...American Business Ethics a Modern Day Oxymoron The dictionary defines an oxymoron as a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Examples of this are dark light or living dead. This term is related with business because although most companies have a small book outlining ethics and guidelines that should be followed on a daily basis, many of them do not fully comply. The oxymoron “American Business Ethics” contradicts American Business with Ethics. The ethics of many American companies are not law but should be treated as such however these regulations are rarely followed and sometimes not followed at all. The risks that companies have been taking to increase profits and put more money into the CEO’s pockets use illegal actions. In recent times, companies such as Enron, Wal-Mart and BP have been guilty of multiple charges against ethical principles which have led to bankruptcies, housing market crashes and environmental disasters. The most famous case related to Enron and their aggressive accounting practices of reporting losses as profits to keep the stock price high. This act ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the company. Enron was founded in Omaha, Nebraska by Kenneth Lay in 1985. It was an American energy, commodities and services company based in Houston, Texas. Enron was once viewed as one of the best companies in America during its initial years of operation. Fortune magazine named Enron “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years...
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...Cross-Cultural Perspectives ETH 316 BP is a global organization that has a multinational presence in the world. A cultural issue that can impact this organization outside of the United States is gender. In the United States and several other countries that BP works in, gender is not an issue as culturally it is acceptable for men and women to be in business together, but in some countries, especially in the Middle East this is tricky cultural difficulty. This can be a serious issue because women should be able to be equals in a corporation, but at the same time, BP has to be able to not offend someone that they are trying to do business with because they are culturally uncomfortable with women in business. This is a delicate balancing act between ethics, social responsibility and cultural awareness for the company. Legally and ethically a woman should be able to perform all the same tasks as a male counterpart, but it may be in the best interests of the company to respect the cultural differences that can occur in doing business in other countries. There are several ethical perspectives at BP when it comes to dealing with culture and gender. Consequence ethics and principle-based ethics can both be at play in this situation. Consequence ethics in that there can be consequences from both making business partners uncomfortable and in choosing a man over a woman for business dealings because of cultural differences. Principle-based ethics looks at this situation in that...
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...Ethical Issues Affecting Bp Operations Management Essay For a company to become a good corporate citizen it must follow the rules put in place by the government to where the company's operations activities are taking place, this also include protecting the environment and local people in the community from any harm from noise or water or air pollution. This report will explore more about the responsibilities BP have for making moral judgement and how their employees are involved and empowered. Also will have information on ethical issues affecting their operational activities and how do they ensure good relationship of employer and employee. Ending part there will be a summary about ethical code for oil industry. INTRODUCTION Considering ethics, a corporations' responsibility for taking actions that are morally sound needs to change. Reviewing the role of the individual, corporations are being subjected to the role of moral agent. The question is, can a corporation, composed of people, be held responsible for its own action as a moral agent? The answer is complexed from an individual's viewpoint with that of the corporation. Werhane (1989:821) viewed that corporation by law is identified as a person that is frequently held responsible for business practises. However, Werhane continues, if firms are not moral agents, they do not become morally liable and thus the onus is passed onto the individual person. [1] This becomes complicated because how can individuals become solely...
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...There was a vast number of ethical issues raised in the movie “Enron-the Smartest Guys in the Room” but the four I am going to focus on are listed below. Art Anderson, Ken Lay and all of the other executives did a number of unethical things which ultimately brought down Enron and affected thousands of employees and their futures. The bottom line was that each and every one of them acted out of greed for the almighty dollar. 1- Encouraging employees to invest and buy stock in Enron when they knew the truth about the lack of value in the stock. As an employee you trust in your management to make the best choices both for you and for the business to succeed. Ken Lay and other executives strongly encouraged Enron employees to invest in it’s stock. They all knew that the company was not doing well and yet they encouraged others to spend their hard earned money investing in it all the while they are selling their shares of stock. Employees trusted and relied on their decisions and in the end it ended up hurting them. With Ken Lay publicly encouraging its employees and other investors to invest in Enron’s stock he is affecting their future and retirement. These employees didn’t earn nearly as much as he did and he is convincing them to invest their money into an entity that was set to fail by Lay himself. I don’t believe any proper ethical alternative action could have been taken in this situation. Of course you want your employees to have faith in the company they work for...
