Summer Olympic Games
The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event held every four years, organised by the International Olympic Committee. The Olympics are the most prestigious such event in the world, though they are not the world's most-watched sporting event - the television audience for the single-sport FIFA World Cup is larger. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition which started in 1904.
The Games have expanded from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 men competing to including over 10,000 competitors of both genders from 202 nations. Organisers for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing expect approximately 10,500 athletes to take part in the 302 events on the programme for the Games.[1] The 2004 Summer Olympics, for which organisers had also expected 10,500 competitors, drew a total of 11,099 in the 301 events offered.
Competitors are entered by a National Olympic Committee (NOC) to represent their country of citizenship. National anthems and flags accompany the medal ceremonies, and tables showing the number of medals won by each country are widely used. In general only recognised nations are represented, but a few sovereign-disputed countries are allowed to take part.
The United States have hosted the most Summer Olympics games, hosting four. The United Kingdom will have hosted three Summer Olympics games, all in London, when they return to the British capital in 2012. Australia, France, Germany, and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Countries that have hosted the Summer Olympics once are: Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Spain, and Sweden. China will host the Summer Olympics for the first time in Beijing in 2008. Four cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Los Angeles, London, Paris and Athens. In 2012, London will be the first city to host the Games three times.
Four countries - Australia, Great Britain, Greece and Switzerland - have sent teams to every single Summer Olympic Games. The only country to have won at least one gold medal at every Summer Olympic Games is Great Britain, ranging from one gold in 1904, 1952 and 1996 to fifty-six golds in 1908.
Qualification
Qualification rules for each of the Olympic sports are set by the International Federation (IF) that governs that sport's international competition.
For individual sports, competitors typically qualify through attaining a certain place in a major international event or on the IF's ranking list. National Olympic Committees may enter a limited number of qualified competitors in each event (3 is a common number), and the NOC decides which qualified competitors to select as representatives in each event if more have attained the benchmark than can be entered. Many events provide for a certain number of wildcard entries, given to athletes from developing nations.
Nations qualify teams for team sports through continental qualifying tournaments, in which each continental association is given a certain number of spots in the Olympic tournament. The host nation is generally given an automatic qualification.
History
The early years
The modern Olympic Games were founded in 1894 when Pierre Fredi, Baron de Coubertin sought to promote international understanding through sporting competition. He based his Olympics on the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games, which had been contested in Much Wenlock since 1850.[2] The first edition of de Coubertin's games, held in Athens in 1896, attracted just 245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organised before. Female athletes were not allowed to compete, though one woman, Stamata Revithi, ran the marathon course on her own, saying "[i]f the committee doesn’t let me compete I will go after them regardless".[3]
Four years later the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris attracted more than four times as many athletes, including 11 women, who were allowed to officially compete for the first time, in croquet, golf, sailing, and tennis. The Games were integrated with the Paris World's Fair and lasted over 5 months. It is still disputed which events exactly were Olympic, since few or maybe even none of the events were advertised as such at the time.
Numbers declined again for the 1904 Games in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, due in part to the lengthy transatlantic boat trip required of the European competitors, and the integration with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair, which again spread the event out over an extended period. In contrast with Paris 1900, the word Olympic was used for practically every contest, including those exclusively for school boys or for Irish-Americans.
A series of smaller games were held in Athens in 1906. These were to be the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens, but the series failed to materialise. The games were held in 1906 to celebrate the "tenth birthday" of the games. The IOC does not currently recognise these games as being official Olympic Games, although many historians do. The 1906 Athens games, which had over 900 athletes competing, were more successful than the 1900 and 1904 games and contributed positively to the success of future games.
The 1908 London Games saw numbers rise again, as well as the first running of the marathon over its now-standard distance of 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards). This distance was chosen to ensure that the race finished in front of the box occupied by the British royal family. The marathon had been 40 km for the first games in 1896, but was subsequently varied by up to 2 km due to local conditions such as street and stadium layout. At the six Olympic games between 1900 and 1920, the marathon was raced over six different distances.
At the end of the 1908 marathon the Italian runner Dorando Pietri was first to enter the stadium, but he was clearly in distress, and collapsed of exhaustion before he could complete the event. He was helped over the finish line by concerned race officials, but later he was disqualified and the gold medal was awarded to John Hayes, who had trailed him by around 30 seconds.
The Games continued to grow, attracting 2,504 competitors, to Stockholm in 1912, including the great all-rounder Jim Thorpe, who won both the decathlon and pentathlon. Thorpe had previously played a few games of baseball for a fee, and saw his medals stripped for this breach of amateurism after complaints from his own country men. They were reinstated in 1983, 30 years after his death. The Games at Stockholm were the first to fulfill Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the Games started in 1896 were all continents represented with athletes competing in the same stadium.
The scheduled Berlin Games of 1916 were cancelled following the onset of World War I.
The interwar era
The 1920 Antwerp games in war-ravaged Belgium were a subdued affair, but again drew a record number of competitors. This record only stood until 1924, when the Paris Games would involve 3,000 competitors, the greatest of whom was Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi. "The Flying Finn", won three team gold medals and the individual 1,500 and 5,000 meter runs, the latter two on the same day.
The 1928 Amsterdam games were notable for being the first games which allowed females to compete at track & field athletics, and benefited greatly from the general prosperity of the times alongside the first appearance of sponsorship of the games, from Coca-Cola. This was in stark contrast to 1932 when the Los Angeles games were affected by the Great Depression, which contributed to the fewest competitors since the St. Louis games.
The 1936 Berlin Games were seen by the German government as a golden opportunity to promote their ideology. The ruling Nazi Party commissioned film-maker Leni Riefenstahl to film the games. The result, Olympia, was a masterpiece, despite Hitler's theories of Aryan racial superiority being repeatedly shown up by "non-Aryan" athletes. In particular, African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals. The tale of Hitler snubbing Owens at the ensuing medal ceremony is a fabrication.[4]
Due to World War II, the Games of 1940 (due to be held in Tokyo and temporarily relocated to Helsinki upon the outbreak of war) were cancelled. The Games of 1944 were due to be held in London but were also cancelled; instead, London hosted the first games after the end of the war, in 1948.
