Business and Society Relationship

Social Obligations

Social obligations have achieved a better reputation and improved competition among business practices and organizations. A variety of policies and procedures to incorporate social, legal, environmental, customers' and human rights into activities to facilitate sustainable growth have been placed in place to strengthen the relationship between community and business. Companies have a moral responsibility to take action in their best interests to strengthen their local communities such as guaranteeing workplace protection, creating social jobs and paying equal salaries for employees (Bright, 2008).

Involvement of Employees in Corporate Affairs

Since organizations and people equally need each other, it is fundamental to involve the employees in corporate affairs and developing a wider range of ethical cultures. Activities like safety as well as durability of the products, long-term satisfaction, courteous attention to the complaints and queries of the customer help in improving the public image of an organization. Furthermore, it helps in the improvement of the stock price as the business associates and suppliers within the society will have the confidence to a firm.

Impact on Society

Additionally, many business firms have the responsibility to ensure that they do not misuse or over-exploit the society's scarce resources and ensure that they take care of the amenities together with the environmental considerations. Therefore, they are capable of achieving a positive impact on the society as they focus on maximization of the shared value for employees, owners, stakeholders and the shareholders (Gargiulo, 2012). Moreover, companies that are socially responsible will portray a higher level of employee engagement as opposed to the ones that do not aim at the sustainable development of the community.

Technology

The emerging technology has both positive and negative impacts on the business and society. Many associates of companies can communicate effectively across the world and have also assisted in promoting cultural diversity since human resource management for multinational corporations can hire people from different parts of the globe. For example, the web conferencing and teleconferencing that enhances travel cost reduction and also maximizing productivity (Briggs et al., 2016). When it comes to the societal technology enhances the sophisticated medical equipment, thus saving millions of lives, increased safety through the global positioning systems, alerts, and cellular technology and also the expansion of the expedite processes.

Additionally, it has made it easier to perform business processes and activities in a faster and simple way which in turn results in operational efficiency, increased productivity and performance of employees within an organizational setup. Advancement in technology allows firms to meet the consumer expectations through the delivery of a broad range of products and services that are free of pollution, safe, have superior quality and which is more comfortable (Briggs et al., 2016). Technology enhances the mechanized agriculture and thus allowing farmers to grow enormous quantities of food and henceforth a higher return on investment. Also, there is improved transportation which fosters mobility of goods and people from one region to another and thus benefiting both the society and the business. Additionally, it improves the learning process as well as education through the integration of the educational technologies in learning institutions and thus improving how students learn.

Despite the numerous benefits, technology has negative impacts. There has been increased resource depletion due to more pressures on the scarce resources. Advancement of technologies results in high pollution from the processing and manufacturing factories. Hence, there are increasing rates of global warming due to the environmental contamination.

Environmental Issues

There are some environmental problems that the modern business world faces which may include sustainable development of the raw materials, industrial waste disposal, air and water emissions (Collins, 2015). Laws have been put in place that compels organizations to change their procedures and equipment as a way to meet the standards that promote environmentally friendly business operations. As a result, the firms incur huge expenses and thus negatively impacting their profits. By taking into consideration the environmental issues, it will be of great importance to protect the society's natural resources. They include recycling to reduce the business operational costs, adopting good practices that can attract more customers and improve sustainability to overcome the challenges of climate change in the future.

The social factors are among the environmental components that affect the organizational externally from different angles such as consumption and buying pattern, people's beliefs, purchasing power, tastes and preferences and the educational background. Industrialization has brought many benefits to the society through the economic growth and development. However, the industrial processes result in health issues and the extinct of some species. Thus, many laws and regulation and other agencies have been at the forefront to make sure that firms adhere to the laid down policies that aim at protecting the environment (Collins, 2015). Therefore, there is need to adopt sustainable resource and supply chain management to overcome challenges and vulnerable disruptions from the environmental disturbances. It will help in preventing drought and accumulation of garbage in the society due to inappropriate waste disposal by the business firms. Hence, ensuring sustainability can contribute to promoting the long-term financial viability of organizations and the health well-being of people.

References

Briggs, B., Jerry, O. & Shingles, M. (2016). Social Impact of Exponential Technologies; The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 26 July 2017 from.
http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2016/10/25/social-impact-of-exponential-technologies/
Bright, B. (2008). How More Companies Are Embracing Social Responsibility as Good Business. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 26 July 2017 from
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120491426245620011
Collins, T. (2015). The Current Budget on Environment and its Impact on libraries, publishers, and vendors. Retrieved on 26 July 2017 from
https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/general/current-budget-environment.pdf
Gargiulo, S. (2012). Why everyone wants to work for the 'good guys.' Retrieved on 26 July 2017 from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/07/business/global-office-csr-volunteer/index.html