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...What is Business Ethics? Business ethics can be interpreted many ways but taken at the most fundamental level simply means knowing the difference between right and wrong and doing what is right. When we examine business ethics we must consider the actions of the people within the organization as well as the complete organization. It is important for the leaders of the businesses to have a grasp of right and wrong and to understand the effects that their products and services have on the consumer as well as the environment. Business ethics has come under scrutiny over the past several years thanks to such companies as Enron, and more recently BP. As a society we are faced with ethical dilemmas daily and our culture is shaped by how we handle these situations. A Code of Ethics policy is used in most businesses today to establish acceptable behaviors and actions expected among the employees and executive officers. The Code of Ethics is fundamental in building a stable business foundation with all members being expected to comply. It is here that the problems start because even though the Code of Ethics should guide the members toward appropriate moral activity, it is not always successful. When moral and ethical behaviors go bad it affects us all. The top three ethical issues within today’s business environment that affect my community and my organization are corporate social responsibility, leadership issues, and financial issues. The first ethical issue to affect us...
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...Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico | | | | | 9/15/2010 | | ------------------------------------------------- Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 1: Introduction The explosion on the Deepwater Horizontal rig on 20 April 2010 led to a serious consequence. A large area of oil spill spread through the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, this accident killed 11 people. (BP Global, 2010) Generally speaking, BP on the surface achieve the highest level of CSR, the discretionary responsibility which is the highest level in the pyramid of CSR. It includes economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic (discretionary) responsibilities (From bottom to the top) (Carroll, 1999, as cited by Lindgreen, et al, 2009). However, comments from the public and the US government appear to be unsatisfactory to the action taken by BP in this case. This essay will analysis the social responsibility demonstrated by BP by first looking at three journal articles from 2000 to 2010 written by Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007); Shen and Chang (2009); and Udayasankar (2008), to further elaborate the insights in the articles and the academic theories into the application of the oil spill case in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 2: Corporate Social Responsibility Article one Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007) examine in...
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...CHAPTER 1 ETHIC EXPECTATIONS Learning Objectives 2 Understand the basic concepts in ethics, business ethics, governance Understand the relationship between ethics and reputation What constitutes good ethics and good governance? Why are good ethics and good governance important? 3 Changes of ethics trends have brought to the expectation framework Public Expectation （公众的期望） 4 There has been an increasing expectations that business exists to serve the needs of both shareholders and society. Stakeholders’ support are ultimate to the success of businesses or professions to achieve their long-run strategic objectives. A Stakeholder（利益相关者） is: 5 a person, group, organization, member or system who affects or can be affected by an organization's actions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder) MAP OF CORPORATE STAKEHOLDER ACCOUNTABILITY Shareholders Activists Employees Governments Corporation Customers Creditors Lenders Suppliers Others, including the media, who can be affected by or who can affect the achievement of the corporation’s objectives 6 Figure 1.1 Support of Stakeholders 7 Stakeholders’ support depends on the credibility(可靠 性， 可信性） that stakeholders place in corporate commitments, the corporate’s reputations and the strength of its competitive advantages. How do you get the support from stakeholders? Support of Stakeholders 8 A company’s activities should respect...
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...net/blog/defining-stakeholders, n.d.), some of the key characteristics of a stakeholder is a) a person who stands to gain or lose through the success or failure of the project, a ROI b) provides funding for the project c) has invested resources in the project, d) is affected by the outputs of the project, e) is in the “chain of accountability”. The stakeholders within the PharmaCARE scenario would be the CEO, PharmaCARE’s executives and its Shareholders/stockholders of the company. Analyze the human rights issues presented by PharmaCARE’s treatment of the Colberia’s indigenous population versus that of its executives. Recommend at least three (3) changes PharmaCARE can make to be more ethical going forward. Corporations are expanding their business enterprise to less regulated poorer countries where they can violate human rights with the cooperation of that countries government, and make the officials rich. The corporations are setting up businesses in other countries where the indigenous people of that area are poor, often living in less than standard conditions and working for huge corporations such as PharmaCARE. In these countries, big corporations will have little to no resistance from the indigenous people. By moving the corporations to developing countries they can employ workers for less than minimum wage, and were workers’ rights are non existent, also they can avoid paying the high cost of U.S. taxes. (Shah, 2002) When analyzing the human rights issues presented by...