After WWII
The first post-war Games were held in 1948 in London, with both Germany and Japan excluded. Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals on the track, emulating Owens' achievement in Berlin.
At the 1952 Games in Helsinki the USSR team competed for the first time and at once became one of the dominant teams. Finland made a legend of an amiable Czech army lieutenant named Emil Zátopek, who was intent on improving on his single gold and silver medals from 1948. Having first won both the 10,000 and 5,000 metre races, he also entered the marathon, despite having never previously raced at that distance. Pacing himself by chatting with the other leaders, Zátopek led from about half way, slowly dropping the remaining contenders to win by two and a half minutes, and completed a trio of wins.
The 1956 Melbourne Games were largely successful, barring a water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union, which political tensions caused to end as a pitched battle between the teams. Due to a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Britain at the time and the strict quarantine laws of Australia, the equestrian events were held in Stockholm.
The 1960 Rome Games saw the arrival on the world scene of a young light-heavyweight boxer named Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, who would later throw his gold medal away in disgust after being refused service in a whites-only restaurant in his home town.[citation needed] Soviet women's artistic gymnastics team members won 15 of 16 possible medals. Other performers of note in 1960 included Wilma Rudolph, a gold medallist in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x100 metre relay events.
The 1964 Games held in Tokyo are notable for heralding the modern age of telecommunications.
These games were the first to be broadcast worldwide on television, enabled by the recent advent of communication satellites. The 1964 Games were thus a turning point in the global visibility and popularity of the Olympics.
Performances at the 1968 Mexico City games were affected by the altitude of the host city.[5]
No event was affected more than the long jump. American athlete Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 metres, setting a new world record and, in the words of fellow competitor and then-reigning champion Lynn Davies, "making the rest of us look silly."[citation needed] Beamon's world record would stand for 23 years. The 1968 Games also saw the introduction of the now-universal Fosbury flop, a technique which won American high jumper Dick Fosbury the gold medal. Politics took centre stage in the medal ceremony for the men's 200 metre dash, where Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a protest gesture on the podium against the segregation in the United States; their political act was condemned within the Olympic Movement, but was praised in the American Civil Rights Movement.
Politics again intervened at Munich in 1972, with lethal consequences. A Palestinian terrorist group named Black September invaded the Olympic village and broke into the apartment of the Israeli delegation. They killed two Israelis and held 9 others as hostages. The terrorists demanded that Israel release numerous prisoners. When the Israeli government refused their demand, a tense stand-off ensued while negotiations continued. Eventually the captors, still holding their hostages, were offered safe passage and taken to an airport, where they were ambushed by German security forces. In the firefight that followed, 15 people, including the nine Israeli athletes and five of the terrorists, were killed. After much debate, it was decided that the Games would continue, but proceedings were obviously dominated by these events.[6]
Some memorable athletic achievements did occur during these Games, notably the winning of a record seven gold medals by United States swimmer Mark Spitz, Lasse Viren's, of Finland, back to back gold in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, defeating American distance great Steve Prefontaine in the former, and the winning of three gold medals by 16-year-old Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, who, however failed to win the all-around to her teammate Ludmilla Tourischeva.
There was no such tragedy in Montreal in 1976, but bad planning led to the Games' cost far exceeding the budget. The Montreal Games are the most expensive in Olympic history, costing over $5 billion (equivalent to $20 billion in 2006). For a time, it seemed that the Olympics might no longer be a viable financial proposition. There was also a boycott by African nations to protest against a recent tour of apartheid-run South Africa by a New Zealand rugby side. The Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci won the women's individual all around gold medal with two of four possible perfect scores, thus giving birth to a gymnastics dynasty in Romania. Another female gymnast to earn the perfect score and three gold medals there was Nellie Kim of the USSR. Lasse Viren repeated his double gold in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, making him the only athlete to ever win the distance double twice.
End of the 20th century
Following the Soviet Union's participation to the Afghan Civil War, 66 nations, including the United States, Canada, West Germany and Japan, boycotted the 1980 games held in Moscow.
Notably, Greece, Great Britain and Australia did not withdraw, and remain the only nations to have competed in all summer games. The boycott contributed to the 1980 Games being a less publicised and less competitive affair, which was dominated by the host country.
In 1984 the Soviet Union, and 14 Eastern Bloc countries, reciprocated by boycotting the Los Angeles games. These games were perhaps the first games of a new era to make a profit. The games were again viable, but had become more commercial.
The 1988 Seoul games were very well planned but the games were sadly tainted when many of the athletes, most notably men's 100 metres winner Ben Johnson, failed mandatory drug tests. Despite splendid drug-free performances by many individuals, the number of people who failed screenings for performance-enhancing chemicals overshadowed the games.
On the bright side, drug testing and regulation authorities were catching up with the cheating that had been endemic in athletics for some years. The 1992 Barcelona Games were cleaner, although not without incident. In evidence there was increased professionalism amongst Olympic athletes, exemplified by US basketball's "Dream Team". 1992 also saw the reintroduction to the Games of several smaller European states which had been incorporated into the Soviet Union since World War II.
By then the process of choosing a location for the Games had itself become a commercial concern; allegations of corruption rocked the International Olympic Committee, in particular with reference to Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. It was also widely rumoured that The Coca-Cola Company, a key IOC sponsor, was highly influential in the 1996 Summer Olympics being hosted by its home city of Atlanta.[citation needed] In the stadium in 1996, the highlight was 200 metres runner Michael Johnson annihilating the world record in front of a home crowd. Canadians savoured Donovan Bailey's record-breaking gold medal run in the 100-metre dash. This was popularly felt to be an appropriate recompense for the previous national disgrace involving Ben Johnson. There were also emotional scenes, such as when Muhammad Ali, clearly affected by Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic torch and received a replacement medal for the one he had discarded in 1960. The latter event took place not at the boxing ring but in the basketball arena, at the demand of US television. The atmosphere at the Games was marred however when a bomb exploded during the celebration in Centennial Park. In June 2003, the principal suspect in this bombing, Eric Robert Rudolph, was captured.
