Business Ethics an Ethical Issue Refers to Essay

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Business Ethics

An ethical issue refers to a situation whereby an organization is required to choose amongst alternatives that must be evaluated as either wrong or right. For example, an ethical issue arises when a business company opts to make as much profit while pollution the environment, the dilemma here being the regulation and social consequences. The company management may opt to bribing the regulation implementing organization as long as they continue making short-term profits before the law catches up with them, by then they may be forced to attire with the rule or shut down but they will have made as much finances than when they may have started and the consequences on the social life will have reached the stage where it affects their health and made the environment unbearable. The principle of autonomy; which requires individuals to be left on their own independence to conduct their activities, make their own decisions and reign themselves without any outside interference may contribute to increased cases of such an ethical issues as the companies are left to implement the regulation on their own William, 2008.

The beneficence principle; that favors the fact that priority to do well is the one that should be considered, and makes the ethical dilemma acceptable, tends to accelerate the problem. As the company tries to make profits, the negative impacts generated appear an acceptable a problem that is based on the current trends and lack of appropriate technology. This principle favors the generation of goods in large amounts as the society needs the same goods in large numbers, by doing so, the business ends up generating more wastes causing pollution.

Another principle that the business management uses to support their activities is justice; which brings forward the solution to a certain ethical issue should be fair to those involved. They use this to defend their actions as they say that in the process of undertaking instant action, their business may incur losses and even end up closing down, hence, they need to be given enough time to take action. The principle of veracity also defends their ethical issues. Veracity is the truthfulness and unwillingness to commit to lies, the business entity most of the time tries to hide behind this principle by putting forth a structured plan that the regulators take to be the truth that is being implemented by the company only to realize that the plan was not implemented fully later on when the problem becomes a disaster. The regulators are sometime barred from making surprise visits to the business premises due to the principle of confidentiality that protects the business from interference by a third party and the information that is sensitive should only be the secret of the owners. The principle of fidelity or being faithful is also used as disguise to what is really going on. The business owners are faithful left with the role of implementing their laid down plan which they end up not implementing as they see it as a way out to avoid gaining maximum profits. Finally, the principle of non-malfeasance that advocates for no harming is mostly well captured in the plan which put in writing ways the business will control the effects generated as by products that may affect the human and the environment, but it ends up not being considered once the business starts its operations Joanne, 2010()

2. Frames the chosen ethical issue within one of the theories (deontology or utilitarianism).

The deontological theory defends the case that persons strictly stick to their contract and task when examining an ethical dilemma. This applies that a person pursues their own responsibility to an extra entity or society since keeping one's responsibility is what is considered ethically right. Though this theory is seen by many as having many benefits, it has its own share of weakness that of allowing individuals to act on their own duties and to make a few individual happy as opposed to making many members of the society happy. It has also the weakness of not having a logic way of deciding what a person's duties entail. At times, the responsibilities and duties of different individual's conflict, making the people not to be efficient enough in implementing the set plans and roles Kathy & Brency, 2010()

The conflicting duties does not make the individuals to put on their best commitment to solving an issues as they do not know who should be implementing what duty at what time. The theory does not put into consideration other people's welfare and it fights to meet personal desires as it does not provide any direction when an individual enters a difficult state where there are conflicting duties.

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3. Examines the various options available for dealing with the dilemma.

The various options available in dealing with the dilemma of environmental regulations and social consequences are for the business owners to adopt the participatory mechanism where all the stakeholders are brought on board to help solve the problem at hand. This will involve all the stakeholders' right from the law implementations, the society, the human right activists and the business owners. They will sit down and come up with a plan that will work for each person without affecting anyone negatively. The plan will also work out a formula to reduce the issues of duty conflicting. Another option is adopting the utilitarianism theory that seeks to make a large number of the society happy as opposed to the fear minority who are the business owners. This theory will force the business owners to listens to the cries of the affected society members and change their way of actions. This theory also has the benefit of predicting the consequences of each activity, hence will work to avoid falling into the trap of the said dilemma. Another option that can deal with the dilemma is the business owners implementing the seven principles with openness for the good of every stakeholder. The principles; justice, fidelity, autonomy among others, when implemented well will be having positive results to all. Another option is for the government to start being strict in ensuring that the business companies follow the laws as stated and implementation is done without any leniency. Another option is making use of the monitoring and evaluation mechanism to help the business have a check on their activities.

4. Describe how the dilemma was resolved

The dilemma of environmental regulations and social consequences was resolved through a well-structured participatory approach that brought on board all stakeholders who suggested agreeable strategies that are to be followed to limit the consequences and conflicting of duties experienced. The dilemma was also resolved by analyzing the consequences to predict the probably means of prevention that can be implemented to reduce them from impacting on the human and natural environment at large and also not affecting the profits. This also looks at the short-term and long-term consequences and assesses the positive and negative consequences that the dilemma presents.

Another option that is used to resolve the dilemma is analyzing the actions and making the right decisions. The actions should not emphasize the consequences but considers the impact it will have on the moral principles, on the human and natural environment at large. It should also consider if the actions conflict between the different principles and rights of different people. Then the decisions made should put in place the analyzed details and should be fair to all the stakeholders and should consider all the opinion of everyone involved or affected Andrew, 2008()

5. Analyze the dilemma using ONE of the decision making models

There are two basic models of decision making; the rationale and normative models. The best model that can be used to analyze the dilemma is the rationale model; this model involves identifying the problem, generating the solutions, selecting the best solution that best solves the dilemma and lastly implementing and evaluating the solution.

The first step of this model is identifying the problem; in this dilemma the problem that is identified is the business owner ignoring the set laws and regulation that help maintain the sustainability of the environment and reduce the negative impacts of wastes on the human health. The business owners does this to avoid incurring the costs of importing and installing up-to-date technology that reduces their profits and hope that they continue operating under the current dilemma making maximum gains before the law catches up with them.

In this dilemma, the solutions that can be generated include strict government's effort of law implementation and imposing sanctions to the law violators, cancellation of business licenses, freezing the financial accounts of the violators, judging the violators in court, subsidizing the new technologies to enable the companies to acquire them and provision of incentives John & Berlyn, 2009()

The best solution that can be selected is subsidizing the new technologies and provision of incentives, this may come in terms of making the new technology tax free or reducing the taxes on the….....

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