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...Business Ethics, Common Practice of Standards: The Reality of Its Non Existence in Corporate America Although not commonplace, the standards of companies should reflect the diversity of today’s society. In addition, standards are not being strongly adhered to by the various levels of management within these companies. Infractions repeatedly occur without stiff and appropriate consequences. More severe repercussions would result in greater compliance from businesses. Exploring Ethics and the Role Standards Play in Business Situational adherence to appropriate ethical decisions is a practice common to the business world. Some companies will decide they are compelled to do what is morally correct and other companies will not. Dual standards may exist as far as fair treatment of employees and excellent customer service. Most companies perform well in this public area. The operational standards which are not publicly displayed are often times disregarded. Both points of view will be discussed and evaluated. Culture should be considered in forming a company’s standards. Staff and customers are diverse and the standards should reflect the same. Ethics are not based on moral right or wrong alone, but are inclusive of respect of an individual’s beliefs and life style choices and should be an important part of any business’ operational goals (Des Jardine 2011, p. 37). Federal, State and local regulations are in place to protect the public...
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...company with a focus on finding energy sources to meet the needs of people everywhere. BP, like its many competitors, operates within the bounds of the four functions of management; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Management within the BP also has to deal with different business landscapes to make sure their company stays competitive. These landscapes would be globalization, technology, innovation, diversity, and ethics. BP has internal factors that can be corrected within these categories that can lead to its success; however they also come with external factors that the company has little control over. However not a rule, an organization is can have a factor that affects both the internal and external factors that affect the four functions of management. Globalization is described as “allowing a company to maximize its profits by trying to become the best in the world (Bateman, 2011).” British Petroleum saw the advantage in globalizing because of the world demand for natural resources. This was an internal factor that leads to the globalization of the company. One of the internal factors that helped BP in its globalization efforts was the company becoming public in 1995. This allowed it to become 12th largest producer of crude oil, fifth largest refiner, and Brittan’s largest company (British Petroleum a Global Company in a Global World, 2003). Globalization has allowed BP to provide goods and services in locations of the world that would not have access to...
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...BP has a long history of successes, failures, profitable decisions, and poor choices. According to the Market Strategies text, “BP’s environmental, legal and ethical transgression demonstrate that the company has a history of disregarding the well-being of stakeholders” (Ferrell, 2011). For example: The gulf oil spills was definitely the worst disaster in the history of the oil industry. However, BP did not respond to this disaster as to reflect an ethical, environmentally and socially responsible company. According to the BP Operations Manager, Fred Leman, two years ago BP made a commitment to the people of the Gulf and “every day since BP has worked hard to keep that commitment. BP paid over $23 billion dollars to people and business that were affected (by the spills) and to cover the clean-up cost. BP has shared what they have learned with government and across the industry so they can all learn how to produce energy more safely” (www.bp.com, 2012). In the public relations campaigns, statements, BP website, and printed materials, they have made a conscious effort to communicate that BP has taken responsibility regarding the consequences of the disasters. Over the years, BP has realized that making ethical decisions, being environmentally sustainable and responsible is not only good business practice but also profitable. The investment in research, code of ethics, communication/public in efforts to repairs its reputation is definitely steps in the right directions...
