Introduction to Business Ethics

Discuss About The Industry Community Engagement In Australia?

Ethics and moral codes are crucial aspects of a community that guide and govern the community members. Ethical principles are used to ensure that people in the same group, same situations and with similar thoughts to feel equal and valued. There are different types of ethics, e.g. business ethics, professional ethics, community ethics to name a few. Additionally, there are different theories that are referred to as the origins of certain ethics, e.g. deontological developed by Immanuel Kant, teleological developed by John Stuart Mill, natural law among others. There are also other theories that basically produced ethics that are used a guide to community members like the absolute and relative ethics. In the business world, the business ethics have recently been some of the main and crucial aspects that are being relied on by most stakeholders. This is simply because the ethics involved are capable of directly affecting most of the business stakeholders at one time or the other. However, besides putting more effort and focus on the business stakeholders, business are supposed to also focus on ensuring that the surrounding environment is also fairly treated.

Ethics is the discipline of practicing moral principles and standards that are used to govern a specific group of individuals. Business ethics can be referred to as an organization’s policies and principles that guide them on their moral and ethical practices. Business ethics helps unite every party involved in a business towards solving some f challenges, problems and differences that may arise between the business partners, employees or even stakeholders. They are responsible for ensuring a certain level of trust and team work among all the business participants (May et al, 2014). Therefore, business ethics are responsible for setting the business code of conduct, values, norms and standards that guide all organizational parties. This means that they help the organizational employees, managers, stakeholders and business owners to have a sense of belonging and value because they are all expected to follow and be guided by the same ethics (Beets et al, 2016). They take a major part in ensuring that business parties work together towards a common goal and with same mentality. In that case, every business must ensure that its ethics are known, acceptable and followed by every party involved in the organizational operations.

John Stuart Mill is one of the first and most famous and influentialBritish philosophers to write about ethical theories in the human life. His theory was based on his own believe and called it utilitarianism which stated that everyone should act in such a way to bring the largest possibly balance of good over evil for everyone involved (Belak and PevecRozman, 2012). This principle says that a person’s actions can only be right only if in end they cause overall happiness to anyone involved(Johnston, 2011). The theory developed from being an idea of one individual to a principle that is factual, true and one that can be proved in the end.

Ethical Theories Discussion

Immanuel Kant was one of the first German philosophers to write about human ethics. Immanuel Kant’s ethics theory represents one of the deontological theories or principles that he begun since 16^th century to date. The theory revolved around three major principles (Misselbrook, 2013), i.e. a person’s good will, the notion of duty and the nature of imperatives. This means that an action can be referred to as a good thing only when its main purpose or objective is to be performed out of good will and towards achievement of duty or responsibility to the moral law. This theory has grown and is being used in many scientific grounds in the current world.

It is entirely based on judging human actions based on whether they are consistent in doing what is morally right. The theory focuses mainly on the motive or objective of the action from the beginning (whether it is someone’s duty or nature) which means that the end effect is not important (Baumane-Vitolina et al, 2016). Therefore, if the motive is positive, then the action id deemed right and if the motive is negative the action is deemed morally wrong. This theory follows the principle of Immanuel Kant’s theory. The theory developed from being a dominant aspect of determining growth and understanding of a human being to being a major determinant of how humans react and act when it comes their moral behaviors and perceptions. Originally, it focused on finding the human behavior in terms of morals but now it focuses on determining the results of a person’s moral behavior, which is basically the motive that leads to a certain moral behavior or action.

This theory is entirely based on judging a person’s actions according to the consequences from those actions. It states that any action that causes positive consequences are morally right while those that cause negative consequences are morally wrong. This theory is based on John Stuart’s principle because they both judge actions according to their end effects. Originally, the theory was focused on finding out a person’s moral behavior and the things that drive people into behaving in a certain way. However, currently, the theory focuses on ensuring that people understand the result of their actions before they act, especially when it comes to performing moral actions.

The natural law theory basis its arguments against the moral authority of the government towards its citizens and the duty of the citizens to abide to the authority. The natural law theory is based on the legal standards and responsibility of the government to govern the human life. However, the principle says that the moral standards that govern human behavior are determined by the human and environmental nature. The theory rests upon the idea that the legal authority that should adhere to the rules and standards of nature to govern the human behavior. Originally, the theory was based on two aspects which are nature and legal authority and human beings are supped to be guided by the nature but governed by the legal rules. However, the theory has developed and now its principle states that the laws should be based on morality and ethics. Which means that the nature should not only determine the legal governance but so should ethics and morals of a person.

