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INTRODUCTION:

Every new business set up is trying to find its steps in the competitive set and the new environment that it wants to be part of. Such a participation is in need of a plan that would 1^st align its ethical cause and justification with the rest of the competitive set and environment and 2^nd an overall reality check about the needs of the set. Social contribution is an important issue that especially for startups increases the sustainability factor and provides a future.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION:

The most important problem that a new business in the online world is facing is the one of finding sustainable and progressive ways to monetize itself. Similarly the project that we are currently deploying has as a major task to define the roots and sources of sustained monetization. Within the context of the online reading world (book purchasing, STM material, articles and opinions) there are many traditional (always in proportion to the existence of the internet) ways to access revenues and gain monetization. Though many of these ways are so profound and un-innovative (google ads, banners, etc.) that 1^st decline or tend to forget about any ethical consideration and 2^nd appear to refrain from any social consideration. The thought that inclusion of moral consideration and connectivity with the social and environmental context has been extrapolated in our minds as being powerful enough to show and highlight new monetization methods that would 1^st bring the online organization closer to its target audience, 2^nd develop innovative ways of sharing with those that want to be affected by the attempt, and 3^rd increase the sustainability capacity of the organization given the low historical data and experience of the online world. In short the problem consolidated to being able to discover, implement and engineer new online monetizing methods that are relevant to the business objective of the online reading tool and at the same time being able to take into consideration the aspects of moral development and the reality as it is specified by advancements in consideration of social and environmental issues. We believe that achieving that goal will enable us to understand the operational world of our online organization and at the same time it will enable us to bring new knowledge into the forefront that will be translated in an immediate way into monetizing innovation.

REVIEW ON THE LITERATURE:

The problem, as it surfaces inside the newly build organization, is a highly significant one and tries to consolidate knowledge so as to facilitate an innovative approach. For that reason during the process of reviewing the literature three stages of effective knowledge creation and transfer where identified. These are the acknowledgment of ethical effect in being responsible, how ethics develop and evolve and finally how stakeholder theory, TBL and holistic approach to CSR relates to developmental ethics so as to provide a solid narrative for the solution of the problem realized in during the problematizing process.

How ethics affect the notion of responsibility

The business and organizational life requires from its players (leaders, employees, shareholders) to steer the “boat” based on the so called values. These values can be individual or reflect the whole group that represents the company. Depending on the level that these values are expressed they tend to represent the responsibility of the “body” in question (Badaracco, 1992) these responsibilities determine at a certain point the organizational behavior towards staff and society. As Badaracco (1992) states the greater the sphere of responsibility the more distant it seems to be to those in charge to feel the need to influence their environment. On the other hand realizing that social reality is objective (Cunliffe, 2004) hence there is a certain difficulty to assess the ethical weight of acting as an organization, we are able to understand how and when relativity comes in to the equation. In general it is perceived that certain ethical aspects are universally true and others change depending on the cultural execution site but there is a kind of confusion arising by the “differential treatment” of some absolute truths (McDonald, 2010). The issue of bribery for example, although generally considered unethical, in some part of the world is silently accepted forming a situational relativity (McDonald, 2010). Relative right embodies a communal right that defines most managerial personnel. At the same time its relative extensions define leading persons (Badarraco, 1998) that is because of that relativity process, leaders have the capacity to extend responsibility and translate it as policy in the make. What is really interesting in this part of responsibility analysis is to understand how added knowledge is affecting ethical responsible considerations. As “empireia” (experience in Greek) is translated to extrapolated theory. Praxis and dialogue translates this theory in to knowledge (Eikeland, 2007). Interestingly enough the process is affecting morality as new knowledge accumulates into a broader responsibility spectrum.

How ethics develop

In order to understand applicability of ethics, apart from recognizing the extensions of organizational responsibility we need to understand how ethics evolve in order to realize and visualize the next steps in the development of monetization of the online organization and additionally to understand the trajectory of societal evolutions.

Gick (2003) describes that moral rules are developed in a specific process throughout the years. This process is similar but different depending on the cultural group in question. For example a small group develops the “deposited” morality through stimuli that are processed in an instinctive way. A larger group utilizes for the same process instincts, tradition and reasoning. The above process is more effective and offers more to morality development through a liberal politic taking out from the equation imposed governmental traditions (Hayek, 1989). The morality development is owing its variability, depending on place, and era, on the fact that experience formulating reasoning and tradition needs authenticity (Starr-Glass, 2011) applicability that is based on a structured sense-making process. Additionally the context in which morality evolution is judged is affecting the application of resources and stakeholders (Svensson & Wood, 2008) while ethical innovation (Schumacher & Wasieleski, 2013) is important for facilitating actual innovation. In general we can say that the mechanism of identifying new moral rules and ethical evolution is formulated through updating formal and informal triggers (Verhezen, 2010) that shape a widely accepted aesthetic perception through reasoning, popular wisdom (defined by tradition) and instinctual (even more aesthetical) appreciation. As the example is becoming solid through institutionalization of results (Schumacher & Wasieleski, 2013) the process is defining the innovative approach on ethical depended business issues in a natural way.

