising a health and safety issue.
Learn more about the actions workers can take if they feel this has occurred.

Your responsibilities
 As a worker, you play an important role in making sure you — and your fellow workers — stay
healthy and safe on the job. As a worker, you must:
 Be alert to hazards. Report them immediately to your supervisor or employer.
 Follow safe work procedures and act safely in the workplace at all times.
 Use the protective clothing, devices, and equipment provided. Be sure to wear them properly.
 Co-operate with joint occupational health and safety committees, worker health and safety
representatives, WorkSafe BC prevention officers, and anybody with health and safety duties.
 Get treatment quickly should an injury happen on the job and tell the health care provider that the
injury is work-related.
 Follow the treatment advice of health care providers.
 Return to work safely after an injury by modifying your duties and not immediately starting with
your full, regular responsibilities.
 Never work under the influence of alcohol, drugs or any other substance, or if you're overly tired.