ABSTRACT
Since the early 1960s, the meaning of the words ‘social responsibility of business’ has changed radically. Formerly, discussions of social responsibilities of business centred in three areas. One was the question of the relationship between private ethics and public ethics. Is a manager in charge of an organization expected to be guided by the ethics of the individual ? Or does his responsibility to the organization permit him – or perhaps even compel him – to resort to privately unethical behaviour for the good of his organization ? The text for this discussion, consciously or not, is an old saying of politicians: ‘What scoundrels we would be if we did in our private lives what we do in our public capacity for our countries.’