A new millennium
The 2000 Games were held in Sydney, Australia, and showcased individual performances by local favourite Ian Thorpe in the pool, Briton Steve Redgrave who won a rowing gold medal in an unprecedented fifth consecutive Olympics, and Cathy Freeman, an Indigenous Australian whose triumph in the 400 metres united a packed stadium and provided a bridge between white and Indigenous Australians. Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, had a memorably slow 100 metre freestyle swim that showed that, even in the commercial world of the twentieth century, some of de Coubertin's original vision still remained. The Sydney Games were also memorable for the first appearance of a joint North and South Korean contingent (to a standing ovation) at the opening ceremonies, even if they competed as different countries.
2004 saw the Games return to their birthplace in Athens, Greece. Greece spent at least $7.2 billion on the Games, including $1.5 billion on security alone. The games were praised and appreciated for their excellent quality in terms of organization, hospitality, symbolism, the level of the competition and athleticism, and the overall image transmitted worldwide. Although unfounded and wildly sensationalized reports of potential terrorism drove crowds away from the preliminary competitions of first weekend of the games (August 14-15), attendance picked up soon thereafter as the games progressed, the competitions got underway, and the terrorist attacks and security glitches failed to materialize. The Athens Games witnessed all NOCs participate for the first time since 1996, and the largest ever — with 202 NOCs and over 11,000 participants.
The 2008 Summer Olympics are to be held in Beijing, China. Several new events, including the new discipline of BMX for both men and women, are to be held. For the first time, women will compete in the steeplechase. The fencing programme will be expanded to include all six events for both men and women. Women had not previously been able to compete in team foil or sabre events. Marathon swimming events, over the distance of 10 kilometres, will be added. In addition, the doubles events in table tennis will be replaced by team events.[1]
London, United Kingdom will hold the 2012 Summer Olympics, making London the only city to host the Games three times. The International Olympic Committee has removed baseball and softball from the 2012 program. However, it may be re-added in programs in later years.
See also
All-time Olympic Games medal count
Olympic Games scandals
Winter Olympic Games
Olympic stadium
List of countries first participation in the Summer Olympic Games
Multi-sport event
External links
Official Site of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games (in Chinese)
Official Site of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games (in English)
Official Site of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games
Official Site of the Olympic Movement
Summer Olympic Games medalists and records (German)
Candidate Cities for future Olympic Games
Amateur Athletic Foundation archive of Official Reports
Host cities for future Olympic Games
Aerial and Satellite Photography of Olympic Stadiums
Ward 49 of the City of Chicago includes most of Rogers Park and parts of West Ridge.
Monday, December 10, 2007
2016 Summer Olympics
2016 Summer Olympics
The 2016 Summer Olympics (officially known as Games of the XXXI Olympiad) is a major international sports and cultural festival to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). While a host city has not yet been determined, various cities have begun a bidding process for that honour. A host city will be announced at the 121st IOC Session (which will also be the 13th Olympic Congress) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will also be held in the same city and organized by the same organizing committee.
Bidding
The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched on May 16, 2007.[1] The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 13, 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, are to be submitted by each applicant city by January 14, 2008. The final candidate cities will be shortlisted in June 2008, and the final selection will be made by the full IOC membership, on October 2, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark.[2]
Cancelled bids
There were several bid cities that became derailed along the way. In particular, Monterrey, Mexico's bid fell through at the very last moment when Mexico's Olympic committee declined to bid.[10] Toronto, Canada abandoned any plans for a bid after Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympics,[11][12] as did Montreal.[13][14] Havana, Cuba, and the South American cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile expressed interest in hosting the games. In the United States, Chicago beat Los Angeles for the right to bid, and other internal cities included San Francisco (the leading contender until it lost stadium funding), Houston, and Philadelphia.
The sports minister of Kenya expressed interest in having Nairobi bid, but the Kenyan Olympics head said it was not the right time.[15][16][17] Also in Africa, both Cape Town and Durban, South Africa expressed interest.[18]
Tel Aviv, Israel had some talk about hosting the games. Bangkok, Thailand expressed much enthusiasm after their strong performance in the 2004 Games, but instead applied to host the 2010 Youth Games. Another internal candidate city in Japan was Fukuoka. Delhi was originally set to enter a bid;[19] however, in April 2007 it announced it would bid for the 2020 games instead.[20] Dubai, United Arab Emirates,was also posed to make a serious bid, but in the end did not for unknown reasons.
For a time, Rome, Italy seemed to be a leading candidate, but they also pulled out of the race, preferring to wait for a later Olympiad.[21] Lisbon, Portugal considered bidding,[22] and Istanbul, Turkey broke with their standing policy to bid for every games, but vowed to try again.[23]
Finally, several cities in Australia also expressed interest, as well as a potential joint bid from San Diego, United States and Tijuana, Mexico[24]. However, the IOC Charter, as stated on page 73, is clear: a single city is awarded the right to stage the Olympic Games.[25]
References
External links
International Olympic Committee
Tokyo - 2016
Chicago - 2016
Rio de Janeiro - 2016
Prague - 2016
Doha - 2016
The 2016 Summer Olympics (officially known as Games of the XXXI Olympiad) is a major international sports and cultural festival to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). While a host city has not yet been determined, various cities have begun a bidding process for that honour. A host city will be announced at the 121st IOC Session (which will also be the 13th Olympic Congress) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will also be held in the same city and organized by the same organizing committee.
Bidding
The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched on May 16, 2007.[1] The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by September 13, 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, are to be submitted by each applicant city by January 14, 2008. The final candidate cities will be shortlisted in June 2008, and the final selection will be made by the full IOC membership, on October 2, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark.[2]
Cancelled bids
There were several bid cities that became derailed along the way. In particular, Monterrey, Mexico's bid fell through at the very last moment when Mexico's Olympic committee declined to bid.[10] Toronto, Canada abandoned any plans for a bid after Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympics,[11][12] as did Montreal.[13][14] Havana, Cuba, and the South American cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile expressed interest in hosting the games. In the United States, Chicago beat Los Angeles for the right to bid, and other internal cities included San Francisco (the leading contender until it lost stadium funding), Houston, and Philadelphia.
