Terry Gross interviewed Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, on her show yesterday and he had what I thought was a great quote about morality. "People have great morality when they are observing other people." If you are making the decision you probably have a reason for thinking it is the right one and it will be hard to see that it was the wrong one. You will believe that you are justified in your actions. I think if you are a well paid executive at a company and you know your job is to increase shareholder value then it may be difficult to see what may be good for society if it is ultimately bad for business.
I went to school for finance and in my experience the social good of business decisions is rarely considered. What is considered is: Will this make a profit? Are we working within the law? I am fairly certain that, at least on Wall Street, businesses would totally run amok without regulation.