There are two factories and an explosion at each of them: both result in the same cost in damages and casualties, but one was caused by a bolt of lightning and the other by a corroded pipe and a smoking employee. One is considered as an act of God and the other is negligence. After these events occur the only difference is who is responsible and thus who will pay the bill. In the end, responsible actions should have been taken in both cases because when lives and money put in the hands of others, ethical steps should be taken to protect these assets.
To be ethical requires three things: knowledge of the situation, knowing what issues are important, and brainstorming alternatives (DesJardins, 2011). To be responsible is to be the one who is in charge of this process. Certainly, in the case of the two explosions, more blame is initially placed on the employee and the corroded pipe. The employee is the one who could be blamed, because it is his actions that caused the explosion directly, yet the owner of the factory is also at fault for allowing the pipe to go unmaintained. This situation, in our culture, is shocking because actions are frequently taken by other companies to protect their employees. Safety inspections are so common that obvious maintenance issues should not be the cause of death. On the other hand the factory that was stuck by lightning is also at blame. Lightning storms are a common occurrence, and based on location a statistic should have been made of the likeliness to a building being stuck by lightning. The situation could have been avoided with a simple lightning rod, but because people did not create lightning or control it, there is seemingly nobody at fault.
Responsibility is “what is proper to do and not d...
... middle of paper ...
...al for the company to protect the bond that they have created.
There is ambiguity in ethics. Knowing when ethical responsibility should be taken and when it should not, can be a difficult task, but an ethical decision can boil down to the number of people who have been affected. In the case of an explosion on company property, the decision is easy, if the business’s priorities are to keep good social relations and future profits. Regardless of the location or type of incident, all businesses should be aware and prepared for disasters before they occur.
Works Cited
DesJardins, J. (2011). An introduction to business ethics. (4th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Reich, R. B. (2007). Supercapitalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Shadnam, M. (2011). Understanding widespread misconduct in organizations: an institutional theory of moral collapse. Business Ethics Quarterly.
Below I will be analyzing the Responsibility for Accident case to find out the answer about the inquiry of who is responsible for a work accident – the employee or the company? First of all, I am going to look at every fact and different points of view of the case. I will also going to analyze the employee’s complains about the unsafe workplace. On the other hand, I will analyze what is the foreman’s defense to demonstrate that the employee is responsible for the accident and not the company.
It is obvious that executives and managers at both British Petroleum and Transocean have changed the civil right statement “by any means necessary” to reflect their desire to make profits. The unethical behavior that has been engrained within both business cultures calls in the question the ethics of all powerful oil based companies. Leaders must be attentive and adhere to all safety and maintenance concerns. The damage and loss that was incurred could have been avoided if executives would have made more logical and ethically based decisions. Leaders should be able to recognize their psychological tendencies and correct them when making ethical decisions for their businesses. Through striving to make ethical decisions, organizations can set the tone for company morale and success.
The case study of Jacob Franklin, aged 25, offers an analysis of how unethical decisions can damage a company and the repercussions that these decisions cause. Jacob was aware of the unethical situations happening around him, but he was new and unexperienced to the business and it seems that at some point, his hands were tight and he did not have much control to change them. On the other hand, he had plenty of opportunities to make ethical decisions.
Are businesses in corporate America making it harder for the American public to trust them with all the recent scandals going on? Corruptions are everywhere and especially in businesses, but are these legal or are they ethical problems corporate America has? Bruce Frohnen, Leo Clarke, and Jeffrey L. Seglin believe it may just be a little bit of both. Frohnen and Clarke represent their belief that the scandals in corporate America are ethical problems. On the other hand, Jeffrey L. Seglin argues that the problems in American businesses are a combination of ethical and legal problems. The ideas of ethical problems in corporate America are illustrated differently in both Frohnen and Clarke’s essay and Seglin’s essay.
BP was founded in 1908 under the name Anglo-Persian Oil Company. They changed their name to British Petroleum in 1954 and merged with Amoco in 1998. (BP Public Website, 2010) “The Texas City Refinery is BP’s largest and most complex oil refinery... It was owned and operated by Amoco prior to the merger of BP and Amoco.” (Michael P. Broadribb, 2006) Throughout their history, there have been a number of accidents that have been caused by negligence and disregard of safety precautions. Unfortunately many lives have been cut short or seriously injured as a result. My research will focus on the 2005 Texas City Oil Refinery Explosion. I will attempt to look into the ethical implications that surrounded this disaster before and after the event and suggest what BP could have done to prevent the incident then and in the future.
