Unit V Schorl Act BE

BBA 4751, Business Ethics 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Relate ethical behavior in high-profile events.

3. Examine regulatory and sustainability market approaches to business’s environmental responsibilities.

Reading Assignment

In order to access the following resource(s), click the link(s) below:

Matejek, S., & Gossling, T. (2014). Beyond legitimacy: A case study in BP’s “green lashing.” Journal of Business Ethics, 120(4), 571-584. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libraryresources.c olumbiasouthern.edu/docview/1513729827?accountid=33337

Roberts, P. S. (2006). FEMA after Katrina. Policy Review, (137), 15-33. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=21254699&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Chapter five: Lessons learned. (2005, September 15). In The federal response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons learned. Retrieved from http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons- learned/chapter5.html

Peters, J. W. (2010, June 10). Efforts in Gulf of Mexico to limit flow of news about the spill. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?auth=CAS&url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i. do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=oran95108&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA228471542&it=r&asid=c9f34b728871e cc3f98708adb413b757

Unit Lesson

Click here to access an introduction video.

Click here to access the introduction video transcript.

UNIT V STUDY GUIDE Ethical Actions in Times of Business Issues Surrounding Certain Tragic Events

BBA 4751, Business Ethics 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title

Click here to access a video that briefly introduces topics in this unit.

Click here to access the video transcript.

Henry Potter is a slum lord banker in the famous seasonal movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Potter is the richest man in town, yet he charges extortionate rents. The greedy banker is motivated only by increasing his share of the banking and residential rental business in town at every opportunity. He is a majority shareholder in hero George Bailey’s Bailey Building & Loan and tries to take advantage of the residents when there is a bank run on Bailey’s Loan by offering the shareholders $0.50 on the dollar for their outstanding shares. Potter is unscrupulous, and at one point, he mistakenly receives $8,000 from Bailey’s uncle who had wrapped it in a newspaper, which he later threw at Potter in anger. Potter steals the money, and when Bailey realizes it is missing, he (on behalf of his uncle) must get a loan to cover the missing money. He ironically goes to Potter, who unethically grants him a loan on the money Potter actually stole. Potter later threatens to use the force of law to imprison Bailey on a technicality of nonpayment of the loan. Potter seemingly adheres to all of the technical legal banking requirements, while taking advantage (or trying to) of the residents in Bedford Falls without regard to the ethical nature of his decisions; he is self-interested, greedy, uncaring, dishonest, disloyal, and unscrupulous.

Like Potter, some companies operate (technically) legally, yet they are unethical. Companies perform their obligations to the minimum standard required when much more is required in the situation. To paraphrase former U.S. Chief Justice Stewart, it can be said that ethics are about knowing the difference between what your rights are and what the right thing to do is (Collins, 2014). This will be the central inquiry of this unit. In one company we will study, they are alleged to have taken actions that supposedly discharge their ethical and legal obligations solely for the purpose of enhancing their reputation. If you act ethically but for the wrong reasons, is it still ethical? On the other hand, some organizations say they are “doing the best they can” in a given circumstance, yet their incompetence causes them to behave unethically, though no harm was intended. In this unit, we will delve into three case studies through the lens of ethical philosophy and decision- making by leaders. We will study the BP Oil Spill, the recent Japanese nuclear reactor meltdown, and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, respectively.

In the British Petroleum (BP) Oil Spill, on April 20, 2010, a wellhead on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coastline. It was the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The extent of the actual oil spill is currently unknown partly because BP prevented the requests of independent scientists to measure the spill on the ocean floor given that BP stated the flow rate of the oil was irrelevant to the response effort and might even hinder it. How would knowing the flow rate actually hinder the response efforts to mitigate the damage? Would authorities not need to know how big the disaster was in order to effectively clean it up? Media was largely excluded from the site by President Obama and BP; therefore, relevant and accurate information was not disseminated.

BP was obligated to clean-up the spill, but U.S. legal protections for wildlife in the Gulf are nearly nonexistent. Do we have ethical responsibilities to the wildlife that surrounds us? There was no penalty to BP for killing thousands of animals and negatively affecting the food chain in far-reaching areas. Technically, BP remediated the damage to the environment, but should it have done more given the extreme harm it caused though no legal violation occurred? Were its actions ethical to those nearby residents and the wildlife at large?

Furthermore, many argue there was a deep divide between BP’s actual operations and what it was communicating to the public and market about its corporate responsibility in the Gulf. In the aftermath of the spill, BP spent large amounts of money in rebranding itself as a “green” company, though its “green” efforts were lackluster and may have only represented minimum efforts on behalf of wildlife. In this unit, we will look closely at BP’s responsive actions substantively, as well as its “greenwashing” after the fact and address its legal and ethical obligations, on what basis they rested, and whether they were discharged.

BBA 4751, Business Ethics 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title

In the context of the nuclear power plant meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, the emergency was set into motion when an earthquake and resulting tsunami hit the surrounding area. The meltdown at Daiichi was as large as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster that released 100,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and a radioactive plume all over the world. In the context of producing nuclear energy as a sustainable alternative source to fossil fuels, we will focus on the theory of utilitarianism and whether this paradigm is applied, whether the nuclear energy program maximizes well-being to most people, and whether there are alternatives to accomplish the same end. We will focus on the impact of local residents and their ethical treatment, regulations, and violations, as well as whether key information was disseminated. In the analysis, we will evaluate other sources of energy, both their benefits and costs, and compare them to nuclear energy production. Some argue nuclear energy is “green” because it obviates the need to use fossil fuels, does not emit pollutants, and is generally safe. Others counter that it produces radioactive byproducts that contaminate the environment upon disposal for thousands of years. How does one decide which types of energy are ethically produced and on what basis? Might it be the process or the end result, or is it what it prevents?

Last, we will look at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) emergency response to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the New Orleans area in 2006. In this context, we will look at whether incompetency or inefficiency can be and was the cause of FEMA’s disastrous response to the situation and decide whether incompetency rather than intent can form the basis of unethical action based on the concepts we have already covered. We will study an organization mired in bureaucracy, significantly under-funded and divided, under-staffed, primarily responsible for a situation in which it had little ability to access and communicate information about the unfolding tragedy and allocate its emergency services. Is it enough that FEMA did “the best with what they had,” or was this tragedy foreseeable, and thus they were obligated to be better organized, trained, staffed, and funded in order to ethically discharge their duties? In this case, FEMA did a few things well, but on the whole, its efforts fell short, and there were failures; too little came too late for the residents.

Whether companies are doing what they have a right to do or are really doing the right thing, in the context of these disasters, is central to how we view ethical decision-making and leadership on a grander scale. Intent matters; however, we shall see that the lack of it can also form the basis of unethical action.

Reference

Collins, M. A. (2014). Supreme justice. Seattle, WA: Thomas and Mercer.