The sports minister of Kenya expressed interest in having Nairobi bid, but the Kenyan Olympics head said it was not the right time.[15][16][17] Also in Africa, both Cape Town and Durban, South Africa expressed interest.[18]
Tel Aviv, Israel had some talk about hosting the games. Bangkok, Thailand expressed much enthusiasm after their strong performance in the 2004 Games, but instead applied to host the 2010 Youth Games. Another internal candidate city in Japan was Fukuoka. Delhi was originally set to enter a bid;[19] however, in April 2007 it announced it would bid for the 2020 games instead.[20] Dubai, United Arab Emirates,was also posed to make a serious bid, but in the end did not for unknown reasons.
For a time, Rome, Italy seemed to be a leading candidate, but they also pulled out of the race, preferring to wait for a later Olympiad.[21] Lisbon, Portugal considered bidding,[22] and Istanbul, Turkey broke with their standing policy to bid for every games, but vowed to try again.[23]
Finally, several cities in Australia also expressed interest, as well as a potential joint bid from San Diego, United States and Tijuana, Mexico[24]. However, the IOC Charter, as stated on page 73, is clear: a single city is awarded the right to stage the Olympic Games.[25]
References
- 2016 Bid Process Launched. International Olympic Committee (16 May 2007).
- Bellandi, Deanna (2007-05-16). IOC rules mean change in Chicago's Olympic logo. USA Today. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
- Azerbaijan To Launch 2016 Summer Olympic Bid. GamesBids.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
- 2016 Bids (Chigago, USA). GamesBids.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- Doha To Launch Serious 2016 Bid – Chairman Appointed
- 2016 Bids (Madrid, Spain). GamesBids.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- Prague Assembly Confirms 2016 Olympic Bid
- Brazil Selects Rio As 2016 Bid Candidate City. GamesBids.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- 2016 Bids (Tokyo, Japan). GamesBids.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- Mexico's Olympic Committee Rejects Monterrey's 2016 Olympic Bid
- TheGlobeAndMail.com No Toronto bid for 2016 Games, mayor says
- Third time lucky for T.O. Games bid?, www.TheStar.com, July 10 2007
- Montreal Contemplates Bid For 2016 Summer Olympic Games - GamesBids.com
- Thirty years later, Montreal's Olympic Stadium has finally been paid off - CBC.ca
- Kenya plans to bid for 2016 Olympic Games, People's Daily Online, 13 Jan 2005, accessed 12 Oct 2006
- Kenya Is Making A Surprise Bid For The 2016 Summer Olympic Games, GamesBids.com, 12 Jan 2005, accessed 12 Oct 2006
- Kenya not ready to bid for 2016 Olympics
- Durban to bid for the 2016 Olympics, iAfrica.com, 22 Jun 2006, accessed 24 Jun 2006
- BBC News: Delhi set for 2016 bid
- BBC News: Delhi will bid for 2020 Olympics
- Rome To Become Italy’s 2016 Olympic Bid Candidate, GamesBids.com, 3 Oct 2006, accessed 12 Oct 2006
- Portugal Considers 2016 Summer Games Bid
- Istanbul Refrains From 5th Consecutive Olympic Bid - Will Bid For 2020 Games Instead
- SanDiegometro.com The World's First Binational Olympics Proposed For Tijuana And San Diego.
- Olympic Charter
External links
International Olympic Committee
Tokyo - 2016
Chicago - 2016
Rio de Janeiro - 2016
Prague - 2016
Doha - 2016
Chicago wins 2016 USOC Olympic Bid
Chicago wins 2016 USOC Olympic Bid
April 15, 2007
The City of Chicago has been chosen as the United States Applicant City for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chose Chicago, which has never hosted an Olympics, over the 1932 and 1984 hosts Los Angeles.
"On behalf of the United States Olympic Committee, we would like to congratulate Chicago on its selection as our Applicant City," said USOC Chairperson, Peter Ueberroth. "Our ultimate goal at the outset was to identify the U.S. city with the best chance of competing internationally. In Chicago and Los Angeles, we had two outstanding bids and we are confident that Chicago is positioned to be competitive in the international field and will make our country proud."
Chicago will now submit a bid to the International Olympic Committee in September 2007, and the host city will be chosen on October 2, 2009. Other cities likely to bid for the Games include Prague, Rome and Tokyo. As the 2008 and 2012 Games are to be held in Asia and Europe respectively, it is likely that a city in the Americas would be favorites for the Games. The United States last held the Games in Atlanta in 1996.
Chicago's bid involves construction of an Olympic Stadium in Washington Park on the city's South Side and an athlete's village on the shores of Lake Michigan. Existing venues such as Wrigley Field and Soldier Field may be used for some events. In contrast to Chicago, the Los Angeles bid involved existing facilities with no need for constructing new venues.
Sources
External links
Chicago2016.org official site of Chicago 2016 Committee
April 15, 2007
The City of Chicago has been chosen as the United States Applicant City for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chose Chicago, which has never hosted an Olympics, over the 1932 and 1984 hosts Los Angeles.
"On behalf of the United States Olympic Committee, we would like to congratulate Chicago on its selection as our Applicant City," said USOC Chairperson, Peter Ueberroth. "Our ultimate goal at the outset was to identify the U.S. city with the best chance of competing internationally. In Chicago and Los Angeles, we had two outstanding bids and we are confident that Chicago is positioned to be competitive in the international field and will make our country proud."
Chicago will now submit a bid to the International Olympic Committee in September 2007, and the host city will be chosen on October 2, 2009. Other cities likely to bid for the Games include Prague, Rome and Tokyo. As the 2008 and 2012 Games are to be held in Asia and Europe respectively, it is likely that a city in the Americas would be favorites for the Games. The United States last held the Games in Atlanta in 1996.
Chicago's bid involves construction of an Olympic Stadium in Washington Park on the city's South Side and an athlete's village on the shores of Lake Michigan. Existing venues such as Wrigley Field and Soldier Field may be used for some events. In contrast to Chicago, the Los Angeles bid involved existing facilities with no need for constructing new venues.
