Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance

12 The Characteristics of Events Competitive events Aggressive competition in business is allowed for as long as all the tactics and moves employed remain within the confines of the law. When negative actions are committed by a company during competition, stakeholders expect their firms to turn out vigorously and aggressively and defend their competitive action in case a litigation process ensues. For the stakeholders to be able to benefit from competitive success of their company, such as customers enjoying quality goods, employees to retain and enhance their positions, governments as well as communities to receive tax benefits, together with investors to earn their dividends, a firm must remain committed to pursue its business interests and act in a manner that is self-serving.

Negative events that occur as a result of companies engaging in business competition often raise concerns, on the part of stakeholders, of whether the act was bad itself, or whether it was a mere misinterpretation of policy. The intention or motivation is framed with regards to realities that result from competition. The management of the firms needs to be a good actor in this regard by maintaining their self-serving interests, as well as defending the explicit interests of the firm (Banerjee 2007, p. 28).

Stakeholder-based negative events Negative events may occur when the stakeholder’s well-being is jeopardized in a way, for instance when product safety issues arise, or when violation of health and safety occurs at the workplace. In such instances, little ambiguity exists about the extent of the act’s badness. The existing evidence could be suggestive of the fact that the firm occasioned either a potential negative outcome or an actual event occurred, to the effect that some key stakeholder groups were actually affected negatively. The ambiguity in this case, however, comes from the