How stakeholder theory, TBL and holistic approach to CSR relates to developmental ethics, ESG

The issue of connecting society with business has been around for quite some time now. Every business action in one way or another is affecting the society and the environment. After having analyzed the issue of responsibility and moral evolution, it is important to analyze the various effects business actions have. In most of business to society relationships there is a certain friction unlike the limited frictionless sharing described by Payne (2014). This everyday friction has, ethical wise and ethical evolution wise, been asking for a certain “kickback” from the side of society (feeling responsible, stimuli (make good in what was badly done by own actions), aesthetical judgment, appreciation, adaptation). This “kickback” was 1stly analyzed under the stakeholder theory. Under this concept organizations, in order to identify their societal and broader impact need to perform a stakeholder analysis and synthesis (Goodpaster, 1991). Parmar et.al. (2010) state that this theory is mainly concerned with distributing the financial output and that all stakeholders should be treated equally. Since though within the stakeholder analysis process there is little evidence that the environmental aspects are addressed, as a sequence there was an enhancement of CSR in the direction of addressing the so called Triple Bottom Line result. This environmental interest approach determined that profits, people and planet have to be viewed through a separate bottom line result so as 1^st to enhance focus in the otherwise none observed actions for the development of local or wider society and the environment (Dhiman, 2008) in order to enhance connectivity between profitability and sustainability. Although the concept is difficult to follow measure and make real sense to financial stakeholders since for example there is no real rewarding of it in the bond market (Menz, 2010), there have been some developments in measurement through adaptive concepts (Hadders, 2009) that involve the application of scorecards. In a wider understanding of CSR aspects some, like Galbreath (2008) are proposing a holistic approach that builds in CSR into the strategy of the organization and treats all touch points and stakeholders as part of a company mission.

The issue of adopting new monetizing methods in the execution of the reading online startup is critical to the success of the project. Within the literature review we witnessed the role of ethics in regards to developing a responsible process, being able to adapt as ethics evolve and change our businesses and the social environment and finally seeing the big picture of sustainability through TBL adaptation and implementation. Being able to assess responsibility the legal part is covered (Niederhauer, 2012) & (Murphy & Coombes, 2009) while evolving ethics allow business to play a role in policy making (Carter, 2008). In this part the monetizing process, benefiting from the above, must 1stly be responsible towards customers and writers proofing transparency and 2ndly to embody characteristics that transfer knowledge and experiences from other business areas. The evolutionary aspect would be covered by extrapolating the initial plan to the future applying the ethical changes that are considered as being a subject of change. For example a monetizing process that appeals in a market the straight image of customers maybe adopting to market changes and embodying the gay aspect (Brosnan, 2011), or in terms of social development a process that supports the reading material of an educational level may in fact need to build as a next step the educational environment. In the area of CSR, TBL and their holistic embodiment in the organizational strategy the plan could be focused in providing a monetizing process that is developing value (Porter & Kramer, 2006) and a profit sharing program across the stakeholder value chain (Porter & Kramer, 2011). Acting in favor of holistically embodiment of strategy we plan to evolve the monetizing process across the relevant CSR touch points as part of the business model of the organization serving its innovative approach (Byerly, 2014).

THE PLAN

In order to apply the findings to the monetizing problematisation we plan to apply (or have already applied) the steps mentioned bellow.

The 1^st step that is already applied is the analysis of the relevant touch points of our organization. The findings showed that employees, customers, writers that were direct depositors, publishers, organizations that shared a similar marketing view and the respective social and planetary environment were the touch points.

The 2^nd step, was to identify new and evolving monetizing methods (at least 4) that would realize the touch points identified above in real relationships.

The 3^rd step is to identify value creation of the relationships and translate this value creation to real profit sharing and result sharing.

The 4^th step is to develop further the results of step 3 and produce an evolving narrative in a 5 year depth. This 5 year depth development process will be based in realizing and constructing positive results in all three bottom lines as these were acknowledged by Dhiman (2008). This project as it is an enhancement of the steps nr. 2 & nr. 3, include some characteristics and information that are not to be disclosed at the moment. The only think that it can currently be said is that we are working (putting in place the 2^nd generation of the ethical evolution issue) in what was identified as results and profit sharing across the value chain embodying experiences and knowledge discovered.

In the plan described above, we have realized so far steps 1 & 2. In the 1^st step it was identified that we needed to facilitate relationships between the organization and customers (readers), the publishers and individual writers that have selected as a 1^st and unique input our online application in order to reach their audience and the targeted organizations that would or potentially should market their products in conjunction and association with the publishers and writers in question. Additionally we analyzed the need of empowering arguments of our customer base (van Werven et.al, 2015) in order enhance the monetizing process. In step 2 we have identified the 1^st generation of monetizing methods that respect the relationships identified above, provide a first attempt to majority and policy making on CSR activities (Morsing & Roepstorff, 2015) while at the same time facilitate the fairness game through a bargaining approach (Binmore, 2014) with social stakeholders. The results so far have been quite encouraging and we plan to move on to the next and more crucial applications of CSR and result sharing embodiment into the strategy.

The problem identified regarding the innovative monetizing of the online application that we are building has so far being identified on a solid literature base that proposes ways to address the issue while at the same time treat the acquired knowledge as a matter of evolving ethics which are deployed to the stakeholders internally and similarly to those externally. The external actions and the monetizing process design are set to follow a corporate social responsibility view that will eventually capitalize the respect acknowledged in the ethical development process and facilitate the organizational relationship towards society and the environment. As a final step and in order to apply the holistic approach to strategy a profit sharing aspect will be highlighted.

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