Sources
- "Chicago picked by USOC to bid for 2016 Olympics". SI.com, April 14, 2007
- Alan Abrahamson "Chicago to bid for 2016 Olympics". NBCSports.com, April 14, 2007
- "Chicago joins 2016 Olympic race". BBC News Online, April 14, 2007
- Press Release: "It's Chicago!". United States Olympic Committee, April 14, 2007
External links
Chicago2016.org official site of Chicago 2016 Committee
Big Box Ordinance
Big Box Ordinance
Ordinance in Chicago requiring "big box" stores to pay higher wages passes
August 3, 2006
The Chicago city council passed an ordinance on Wednesday a week ago that requires retailers such as Target, Home Depot, and other big box-store operations to pay a higher wage than the state minimum and offer benefits to their employees within Chicago city limits. The mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, opposes the ordinance, though he has yet to state whether or not he intends to exercise his veto power. Because of the ordinance, Target has already put on hold the building of one store in Chicago's south side and other new developments are in jeopardy.
The ordinance applies to stores of at least 90,000 square feet operated by companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales. Starting in July of 2007, employees of these stores have a minimum wage $9.25 per hour and $1.50 per hour in benefits. By 2010, this will rise to $10 and $3, respectively. After 2010, the increases will be tied to the cost of living.
The current state mandated minimum hourly wage rate is $6.50 for an Illinois employee.
Sources
Ordinance in Chicago requiring "big box" stores to pay higher wages passes
August 3, 2006
The Chicago city council passed an ordinance on Wednesday a week ago that requires retailers such as Target, Home Depot, and other big box-store operations to pay a higher wage than the state minimum and offer benefits to their employees within Chicago city limits. The mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, opposes the ordinance, though he has yet to state whether or not he intends to exercise his veto power. Because of the ordinance, Target has already put on hold the building of one store in Chicago's south side and other new developments are in jeopardy.
The ordinance applies to stores of at least 90,000 square feet operated by companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales. Starting in July of 2007, employees of these stores have a minimum wage $9.25 per hour and $1.50 per hour in benefits. By 2010, this will rise to $10 and $3, respectively. After 2010, the increases will be tied to the cost of living.
The current state mandated minimum hourly wage rate is $6.50 for an Illinois employee.
Sources
- "Chicago City Council Approves 'Big-Box' Ordinance". Associated Press, July 26, 2006
- Fran Speilman "Boxed out: Target says forget it". Chicago Sun Times, August 3, 2006
- Gary Washburn "‘Big-Box’ ordinance puts new Target on hold". Chicago Tribune, August 3, 2006
- Ryan McMaken "Chicago Mandates a "Living Wage"". Ludwig von Mises Institute, 27 July 2006
- "Minimum Wage Laws In States". U.S. Department of Labor, April 3, 2006
Mitch Altman
Mitch Altman
Mitch Altman is a San Francisco-based hacker and inventor, best known for co-founding 3ware (with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald), his pioneering in Virtual Reality at VPL Research and inventing TV-B-Gone. He is also President and CTO of Cornfield Electronics.
Early life and education
Altman grew up in Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois. After kindergarten his familiy moved to Highland Park, Illinois. Altman graduated from Deerfield High School (Illinois) in 1975. Altman is an alumni of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he gained an undergraduate degree(1980) and a master's degree(1984) in electrical engineering. While at the University of Illinois, Altman co-founded Hash Wednesday. Altman moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 to work in Silicon Valley.
Virtual Reality
Altman is widely regarded as a pioneer of Virtual Reality. He worked at VPL Research with Jaron Lanier Altman left VPL Research when it started getting military contracts.
3ware
Altman co-founded Silicon Valley start-up 3ware in February 1997 with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald (who is on the advisory board of Cornfield Electronics).
Cornfield Electronics
Altman started Cornfield Electronics as a consultancy company. After the launch of TV-B-Gone Altman gave the company the tagline "Useful Electronics for a Better World".
TV-B-Gone
In 2004 Altman released a one-button universal remote control called TV-B-Gone, to be used for turning off TVs in public places. According to Altman, "TV has become a worldwide epidemic and sadly, a way of life for some people". In an interview with the BBC, he stated "I don't want to make anyone's life more difficult. I just don't like TV, and I'd like people to think more about this powerful medium in their lives." Altman used money from the sale of 3ware to pay for the manufacture of the first 20,000 units of TV-B-Gone.
External Links
Audio of a talk given by Altman and Lady Ada on July 23, 2006 at HOPE Number Six
TV-B-Gone at Cornfield Electronics, Inc.
Mitch Altman is a San Francisco-based hacker and inventor, best known for co-founding 3ware (with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald), his pioneering in Virtual Reality at VPL Research and inventing TV-B-Gone. He is also President and CTO of Cornfield Electronics.
Early life and education
Altman grew up in Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois. After kindergarten his familiy moved to Highland Park, Illinois. Altman graduated from Deerfield High School (Illinois) in 1975. Altman is an alumni of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he gained an undergraduate degree(1980) and a master's degree(1984) in electrical engineering. While at the University of Illinois, Altman co-founded Hash Wednesday. Altman moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 to work in Silicon Valley.
Virtual Reality
Altman is widely regarded as a pioneer of Virtual Reality. He worked at VPL Research with Jaron Lanier Altman left VPL Research when it started getting military contracts.
3ware
Altman co-founded Silicon Valley start-up 3ware in February 1997 with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald (who is on the advisory board of Cornfield Electronics).
Cornfield Electronics
Altman started Cornfield Electronics as a consultancy company. After the launch of TV-B-Gone Altman gave the company the tagline "Useful Electronics for a Better World".
TV-B-Gone
In 2004 Altman released a one-button universal remote control called TV-B-Gone, to be used for turning off TVs in public places. According to Altman, "TV has become a worldwide epidemic and sadly, a way of life for some people". In an interview with the BBC, he stated "I don't want to make anyone's life more difficult. I just don't like TV, and I'd like people to think more about this powerful medium in their lives." Altman used money from the sale of 3ware to pay for the manufacture of the first 20,000 units of TV-B-Gone.
External Links
Audio of a talk given by Altman and Lady Ada on July 23, 2006 at HOPE Number Six
TV-B-Gone at Cornfield Electronics, Inc.
Social responsibility
Social responsibility
Social responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity whether it is a government, corporation, organization or individual has a responsibility to society. This responsibility can be "negative," in that it is a responsibility to refrain from acting (resistance stance) or it can be "positive," meaning there is a responsibility to act(proactive stance). While primarily associated with business and governmental practices, activist groups and local communities can also be associated with social responsibility, not only business or governmental entities.