In 2007, famed psychologist Howard Gardner was interviewed by Fryer (2007) to discuss this topic in detail. As is common knowledge, to say that trust between corporations and the public is feigning would be an understatement with unethical behaviors being perceived as the status quo thanks to the calamity of scandal plaguing Corporate America. Howard Gardner feels that with the pressure for employees and management to succeed at all costs in today’s ultra-competitive market-place, it can be easy to lose one’s way if they do not hold what he calls the ethical mind, helping people to make morally sound choices especially in work involving entities, colleagues and society as a whole (Fryer, 2007). This also serves as the author’s definition of ethics: To make morally sound choices regardless of influence of pressures or consequence even at the risk of forced resignation or involuntary termination (Fryer,
Where the articles differ is how these play into ethics in an organization. The Organizational Determinants of Ethical Dysfunctionality article points to the vertical hierarchy as the main driver for unethical behavior. The larger the workplace and the further ethic safety nets are from the wrong doers offers opportunity for unethical behavior. Also, the more dysfunctional the organization, the more prevelant the unethical behavior within the organization. Additionally, the article suggests that unethical behavior has a contagion factor as well, spreading to other organizations within the same geographic area. This article differs for the Virtuous Persons and Virtuous Actions as the structure of the organization and not the individual is the true culprit of ethical choices. The Virtuous Persons and Virtuous Actions article takes a more philosophical approach to ethics pointing to the individual and his or her virtues (gratitude for
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
The ethical dilemma I will discuss is one that affected me, my relationship with my colleagues, my customers, and my employer. This dilemma was not easy to resolve because of the number of lives that were affected. ...
The problem that was investigated consisted of a question that Milton Friedman posed in one of his articles, which was featured in The New York Times Magazine in 1970. The question was, “What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities” (Friedman, 2007, p. 173)? Friedman (1970) elaborated on how businesses cannot have assigned responsibilities. Furthermore, he described how groups or individuals should be the only ones that can hold responsibilities, not businesses. He stated that associating responsibilities with the word business is too ambiguous. I will examine three discussion questions and three compare and contrast questions which Jennings (2009) posed in a case study that is related to Friedman’s (1970) article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.
According to the theory of diffusion of responsibility, every person in an organization shares the moral accountability of a company’s actions. However, it therefore follows that no singular individual can hold moral responsibility (Shaw, 205). With knowledge of the Milgram Experiment, that those in a lower chain of command are prone to obeying the command of-higher ups, corporate executives can exploit their employees, who are free from moral responsibility and do not have to think twice before carrying out unethical
In this level, societal, organizational, and industry culture determine the decision-making process. The societal values shape the manner in which ethical decisions are made at both the organization and individual levels. On the other hand, the industry culture defines the ethical patterns of a particular organization. Though a company may be operating independently, the interactions within the industry set a pattern of certain behaviors that affects the individual and corporation ethics. For instance, intense competition may push an organization into making a morally wrong decision to heighten revenues and stay competitive. Organizational culture also shapes the ethical atmosphere of the company. Dissolution can also be caused by contextual factors. The situation affects; whether the individual or group realizes the component of the decision; the decision itself; and whether the group or individual carries out the unethical action (Jackson,
NET failed to recognize or react to either situation. It is imperative to understand that NET was liable for its employees but the employees, as individuals were also liable for their actions. NET lacked the system controls necessary to keep the company liability to a minimum on this issue. Usually with failures such as these, the system internal controls are this company is lacking the most. Ethical behavior among management is key to ethical behavior among employees.
In the aftermath of Enron, Washington Mutual Bank, TYCO, and World Comm these companies went against the grain of what good ethical behavior is and what their respective company’s code of ethics were. The criminal justice system has made it clear that it will not allow companies and their executives to get away with the misuse of public trust by allowing them to make themselves rich at the expense of the employee. Where these crimes are both ethically and morally wrong, the CEO’s of major corporations are being punished by a ...
1. This report seeks to prepare an explanation of what is meant by responsible business. It will be focused on a responsible business topic and also the nature and the importance of it will be discussed as well. The first responsibility of a business is how to gain and increase its profits. This is essential for a business in order to be healthy. So this report will show and explain what a Responsible Business is really in nowadays and how they operate under some circumstances. Then will follow an explanation and evaluation of the role of the government as an influence on responsible business behaviour. After that it continues with a review and evaluation of influences of ethical businesses approaching to responsible business.