Business Ethics and Society assignment
Introduction In this module, we examined ethics and, in particular, ethics in the workplace. We also looked at social responsibility as it pertains to businesses (and other organizations) and the communities in which businesses operate. In this assignment, you will evaluate the level or degree to which a business, organization, and/or government agency is engaging in ethical and socially responsible practices. You will present this evaluation from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Part A is a report on ethical standards, and Part B is a report on an ethical or corporate social responsibility issue in society. Part A: Instructions Read the following: · Donaldson, T. (1996, September). Values in tension: Ethics away from home. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 48–62. · read Discussion Case: Chiquita Brands: Ethical Responsibility or Illegal Action on pages 111-112of your textbook. Answer the following two questions: · Question 1: Do you feel that it is possible to develop a universal set of ethical standards for business, or do you believe that cultural differences make universal standards impractical and/or impossible? (15 marks) · Question 2: Do corporations have a right and/or a responsibility to influence ethics in the countries in which they operate? Defend your position. (15 marks) Part B: Instructions Write a 2,500-word, double-spaced report on corporate social responsibility and related ethical issues in society. Demonstrate your ability to integrate your learning from all aspects of this module. Ensure that you include information from the course material, the readings, your journal, and your own research. Select a topical, newsworthy issue that involves ethical and social responsibility issues relating to business and society. Following is the topic: Corporations manufacturing and distributing genetically modified foods in Canada Your report should cover the following: Section 1. Introduction: Introduce the topic and identify the CSR (and ethical) issue(s) that are of concern. Then, list the stakeholders that influence or are influenced by this issue. Be specific in naming individuals, groups, associations, and/or government bodies. Cite references for your research. (10 marks) Section 2. Rationale: Analyze the ethics of the issues involved using three of the methods of ethical reasoning (utility, rights and justice) described on pages 83–87 of your textbook. Then, indicate which of the three methods you feel is most helpful in evaluating the ethics of the relevant issue(s). Explain the reasons for your choice. (30 marks) Note In Section 2 Rationale, rather than estimating the actual costs and benefits involved, you may simply identity and describe the costs and benefits that you would consider (if actual cost-benefit information is not provided in the literature). Section 3. Impacts (What does this mean to my family?): Describe the potential and/or real impacts to you and your family. Are these impacts direct or indirect? Briefly explain why. (5 marks) Section 4. Impacts (What does this mean to my community?): Explore the potential and/or real impacts on the local or site community, as well as real or potential impacts on other communities. Describe these impacts from multiple perspectives, ensuring you represent both community and corporate (or organizational) perspectives. (15 marks) Section 5. Impacts (What does this mean to my country?): Are there broader impacts or ramifications associated with this issue? If yes, how do this ethical and CSR issue impact business and society in Canada as a whole? If no, explain why not. (10 marks) R L D V I E W when is different just different, and when is different wrong} by Thomas Donaldson When we leave home and cross our nation's boundaries, moral clar- ity often blurs. Without a backdrop of shared attitudes, and without familiar laws and judicial procedures that define standards of ethical con- duct, certainty is elusive. Should a company invest in a foreign country where civil and political rights are violated? Should a company go along with a host country's discriminatory employment practices? If companies in developed countries shift facili- ties to developing nations that lack strict environmental and health reg- ulations, or if those companies choose to fill management and other top-level positions in a host nation with people from the home country, whose standards should prevail? Even the best-informed, best- intentioned executives must re- think their assumptions about busi- ness practice in foreign settings. What works in a company's home country can fail in a country with different standards of ethical conduct. Such difficulties are unavoidable for businesspeople who live and work abroad. But how can managers resolve the problems? What are the principles that can help them work through the maze of cultural differences and establish codes of conduct for glob- ally ethical business practice? How can companies answer the toughest question in global business ethics: What happens when a host country's ethical standards seem lower than the home country's? Competing Answers One answer is as old as philosoph- ical discourse. According to cultural relativism, no culture's ethics are better than any other's; therefore there are no international rights and wrongs. If the people of Indonesia tolerate the bribery of their public officials, so what? Their attitude is no better or worse than that of peo- ple in Denmark or Singapore who refuse to offer or accept bribes. Like- wise, if Belgians fail to find insider trading morally repugnant, who cares? Not enforcing insider-trading laws is no more or less