There is a large inequality in the means and roles of different entities to fulfill their claimed responsibility. This would imply the different entities have different responsibilities, insomuch as states should ensure the civil rights of their citizens, that corporations should respect and encourage the human rights of their employees and that citizens should abide with written laws.
But social responsibility can mean more than these examples. Many NGOs accept that their role and the responsibility of their members as citizens is to help improve society by taking a proactive stance in their societal roles. It can also imply that corporations have an implicit obligation to give back to society (such as is claimed as part of corporate social responsibility and/or stakeholder theory).
Social responsibility is voluntary; it is about going above and beyond what is called for by the law (legal responsibility). It involves an idea that it is better to be proactive toward a problem rather than reactive to a problem. Social responsibility means eliminating corrupt, irresponsible or unethical behavior that might bring harm to the community, its people, or the environment before the behavior happens.
In today’s society a business must maintain ethical principles in order to be successful.
Businesses can use ethical decision making to strengthen their businesses in three main ways. The first way is to use their ethical decision making to increase productivity. This can be done through programs that employees feel directly enhance their benefits given by the corporation, like better health care or a better pension program. One thing that all companies must keep in mind is that employees are stakeholders in the business. They have a vested interest in what the company does and how it is run. When the company is perceived to feel that their employees are a valuable asset and the employees feel they are being treated and such, productivity increases.
A second way that businesses can use ethical decision making to strengthen their businesses is by making decisions that affect its health as seen to those stakeholders that are outside of the business environment.
Customers and Suppliers are two examples of such stakeholders. If we were to look at companies like Johnson & Johnson, their strong sense of responsibility to the public is well known.
In particular, take for instance Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol scare of 1982. When people realized that some bottles of Tylenol contained cyanide they quit buying Tylenol, stocks dropped and Johnson & Johnson lost a lot of money. But they chose to loose even more money and invest in new tamper resistant seals and announce a major recall of their product. There was no “certain amount” for this situation; Johnson & Johnson had to lose money to be socially responsible. But in the long run they gained the trust of their customers. Now when people look at other products, there is a sense of faith and trust in that Johnson & Johnson would not allow a product to harm people just to meet their own bottom line. For instance when we think of baby shampoo, the thought of “no more tears” almost always jumps into the mind. It is a Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo that we feel that we can entrust our children with. Through their decisions about what to do when faced with a tragedy that people died from, they have arisen from the ashes, that was in the form of their plummeted stock price; and brought themselves to our minds as a trusted family friend.
A third way that business can use ethical decision making to secure their businesses is by making decisions that allow for government agencies to minimize their involvement with the corporation.
For instance if a company is proactive and follows the EPA guidelines for admissions on dangerous pollutants and even goes an extra step to get involved in the community and address those concerns that the public might have; they would be less likely to have the EPA investigate them for environmental concerns. “A significant element of current thinking about privacy, however, stresses "self-regulation" rather than market or government mechanisms for protecting personal information”.
Most rules and regulations are formed due to public outcry, if there is not outcry there often will be limited regulation.
Human responsibility
One part of social responsibility is being responsible to people, for the actions of people, and for actions that affect people. Social responsibility is about holding a group, organization or company accountable for its effect on the people around it. People within the company, people working with the company, the community the company is in and those who buy from the company.
The idea of being responsible to customers has actually long been imbedded in the ethics of business. The idea of treating a customer with respect and attention is not new particularly in sales and commission based work. What is new is the idea that it's not to profit from the customer, but to genuinely care about what the customer wants and needs.
Accountability for people inside a company is something new. Many times when a scandal or irresponsible behavior comes to light in the corporate world the company and those involved often try to distance themselves as much as possible. Cover ups, buy offs and “golden parachutes” all fall under this behavior. Social responsibility would nearly be the opposite of what goes on in the business world today – a company taking the blame and doing what is needed to fix the problem rather than committing more crimes to cover up the first one.
In many countries, by law, a corporation's only responsibility is to make as much money as possible for shareholders (economic responsibility) and to obey the law (legal responsibility).
Social responsibility holds companies and organizations responsible for the people they affect, even indirectly. It also holds a company responsible for inaction, or indecision. Basing on the idea that a company or organization has the power to help people or, at the least, not harm them, it has the moral responsibility to do so. Social Responsibility is a doctrine that says that every being whether it is a village, town, state, corporation, organization, government or individual has responsibility to society.
If we take a look at business ethics as a whole and how those individual decisions within a company are made we can gain a better understanding of how socially responsible ethics works within the context of human responsibility. First most (at least half) of all corporations base their decision making off of the company’s code of ethics.
This ethical code allows for business managers to have a outline to bring forth their decisions from. The code of ethics is just a starting point within the company, a tool to be used by CEOs to help guide employees when they are faced with ethical dilemmas.
There are always three factors that we can confront in facing an ethical dilemma.
The first factor is the individual factor or what decision we might make ethical when we are left to our own judgment, the next is the social factor or the decision that we might make with social reasoning interjected and the last being the opportunity factor.
To place these factors in a better light we can use the following example. Let us pretend for a moment you are standing in front of a 7-11 store. You see a gentleman come out of the store and drop a twenty dollar bill in front of you and keep walking down the street. You look around there is no else there, the gentleman is now half way down the block. No one else except you saw him drop the twenty dollar bill. What do you do? Do you return the twenty dollars to the man who drop it, even though he is far away at this point and might take some effort to catch up with? Do you take the twenty dollars and run in the 7-11 and quickly spend it? Or do you go for the middle of the road option and hand the money to the clerk behind the counter at 7-11, in case the man returns to try and find his missing money? This is the individual factor, what do you do when faced with an ethical decision as an individual.
Now we can take the same scenario and change it slightly. Now instead of standing in front of the 7-11 alone you are now with a group of friends. Say you all are standing out in front of the store having a few beers and now you and your friends see the gentleman drop the twenty dollar bill and keep walking. What do you do? What do your friends do? If your friends take the money and you don’t agree would you say something to them? Would you try and stop them?
