I can reflect that ethical theories play important role in decision making in the business organisations. The managers consider ethical factors like impact of their decisions on the stakeholders like the consumers and the society while making decisions. Individuals working with teams are also expected to consider the ethical effect of their decisions on the other team members and the organisation on the whole while making decisions or executing actions. For example, industries like grey hound racing and live bating are immoral. The environmentalists question the legality and the ethical grounds of these industries because they effect the health of the greyhounds. These sports involve use of live baits which is again unethical. I have understood from the discussion that ethics help public take decisions when trapped in ethical dilemmas. However, ethics are not universal and vary from situation to situation. This makes passing of legislations and laws important to ensure ethical behaviour within a given population. For example, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in Australia ensures conservation of environment (environment.gov.au 2018). This ensures benefit of the environment and the society as a whole. I have also learnt that the business organisations should operate ethically to benefit the stakeholders including the shareholders. Milton Friedman in his shareholders’ theory mentions that shareholders should be socially responsible. He stresses that shareholders should engage in socially useful activities directly instead of doing it through the top executives, their nominated representatives (Ferrero, Michael Hoffman & McNulty, 2014).
I have understood from ethical breakdown are rampant organisations due to various factors like opportunities to earn huge profits in unethical ways and power to face legal consequences. People often enter into unethical practices like taking bribes and passing out sensitive business information to illegitimate groups (hbr.org 2018). I can also point out that this breakdown of ethics in business organisation has led to immoral and illegal practices like corruption and money laundering. I can also point out that business organisations evade paying taxes by shifting their operations from high tax jurisdiction to low tax jurisdiction to decrease the tax expenditure. These tax avoidances harm the economies as a whole because they result in lowering of revenue the government uses to provide the citizens with basic benefits (Jacob and Schütt 2015).
I have learnt and can point out that giving voice to values or GVV refers to the approach of developing a value driven leadership in business organisations. The managers should emphasise on developing an ethical organisational culture and manage conflict among employees. The employees must be aware about the values of the organisations and act in rational ways. They should judge the outcome of their decisions and actions on the stakeholders of the organisation like the management and the consumers. The management of the organisation address and deal with false nations which unethical employees spread. I can also point out that management should intervene to tackle unethical and conflicting acts by employees.
I have also learnt that business organisations while accounting for their business operations should follow triple bottom line. Sarkis and Dhavale (2015) mention that triple bottom line is an accounting method which involved accounting procedures keeping in view social aspects, environmental aspects and financial aspects. The managers should act more ethically like acquiring raw materials from sustainable supply chains. They should advocate ethical leadership and diversity management while leading their departments. These steps would ethical business operations confirming to the triple bottom line.
I have learnt that business organisations have to play significant role in minimising weather changes. The business organisations should promote adoption of sustainable operations by adopyting sustainable operations in their daily workings. For example, they should acquire raw materials from green supply chains. They should manufacture and sell sustainable products as their main stream products and not as a niche marketing products to earn revenue (theguardian.com 2018). The managers making decisions should act in ethical ways and enable the business organisations move towards ethics. I can point out that they should deal with their subordinates who act in unsustainable and unethical ways very strictly. For example, the marketing manager should ensure that the products which firms market are safe both for the consumers and the environment. They should motivate their peers and subordinates to do so. I have also learnt that the business organisations should take policies like encouraging environment friendly plantation and recycling of wastes to curb climate change to the extent possible. Urry (2015) mentions that climate change increases the chances of risks due to natural calamities which cause huge financial and resource loss to them. I can propose that business organisations should invest in alternative sources of energy to reduce combustion of coal and petrol which are responsible for release of large amount of greenhouses gases. However, the companies producing renewable energy sources like hydro-energy and wind energy require to boost their production to meet the needs of market. The business organisations like Adani should invest in renewable energy sources.
I have learnt that sugar tax have detrimental effect on the poor and lower middle class people. I have also learnt that millions of square kilometres of forests are cleared in Indonesia to cultivate crops like sugar. The immense amount of greenhouse gases which are generated from the factories in the country affect Singapore and Malaysia. Multinational companies like Nestle also encourage these unsustainable activities. These multinational often resort to practicing indirect slavery in these plantations. However, they have stopped these unethical practices under public pressure in order to minimise damage to their goodwill. Slavery is also said to exist in manufacturers of sea food. I can point out that governments should take actions to curb these unsustainable practices. The stakeholder groups like the government and the consumers can share and compile information relating to environment. I can point out that they would be able to collaborate and cooperate in obtaining higher level of sustainability. The business organisations can use technology like 3D technology to decrease weight of their packages which would allow them to transport more goods. I can point out that this would reduce the consumption of non-renewable sources of energy like coal and petrol.