Deontological/ Non-Consequentialism

Absolute ethics look for ethical principles and practices that will make people in the group choose between what is right and wrong (McDonald, 2010). Operates under a universal moral code where by every individual is aware of what is right and wrong. In this principle, any environmental aspect/situation change does not affect the moral principle of this ethics, it is totally independent and intact.

The principle in this ethics is that what is right and wrong changes according to a community or society. In other words, the society defines what is right and wrong according to what they believe in. These ethics portray a society’s believes and code of conduct that should be adhered to by every individual. However, they seem to change with scenarios and regions which means that every society has its own different ethics that govern and guide every situation and decision.

The absolute ethics focus mainly on the ability to ensure that every individual is comfortable and has a right to choose between what is right and wrong in all circumstances. It mainly focuses on ensuring that every individual adheres the moral code of wrong and right.

In relative ethics, the code of conduct and the rules are meant to govern a society as a whole and the decisions made by the community individuals. This means that it is focused on ensuring that the whole community is protected and that the community people follow the ethics set for them which they consider morally right e.g., it is right for a man in the Muslim religion to have more than wife but is completely unethical and immoral for Christians to have more than one wife.

If the business person applied the absolute ethics, his reply would be not to accept the bribe payment. He would say no to the offer to encourage the principle of equality in the business world. Basically, it doesn’t matter whether the intention is just to get a license but absolutes ethic’s principle is never wavered by any change of situation or views.

If he applied the relative ethics principle he would say yes or no to the offer. However, he can only say yes if the community the business person is operating in or the community in which he belongs believes taking bribes is not wrong. Also, he can say not to the bribe if the community he belongs to or operating in deemed taking bribe as a wrong act. This is simply because, in relative ethics, what is considered right or wrong differs depending on the community.

Teleological/ Consequentialist Theory

This is basically an organizations responsibility to take charge of the effects its operation cause to the environment or the society. It is a model used by every business organization to take responsibility of the impacts its operations and decisions have caused to the surrounding environment and community (Mason and Simmons, 2014). For example, a business can take actions to reduce or avoid environmental pollution if its operations are capable of causing environmental pollution. Also, by participating in community development activities without expecting anything in return, e.g. building schools and infrastructure.

If the impacts of an organization are negative, then the business operations will be negatively affected and vice versa. This means that a business’s CSR is directly related to its effects to the environment or society.

Corporate Governance- This refers to a business’s top management team. The implementation of ethics and their principles will basically force these individuals to perform their roles and responsibilities in a more effective way, which is to check on the shareholders’ interests. The ethics enable the corporate governance to put more effort on keeping the shareholders happy and promises fulfilled.

Environment- ethics that protect the environment. Businesses always conduct operations that are not harmful to the environment and in case of any harm, they take responsibility for that. To reduce soil erosion or disaster occurrence in the community does not benefit the business directly which will certainly be a difficult decision for the decision makers to make.

Customers- ethics governing product safety, quality, marketing and advertisements. Every business must take all these into consideration before they conduct any operation related to customers and products. By adhering to the ethical principle, the business will ensure perfect features for the product but may not get customers to buy the product or rather the cost may increase therefore leading to price increase. In this situation, the company may be torn between losing customers due to high prices and not producing the product as per the ethics.

Employees working conditions- ethics concerning employee safety and conducive working environment. The business must ensure that all these ethics are adhered to. By purchasing the protection materials like helmets, aprons, gloves and boots among others will cost a business a lot of money. It will be a way to benefit the employees and not the business directly.

BHP Billiton is an international business whose headquarters are located in Melbourne Australia. The company specializes in mining and production of minerals, oil and gas and other products which are sold all over the world. This therefore makes it a business in the construction industry.

Natural Law Theory of Individual Right and Duties

Being a global organization, BHP Billiton operates in most part of the world which means that it has a great opportunity to use and implement most of the laws that are set for various countries. However, the company also has to keep its ethical practices in check even when they collide with the country’s ethics and laws. There are some ethical issues that are currently affecting the business operations of BHP Billiton Company. For instance, the ethical issue on employee welfare, health and safety and the ethics that govern the surrounding environment.

As for BHP Billiton, it specializes on the mining and production of minerals and oil and gas and other related products. The mining operation of the business is done by use of effective machines but coordinated by a skilled and experienced employee. This basically means that the business operations are liable to destroying and destructing the environmental beauty and conditions. When mining, the excavators dig deep into the ground to be able to extract the mineral or oil or gas which creates a bad picture to the environmental beauty. Additionally, the operation is likely to cause air, water or soil pollution especially when the gas or oil spills to the ground which is environmental pollution. In the case of the employees, back in 2015, the company’s mining site in Brazil (which was a joint venture with Vale Mining Company) was involved in a catastrophic accident where by around 25 employees were killed due to the poor design of the dam and the poor geographical conditions. This means that the working environment for the employees was not really safe and therefore the company never seemed to mind about their welfare, health and safety. The ethics did not protect the employees well enough to save their lives or keep them safe but saved the company’s name and brand. These two ethical issues have been used against BHP Billiton since then which has cause great negative effect on its operations and performance in the area.