Would you tell the person who lost the money who has it? At what point do your ethics change given your social surroundings? Would you make the same ethical decisions if instead of a bunch or your friends you were with co-workers? What if it was just you and your spouse? What if you were in the same situation but you were there with your children? This is the social factor.
The opportunity factor comes into play in that if the gentleman never drops the twenty dollar bill, you never have to make an ethical decision. Our code of ethics comes in under our social factor. Once the opportunity factor has been introduced, then even as an individual in a work place setting we have a code of ethics to guide us as a social factor.
These codes are created however just to be guidelines. After all “There is no way that all situations that involve ethical decision making an organization can be addressed in a code. Codes of ethics must be monitored continually to determine whether they are comprehensive and usable guidelines for making ethical business decisions."
When it comes to the actual decision process in the human responsibility part of socially responsible ethics there are many other factors that can be used to make ethical decisions.
For instance there are several areas that a manger could point an employee to outside a code of ethics to assist them with making an ethical decision. Some of them are:
Social responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity whether it is a government, corporation, organization or individual has a responsibility to society. This responsibility can be "negative," in that it is a responsibility to refrain from acting (resistance stance) or it can be "positive," meaning there is a responsibility to act(proactive stance). While primarily associated with business and governmental practices, activist groups and local communities can also be associated with social responsibility, not only business or governmental entities.
There is a large inequality in the means and roles of different entities to fulfill their claimed responsibility. This would imply the different entities have different responsibilities, insomuch as states should ensure the civil rights of their citizens, that corporations should respect and encourage the human rights of their employees and that citizens should abide with written laws.
But social responsibility can mean more than these examples. Many NGOs accept that their role and the responsibility of their members as citizens is to help improve society by taking a proactive stance in their societal roles. It can also imply that corporations have an implicit obligation to give back to society (such as is claimed as part of corporate social responsibility and/or stakeholder theory).
Social responsibility is voluntary; it is about going above and beyond what is called for by the law (legal responsibility). It involves an idea that it is better to be proactive toward a problem rather than reactive to a problem. Social responsibility means eliminating corrupt, irresponsible or unethical behavior that might bring harm to the community, its people, or the environment before the behavior happens.
In today’s society a business must maintain ethical principles in order to be successful.
Businesses can use ethical decision making to strengthen their businesses in three main ways. The first way is to use their ethical decision making to increase productivity. This can be done through programs that employees feel directly enhance their benefits given by the corporation, like better health care or a better pension program. One thing that all companies must keep in mind is that employees are stakeholders in the business. They have a vested interest in what the company does and how it is run. When the company is perceived to feel that their employees are a valuable asset and the employees feel they are being treated and such, productivity increases.
A second way that businesses can use ethical decision making to strengthen their businesses is by making decisions that affect its health as seen to those stakeholders that are outside of the business environment.
Customers and Suppliers are two examples of such stakeholders. If we were to look at companies like Johnson & Johnson, their strong sense of responsibility to the public is well known.
In particular, take for instance Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol scare of 1982. When people realized that some bottles of Tylenol contained cyanide they quit buying Tylenol, stocks dropped and Johnson & Johnson lost a lot of money. But they chose to loose even more money and invest in new tamper resistant seals and announce a major recall of their product. There was no “certain amount” for this situation; Johnson & Johnson had to lose money to be socially responsible. But in the long run they gained the trust of their customers. Now when people look at other products, there is a sense of faith and trust in that Johnson & Johnson would not allow a product to harm people just to meet their own bottom line. For instance when we think of baby shampoo, the thought of “no more tears” almost always jumps into the mind. It is a Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo that we feel that we can entrust our children with. Through their decisions about what to do when faced with a tragedy that people died from, they have arisen from the ashes, that was in the form of their plummeted stock price; and brought themselves to our minds as a trusted family friend.
A third way that business can use ethical decision making to secure their businesses is by making decisions that allow for government agencies to minimize their involvement with the corporation.
For instance if a company is proactive and follows the EPA guidelines for admissions on dangerous pollutants and even goes an extra step to get involved in the community and address those concerns that the public might have; they would be less likely to have the EPA investigate them for environmental concerns. “A significant element of current thinking about privacy, however, stresses "self-regulation" rather than market or government mechanisms for protecting personal information”.
Most rules and regulations are formed due to public outcry, if there is not outcry there often will be limited regulation.
Human responsibility
One part of social responsibility is being responsible to people, for the actions of people, and for actions that affect people. Social responsibility is about holding a group, organization or company accountable for its effect on the people around it. People within the company, people working with the company, the community the company is in and those who buy from the company.
The idea of being responsible to customers has actually long been imbedded in the ethics of business. The idea of treating a customer with respect and attention is not new particularly in sales and commission based work. What is new is the idea that it's not to profit from the customer, but to genuinely care about what the customer wants and needs.
Accountability for people inside a company is something new. Many times when a scandal or irresponsible behavior comes to light in the corporate world the company and those involved often try to distance themselves as much as possible. Cover ups, buy offs and “golden parachutes” all fall under this behavior. Social responsibility would nearly be the opposite of what goes on in the business world today – a company taking the blame and doing what is needed to fix the problem rather than committing more crimes to cover up the first one.
In many countries, by law, a corporation's only responsibility is to make as much money as possible for shareholders (economic responsibility) and to obey the law (legal responsibility).
Social responsibility holds companies and organizations responsible for the people they affect, even indirectly. It also holds a company responsible for inaction, or indecision. Basing on the idea that a company or organization has the power to help people or, at the least, not harm them, it has the moral responsibility to do so. Social Responsibility is a doctrine that says that every being whether it is a village, town, state, corporation, organization, government or individual has responsibility to society.
If we take a look at business ethics as a whole and how those individual decisions within a company are made we can gain a better understanding of how socially responsible ethics works within the context of human responsibility. First most (at least half) of all corporations base their decision making off of the company’s code of ethics.
This ethical code allows for business managers to have a outline to bring forth their decisions from. The code of ethics is just a starting point within the company, a tool to be used by CEOs to help guide employees when they are faced with ethical dilemmas.
There are always three factors that we can confront in facing an ethical dilemma.
The first factor is the individual factor or what decision we might make ethical when we are left to our own judgment, the next is the social factor or the decision that we might make with social reasoning interjected and the last being the opportunity factor.
