After reading the article “ REDEFINING ‘CORPORATE’.”, which write by Lily Du, I am convinced that the decision made by CVS to terminate tobacco sales shows a right direction of today’s corporations. Many people believe that “the social responsibility of business is to increase profits”. Though it may be true to a certain extent, I do think this point is to extreme. Under most circumstances, it is not a conflict to increase profits and to carry on social responsibility, such as to protect environment, or to take care of health and safety of employees as well as citizens who live near factories. Because if a company can do so, its brand reputation, consumers’ loyalty, employees’ loyalty, and corporations’ culture will be improved dramatically. Then the profits will probably increase accordingly. In this sense, corporations can increase their long-term profits through adhering business ethics, though they may loss some short-term economic profits . This can be best illustrated by the CVS example that Lily Du presented in her blog. Though this action will cause approximately $2 million loss for CVS in few years, it re-organize and re-evaluate its consumers’ demands and build a fairly great company’s reputation for social responsibility. Obviously, a strong brand name and good reputation are beneficial to company’s long-term development. Also, the intangible assets, including brand name and reputation, will be increasing a lot. On the other hand, if a corporation ignores business ethics and does not carry any of social responsibility, such corporation can hardly be successful. Otherwise, if a company careless about its own employees, how can consumers believe that the company can care about customers’ health and safety. If a company careless about our environment, our hometown, how can customers believe that the company can produce qualified products without any toxins. So business ethics and financial profits should not be a conflict at all, and in this sense, every corporation should carry social responsibility and adhere business ethics for the sake of profits.

The link of Lily Du’s Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/lilydu/