ethical than enforcing such laws. The cultural relativist's creed- When in Rome, do as the Romans do - is tempting, especially when failing to do as the locals do means forfeiting business opportunities. The inadequacy of cultural rela- tivism, however, becomes apparent when the practices in question are more damaging than petty bribery or insider trading. In the late 1980s, some European tanneries and pharmaceutical com- panies were looking for cheap waste- dumping sites. They approached vir- tually every country on Africa's west coast from Morocco to the Congo. Values in Tension: Nigeria agreed to take highly toxic polychlorinated bipbenyls. Unpro- tected local workers, wearing thongs and shorts, unloaded barrels of PCBs and placed them near a residential area. Neither the residents nor the workers knew that the barrels con- tained toxic waste. We may denounce governments that permit such abuses, but many countries are unable to police trans- national corporations adequately even if they want to. And in many countries, the combination of inef- fective enforcement and inadequate regulations leads to behavior by un- scrupulous companies that is clearly wrong. A few years ago, for example, a group of investors became inter- ested in restoring the SS United States, once a luxurious ocean liner. Before the actual restoration could begin, the ship had to be stripped of its asbestos lining. A bid from a U.S. company, based on U.S. standards for asbestos removal, priced the job 48 DRAWINGS BY MICHAEL REAGAN at more than $100 million. A com- pany in the Ukranian city of Sevas- topol offered to do the work for less than $2 million. In October 1993, the ship was towed to Sevastopol. A cultural relativist would have no problem with that outcome, but I do. A country has the right to estab- lish its own health and safety regu- lations, but in the case described above, the standards and the terms of the contract could not possibly have protected workers in Sevas- topol from known health risks. Even if the contract met Ukranian stan- dards, ethical businesspeople must object. Cultural relativism is moral- ly blind. Tbere are fundamental val- ues that cross cultures, and compa- nies must uphold them. [For an economic argument against cultural relativism, see the insert "Tbe Cul- ture and Ethics of Software Piracy.") W O R L D V I E W they bad used witb U.S. managers: the participants were asked to dis- cuss a case in which a manager makes sexually explicit remarks to a new female employee over drinks in a bar. The instructors failed to consider how the exercise would work in a culture witb strict conven- tions governing relationships be- tween men and women. As a result, the training sessions were ludicrous. Tbey baffled and offended the Saudi participants, and the message to avoid coercion and sexual discrimi- nation was lost, ^z" ••"'•-'^' The theory behind ethical imperi- alism is absolutism, wbich is based on tbree problematic principles. Ab- solutists believe tbat there is a single list of truths, tbat they can be ex- pressed only with one set of con- cepts, and that they call for exactly the same behavior around tbe world. loyalty to their companies, their business networks, and their nation. Americans place a higher value on liberty tban on loyalty; tbe U.S. tra- dition of rights emphasizes equality, fairness, and individual freedom. It is hard to conclude that truth lies on one side or tbe other, but an abso- lutist would have us select just one. The second problem witb abso- lutism is tbe presumption tbat peo- ple must express moral truth using only one set of concepts. For in- stance, some absolutists insist that the language of basic rights provide the framework for any discussion of continued, on page 52 Ethics Away from Home At the other end of tbe spectrum from cultural relativism is ethical imperialism, wbicb directs people to do everywbere exactly as they do at home. Again, an understandably ap- pealing approach but one tbat is clearly inadequate. Consider the large U.S. computer-products com- pany tbat in 1993 introduced a course on sexual harassment in its Saudi Arabian facility. Under the banner of global consistency, in- structors used the same approach to train Saudi Arabian managers that Tbe first claim clasbes with many people's belief tbat different cultural traditions must be respected. In some cultures, loyalty to a commu- nity - family, organization, or soci- ety - is tbe foundation of all etbical behavior. The Japanese, for example, define business ethics in terms of Thomas Donaldson is a professor at the Wharton School of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he teaches business ethics. He wrote The Etbics of International Business (Oxford University Press, 1989) and is the coauthor, with Thomas W. Dunfee, of Business Ethics as Social Contracts, to be published by the Harvard Business School Press in the fall of 1997. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1996 W O R L D V I E W The Culture and Ethics of Softv^are Piracy Before jumping on the cultural relativism bandwagon, stop and consider the potential economic consequences of a when-in-Rome attitude toward business ethics. Take a look at the current statis- tics on software piracy: In the United States, pirated software is estimated to be 35% of the total software market, and industry losses are estimated at $2.3 bil- lion per year. The piracy rate is 57% in Germany and 80% in Italy and Japan; tbe rates in most Asian countries are estimated to be nearly 100%. There are similar laws against software piracy in those coun- tries. What, then, accounts for the differences? Although a coun- try's level of economic develop- ment plays a large