To place these factors in a better light we can use the following example. Let us pretend for a moment you are standing in front of a 7-11 store. You see a gentleman come out of the store and drop a twenty dollar bill in front of you and keep walking down the street. You look around there is no else there, the gentleman is now half way down the block. No one else except you saw him drop the twenty dollar bill. What do you do? Do you return the twenty dollars to the man who drop it, even though he is far away at this point and might take some effort to catch up with? Do you take the twenty dollars and run in the 7-11 and quickly spend it? Or do you go for the middle of the road option and hand the money to the clerk behind the counter at 7-11, in case the man returns to try and find his missing money? This is the individual factor, what do you do when faced with an ethical decision as an individual.
Now we can take the same scenario and change it slightly. Now instead of standing in front of the 7-11 alone you are now with a group of friends. Say you all are standing out in front of the store having a few beers and now you and your friends see the gentleman drop the twenty dollar bill and keep walking. What do you do? What do your friends do? If your friends take the money and you don’t agree would you say something to them? Would you try and stop them?
Would you tell the person who lost the money who has it? At what point do your ethics change given your social surroundings? Would you make the same ethical decisions if instead of a bunch or your friends you were with co-workers? What if it was just you and your spouse? What if you were in the same situation but you were there with your children? This is the social factor.
The opportunity factor comes into play in that if the gentleman never drops the twenty dollar bill, you never have to make an ethical decision. Our code of ethics comes in under our social factor. Once the opportunity factor has been introduced, then even as an individual in a work place setting we have a code of ethics to guide us as a social factor.
These codes are created however just to be guidelines. After all “There is no way that all situations that involve ethical decision making an organization can be addressed in a code. Codes of ethics must be monitored continually to determine whether they are comprehensive and usable guidelines for making ethical business decisions."
When it comes to the actual decision process in the human responsibility part of socially responsible ethics there are many other factors that can be used to make ethical decisions.
For instance there are several areas that a manger could point an employee to outside a code of ethics to assist them with making an ethical decision. Some of them are:
- "The Golden Rule: Act in a way you would want others to act toward you.
The utilitarian principle: Act in a way that results in the greatest good for the greatest number.
- Kant's categorical imperative: Act in such a way that the action taken under the circumstances could be a universal law, or rule, of behavior.
The professional ethic: Take actions that would be viewed as proper by a disinterested panel of professional peers.
- The TV test: Always ask, "Would I feel comfortable explaining to a national TV audience why I took this action?"
- The legal test: Ask whether the proposed action or decision is legal. Established laws are generally considered minimum standards for ethics.
- The four-way test: Ask whether you can answer "yes" to the following questions as they relate to the decision: Is the decision truthful? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?"
All of these can help to guide an employee when the code of ethics is lacking or simply when the code does not cover all areas that an employee might run into. These factors come into what is needed to explain human responsibility part of socially responsible ethics.
Criticism of the doctrine of positive responsibility
Many, particularly libertarians, assert there is no "social responsibility" to do anything, but to refrain from doing. They argue that social responsibility only exists to the extent that an individual or business should not initiate physical force, threat of force, or fraud against another.
In his famous article The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits, Nobel economist Milton Friedman(Classical View/theory of Social Responsibility) asserts that businesses have no social responsibility other than to increase profits and refrain from engaging in deception and fraud. He maintains that when businesses seek to maximize profits, they almost always incidentally do what is good for society. Friedman does not argue that business should not help the community but that it may indeed be in the long-run self-interest of a business to "devote resources to providing amenities to [the] community..." in order to "generate goodwill" and thereby increase profits.
Another famous economist highly critical of this doctrine is R. Edward Freeman, author of a number of papers on stakeholder theory from an explicitly libertarian perspective.
Can a business be socially responsible?
This brings us to the next question in the search for the meaning of socially responsible ethics and what it means to business. Can a business be socially responsible? If it can be then criteria does it need to be to ensure that it is perceived in this manner? For each business it must be a different measure. After all, each business is trying to reach different goals.
However, there are four areas that should be measured not mater what the outcome that is needed. Those measurements are Economic function, Quality of life, Social investment and Problem solving. In economic function the goal that is trying to be achieved should be measured to see if it meets with the cost guidelines that the business is willing to contribute.
For instance if the business were to try to better the plant by reducing its carbon footprint; how would it go about doing this?
Would it begin by doing something major like installing water heaters throughout the building or re-doing the building insulation? Or would they begin in small ways that would be more cost effective like mandating that parking lots lights are turned off at a certain time? Or that office computers all be turned off at the end of the workday instead of being left on and simply logged out. In the quality of life measurement “should focus on whether the organization is improving or degrading the general quality of life in society”.
Does the business produce a tangible good? Is that tangible good anything that betters society and how people live? If the business produces a service, then does that service do anything to improve how people live? If the answer to those questions was no, then how could the good or service produced better society?
Social investment looks at what the business is doing for the community.
Does the business work with the community to fix outstanding issues and social problems? How much of an investment does it make? What issues are they addressing? To what depth are the problems that they are working to fix? Are they trying to fix major issues like drug addiction in impoverished areas or are they working on smaller issues like providing recreation activities for youth? Is the problem they are working on fixing a large social problem with far-reaching consequences? Or is the problem a localized one that is area specific?
Problem solving looks at to what extent the business will work to fix the problem.
Will the business simply contribute money to an organization working on the issue? Will they allow company employees to volunteer on company time to fix the problem? Will it pay others to fix the problem? Will is actually be in the trenches working on the issues? Will they company actually have a department working on the issue and nothing else?
See also
Corporate Social Responsibility
Impact maximization
Social enterprise
Social entrepreneurship
Socially responsible investing
Some groups of professionals have defined their own intrinsic social responsibilities. Here are some examples:
csr-news.net
Social Responsibility Summary
Physicians for Social Responsibility
interrupcion* - A community of organizations and individuals working together to promote social responsibility in all sectors of society.
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Business for Social Responsibility
Artists for Social Responsibility
American Engineers for Social Responsibility
Institute for Social Responsibility
National Association of Socially Responsible Organizations
International Business Leaders Forum - a not-for-profit organisation which promotes responsible business
World Forum : international meeting on diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace
Inclusive business
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