I can reflect that that both the household and the industrial sector contribute to wastage of resources. For example, Australian people waste food worth $ 3500 each week on average (iview.abc.net.au 2018). I can also point out that many countries like the United Kingdom are taking measures to control environmental pollution. The Therasa May government has pledged to reduce plastic greatly 2042 and also investigate into tax on plastic containers (sbs.com.au 2018). The environmental groups of the Australia is also urging the Australian Government take similar steps as London.
I have learnt that the fashion industry generates 6000 kilograms of fashion wastes every ten minutes. Top fashion houses like H&M have taken steps to curb their use of synthetic products and recycle their wastes. The international fashion brand has pledged to use 100 recycled raw materials by 2030 and make its supply chain fully sustainable within 2040 (huffingtonpost.com.au 2018).
I have learnt that supply chain plays a significant role as far as sustainability and its achievement are concerned. The suppliers often slavery to produce the raw materials which they sell to the multinational companies. The suppliers must abstain from using such unethical means to produce raw materials. The companies sourcing raw materials should ensure that the suppliers do not use such unethical means to produce raw materials. The companies should not only consider their supply chains from the point of view of profit and cost cutting. They should also consider factors like social impact and environmental impacts of such supply chains. For example, if they keep on acquiring raw materials from the suppliers in spite of being aware of their use of slavery, these companies indirectly promote slavery. This is totally unethical and have dire impact on the society since, business organisations are considered as corporate citizens. I can further point out that business organisation should adopt and promote the system of corporate social procurement. Corporate social procurement is the system of procuring raw materials from the local communities like the local suppliers of raw materials. Such activities generate revenue and economic development for the local communities thus making the supply chain more sustainable (Grayson and Hodges 2017).
I have learnt that the economists today promote the concept circular economy. The term circular economy refers to the system where resources, inputs, wastes and emissions are minimised by regulating the usages of resources so as to reduce wastage (Ghisellini, Cialani and Ulgiati 2016). The business organisations today stress on recycling wastes to reuse them to reduce their expenses. I can cite companies like Dow as examples which make recycle finished products from used and recycled goods (dow.com 2018).
I have learnt that business organisations today take market based approaches to solve needs and adopt business model which aims to create value for the customers to generate revenue. They make use of innovation to secure triple bottom line. They business organisation have emerged into social enterprises which is a new concept and operate in order to benefit the society besides earning profit. I can point out that business organisation are not only concerned about earning short term profits but to benefit stakeholders like customers and investors to secure long term growth under the leadership of able business leaders. They have business model which embrace different stakeholders like suppliers and business partners on one hand and customers on the other. I would like to cite example of sustainable beer plants which recycle waste water and use solar energy to make beer (craftbeer.com 2018). I have also learnt that cooperatives have emerged into social enterprises which are working towards bringing about development in societies. They stand on the principles of sustainability and collaborative consumption. They often involve in operations like eco-tourisms and guided tours. I can cite example of eco-tourism as a sustainable industry which is attracting large number of tourists and also creating employment opportunities in different regions of the world. The local producers in the villages who do not access to markets in the cities can sell their products to the tourists and earn revenue. Thus, sustainable business models like eco-tourism are not only boosting revenue generation but also economic development of the local communities. The cooperatives and sustainable business are encouraging sustainable use of natural resources like water and creates awareness about environment among the people. Empowerment of local communities and reduction of economic evils like exploitation in child exploitation and gender inequality has boosted their economic development (Driscoll, Wiebe and Dyck 2015). The local people as a result contribute towards preservation of heritage sites and attracting more tourists. Eco-tourism has made global tourism market far more sustainable and boosted its revenue generation as well, besides contributing towards conservation of regions like rainforests. The international hotel chains today as I can point out have entered the eco-tourism market making it all the more profitable and stronger. I can also point out that in fact, the tourists prefer environment friendly trips which has boosted eco-tourism industry even more.
I can point out that business organiations not only follow the triple bootom line ardently but also seek to measure the benefits of the triple bottom line. They prepare reports like environmental cost management and align them with the business requirements of the company. Sustainability reports today form a part of the annual reports of the multinational companies like Procter & Gamble. These companies seek to inform the external stakeholders like customers and investors about their sustainable operations in the view to obtain their support. The multinational business organisations today help small companies to sell their products using their brand names. These companies put immense emphasis in presenting accurate information about their products and strategies in the markets to create a strong brand image (McCowan et al. 2015).
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