Chapter Eleven: Making Ethical Assessments: Finances, Engineering and Conflicts of Interests

We have seen that the expression “Corporate Social Responsibility” refers to an array of behaviors, choices and practices that goes beyond the field of “business ethics”. Though the two largely overlap, it can be said that the reference to “CSR” leads one to preferentially examine the policies set up by a corporation for proactively making its operations consistent with a social vision inspired both by its own corporate culture and public expectations, while “business ethics” refers to a set of principles through which a company may be led to correct such policies or such aspects of its management practices. The use of one term rather than the other is determined by focus rather than by content. This chapter will try to offer a way of tackling corporate ethical concerns, firstly by suggesting an approach to the art of “discernment”, secondly by centering on two fields of special importance, namely finance and engineering, and thirdly by devoting attention to “conflicts of interests” as they may be lived and solved at different levels of a corporation's operations.