The best for the company to go past its ethical issues, it had to address them by coming up with a clear, simple and understandable code of ethics that was to be applied in any scenario that resembled the Brazil joint venture scenario.To do that, the company performed an analysis and evaluation on various business aspects (especially those that were involved in conducting any operations on the dam) to be able to point out what actually caused the accident. For instance the type of technology that was used in the mining and production processes was evaluated on strict conditions and ways to determine whether it had any impact on the cause of the disaster. Additionally, the business investigated also whether the location of waste storage piles close to the dam had any impact to the cause of the accident.

Ethics Explanation and Differences

Additionally, besides the investigation on the aspects that caused the disaster, BHP Billiton also came up with new strategies on how to avoid an prevent such a disaster in the future. The company created suitable strategies that would protect both the environment, employees and the people living around the mining sector. The company promised on initiating and implementing transparency and openness towards anybody who was to be involved in any project as such. The company would train and educate the employee on possible effects and dangers that may arise from such mining conditions and sectors. However, the employees would be given protection equipment and be trained on emergency and protective measures that were supposed to be done whenever a disaster occurs. By doing this, the company will be focusing on improving the employees’ and the community’s welfare, health and safety standards. It promised to ensure that the employees’ healthsafety standards are adhered to, which was to be possible by providing the employees with masks, head helmets, protective clothes and other equipment that may be necessary and effective. With these kind of ethics, the company’s aim to actually rebuild and improve its relationship with its employees as well as the trust they had in it. When the organization seems to care about its employees’ health, they will seem to care about what the employees think on other organizational issues.

In addition to that, the Board should focus on ensuring that their production methods do not interfere with environmental cleanness. It is the nature of a mining operation to destroy the environmental look and cause some type of pollution like air, water or soil. This is especially for a company like BHP Billiton that extracts and produces mineral, oil and gas among other things.The company’s stakeholders and the management team promised to ensure that there would be no form of pollution that would be involved with any operation in the future or if there is, it would not cause any harm to the environment. To achieve that, the company came up with a work ethic that governed the mining operations by ensuring that there was real time upgrade information on any mining operation, waste and seismic activities. This would increase the chances of reducing the environmental destruction as well as the effect of any disaster in case it occurred. By giving an update on any mining operation would help the management team to be aware of all the proceedings and activities going on in the mining sector.

Relative Ethics

These two ethics were created mainly to build the trust and relationship the company had with the employees, surrounding communities around the mining areas all over the world and the authorities or organizations that protect the environmental safety, basically the environment.

The company is focused on maintaining and practicing the highest ethical standards in a professional conduct of the staff, contactors, investors, shareholders and consultants.

1. A) Honesty and Integrity
2. The company has to give required respect to every legitimate interest of any individual with a relationship with the company at any level.Honesty with the people living around the mining areas
3. Honesty when it comes to possible effects on the environment
4. BHP Billiton does not give or receive whether directly or indirectly bribes or any other type of illegal advantages with the aim of gaining financial benefit. No employee should offer or receive any form of gift or payment that can be categorized as a bribe.
5. B) Environment

BHP Billiton is focused on ensuring that there is continuous improvements in the management of the environmental impacts or effects (especially when there is damage related to the business operations) for the long-term goals of creating and developing a sustainable business environment.

1. C) Accountability
2. Should always count itself accountable for any incident that may take place in the company’s mining sites
3. Should be ready to take responsibility of any effects caused by any accident around the mining sites
4. The company should ensure that all employees are always competent (skilled and experienced), protected and compensated accordingly
5. D) Staff

BHP Billiton is focusing towards providing a friendly environment with promise of potential growth in career, talent and skill adversity and equal opportunity for every employee. The company also offers an environment where there is mutual trust and respect for human rights for all the parties involved with the company.

The company is committed to a safe and healthy working environment for all the employees.

Conclusion

From the study, I can say that ethics and moral codes of conduct are a very fundamental aspect of any situation and community. The implementation of these ethical and moral principles in every aspect of life is also an effective and efficient move because it ensures both equalityand respect to every person. Ethics are not only a guide but also a pathway towards positive results in the end. When it comes to business ethics, they help the stakeholders to keep up with the business’s development (e.g. the BHP Billiton Company and Cocoa Company case) while the ethics that relate to community guidance and governance focus on ensuring equality, respect, responsibility performance and general community development.

References

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