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...The Problem with Business Thesis: In many businesses today ethical decisions take a backseat to profit, I believe businesses should follow a set of ethical standards and not focus solely on profit for four reasons: (1) to have respect for human dignity, (2) private lives and business lives cannot be separated, (3) ethical decisions can lead to more profit, and (4) unethical decisions can lead to serious consequences for the people executing them. There are many decisions a business must make on a day-to-day basis. Many of these decisions will affect not only the business itself, but also every stakeholder in that business. Many times business will not take into account the number of people being affected. Businesses should not be so vital that they do not need to follow a set of ethical standards. Profit can be seen as the universal motivator for the majority of businesses today and focusing solely on profit can cause a business to lose its ethical standards. The loss of these standards can cause a trail of destruction caused by a business and cause it to lose a great amount of respect. There are countless examples of destruction caused by businesses like the BP oil spill or IBM supplying technology to Nazi Germany. There are four main reasons why ethical standards for businesses should be instilled. These are (1) to have respect for human dignity, (2) private lives and business lives cannot be separated, (3) ethical decisions can lead to more profit, and (4) unethical decisions...
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...Challenges in the Global Business Environment Bus 457 11/25/2014 Chevron Chevron, one of the oldest energy companies in United States, was first founded as Pacific Coast Oil Company in 1879 and was named as Chevron Corporation in 1984. Several companies were established after Standard Oil’s split during 1980s’ and Chevron Corporation was among those big energy corporations who merged with those companies. The company is publicly traded on NYSE, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. Chevron is involved in petroleum and natural gas industry. It does almost anything related to the industry from exploring to generating power. With over 60,000 employees Chevron operates business in 84 countries; Angola, Australia, Gulf of Mexico, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and United States are regions where the cooperation mainly operates primary exploration and production. Other than oil and natural gas, Chevron is engaged to biofuel, geothermal, hydrogen, solar and wind energy production. According to the official website for businesses Chevron offers following goods and services: * Additives * Aviation Oils * Base Oils * Chemicals * Fuels * Lubricants * Marine * MSDS * Specialty Products * Technology And for consumers it offers goods and services listed below: * Fuels and Stations * Gift and Credit Cards * Pay Bill * Motor Oils and Fuel Additives Code of Ethical Conduct Chevron relies...
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...Almost everything around us is a business. Everything from the car dealership to the car repair shop to the gas stations are all businesses that we rely on to accommodate our busy lifestyles. When these places of business do business with each other and with customers there is a code of ethics used so that everyone can speak the same language. Business ethics are those behaviors that businesses adhere to while serving many customers they help each day. Business ethics are diverse and vary from business to business. There can be different business ethics from a business to a business and different ethics between a business and a customer. In all of these different methods of daily transactions there is a particular topic that can make or break the bottom line of a business; ethical behavior. Because of this, businesses are very careful to make sure that they keep their name clean and take care of any risky problems that may sabotage their name. Even though there is such a strong effort to seem legitimate and honest to the customers, issues arise that a company must face even if it means destroying a bit of their reputation. One such example is the British Petroleum (BP) taking the heat for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though this is a catastrophe not only wasting tens of thousands of gallons of oil and millions of dollars, the environment is also under attack from the spill. The surrounding wildlife and ecosystems are now endangered of their existence...
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... In this paper we will be comparing and contrasting ethical perspectives on business ethics of Milton Friedman, Patrick Murphy, and Peter Drucker. Their methods are drastically different, but the goal is to explain and better understand “business ethics” in today’s world. Milton Friedman “A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but ‘business’ as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense.” (Friedman, 1970). M. Friedman believes that only the individual has social responsibilities. Business as an artificial entity cannot have “social conscience” and think of ethics before its interests or profits. According to Friedman, the primary responsibility of a businessman is to make happy the business owner with profits, and the primary task for the business owner is to make sure there are enough profits to: a. Sustain the business b. Have a stable growth c. Have the ability and means to compete on the market d. Keep happy the parties involved: customers, stockholders and investors. (Friedman, 1970). Furthermore, Friedman discusses the relationship between “social responsibilities of a business” and “socialism” and stresses the idea that if a business or a large corporation is forced to perform its “social responsibility”, example donate a large amount of money to social programs or local schools, business acts irresponsibly towards its: a. Customers, because the cost of its “social...
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