The Problem of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics in a Business

In the light of the globalization, the problem of corporate responsibility and ethics in a business problems have come to the fore. In order to promote corporate responsibility in a business balance, it is necessary to strike the balance between compliance-based and integrity-driven approaches.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Problem of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics in a Business specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In particular, managers should pay attention to the way employees adhere to legal standards; yet, understanding the value of integrated approaches to accomplishing organization objective is important as well. With regard to the cases under analysis, the strict emphasis should be placed on the role of utilitarianism viewpoint as the foundational principles in considering conflicting situations. Implementing compliance or ethics programs does not directly relate to the ethical dilemmas that occur in the workplace. In fact, the actual reasons for emerging conflicts consist in manager’s ability to shape organization vision, mission, and codes of conduct. As a prove Payne states, â€Å"†¦organizational ethics means more than avoiding illegal practice† (106). Therefore, Apple’s case of launching new products is justified from utilitarian perspective because the outcomes of their actions are more reasonable than original intent. From an ethical perspective, mitigating $ 200 decrease seems to be approved because the company strived to avoid decline in sales and profitability. Besides, boosting the capacity of other products has also allowed the organization to sustain normal development and motivate employees to work efficiently. Once again, utilitarian perspective approves the decision made by the managers because it does not do any harm both to the buyers and to the employees. Therefore, introducing decrease in price can only attract more customers and increase the popularity of the new model. The moral worth of the case is more focused on the outcomes rather than on the initial purposes. While applying utilitarian point of view, Apple’s actions could be ethically justified because the new product has been launched for maximizing the utility of the old model. On the one hand, launching a new model in half a year is an ordinary process in a rapidly developing technological world.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Therefore, a price increase for the products could not be regarded as an ethical dilemma because experienced customers should be aware of the paces of the product development and could have waited for the new model to appear. On the other hand, Apple could immediately present a discount on iPhone 5 model, or provide a beneficial offer. For instance, a $ 200 rebate on old models can be established, which is a g ood substitution for $ 200 increase for the development of the new model (Reeves n. p.). As a result, utilitarian ethics rigidly confronts the deontological perspective because the virtue ethics could not be applied in this case. The utilitarian viewpoint provides a full picture of Apple’s case challenges and problems. In particular, the company was expected to launch a new product, although the original intentions seemed to be unclear. However, further business actions were directed at reducing the price for the models, as well as developing new products that could enhance the demand and increase the customer base. Such a decision also positively influences the welfare of the Apple employees. With regard to the SOX disclosure initiative, Apple’s case could be approved a swell because transparent reporting could become beneficial both for the company managers and for the customers buying this product (Siegel n. p.). Finally, utilitarian perspective focuses on the outco mes and, therefore, consumers could be more encouraged to buy Apple products. Works Cited Payne, Lynn Sharp. â€Å"Managing for Organizational integrity†. Harvard Business Review. 1994: 106-117. Web. Reeves, Clayton. â€Å"Subtle Innovation: Apple’s Incremental Improvement Strategy†, Seeking Alpha. 2012. Web.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Problem of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics in a Business specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Siegel, Marc A. â€Å"Option Backdating: Corporate Governance Remains a Challenge†. The CPA Journal. 2007. Web. This essay on The Problem of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics in a Business was written and submitted by user Nathalie Hawkins to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Free Essays on The Alcoholic Republic

The Alcoholic Republic In the book â€Å"The Alcoholic Republic†, written by W. J. Rorabaugh, expresses the impact of alcoholism on the first 50 years of American History. . From judges, doctors, women, and children, they all had a taste of the blissful intoxication that America binged on from 1790 to 1840. Young America was addicted to hard pure spirits, whiskey, rum, gin, and brandy, which to those who know alcohol where 45% alcohol, and in the language of the distillers 90 proof (7). Though the spirits where the most popular, people also drank beer, cider, and wine, but alcohol in general, regardless of its form crossed many dense barriers of the time. The touched the educated elite to the slaves who belonged to them. â€Å"The Founding Fathers, fearful that American Republic would be destroyed in a flood of alcohol â€Å" (6) caused them to take actions. The taverns, which John Adams condemned as â€Å"a weakening of religious influence† where instead actually â€Å"seed beds of the Revolution† (35) that fertilized to help bloom and grow. Inside these righteous seeds lay a growing hate against the British and the tyranny they enforced. So, in a keen sense the â€Å"good creature† sprouted the idea of revolution and independence. A thing such as Alexander Hamil ton’s whiskey tax failure was true evidence that Americans have indeed made alcohol an â€Å"American Tradition†. America’s reasons for turning to the spirits were stresses of the new industrialization, the loneliness of the frontier, and strive to build this country anew. The book is a severe eye opener; it is a serious concept that never crossed my mind. I really enjoyed most of it; other stuff was kind of boring and redundant but nevertheless I learned a lot about American History I never dreamed of conceiving.... Free Essays on The Alcoholic Republic Free Essays on The Alcoholic Republic The Alcoholic Republic In the book â€Å"The Alcoholic Republic†, written by W. J. Rorabaugh, expresses the impact of alcoholism on the first 50 years of American History. . From judges, doctors, women, and children, they all had a taste of the blissful intoxication that America binged on from 1790 to 1840. Young America was addicted to hard pure spirits, whiskey, rum, gin, and brandy, which to those who know alcohol where 45% alcohol, and in the language of the distillers 90 proof (7). Though the spirits where the most popular, people also drank beer, cider, and wine, but alcohol in general, regardless of its form crossed many dense barriers of the time. The touched the educated elite to the slaves who belonged to them. â€Å"The Founding Fathers, fearful that American Republic would be destroyed in a flood of alcohol â€Å" (6) caused them to take actions. The taverns, which John Adams condemned as â€Å"a weakening of religious influence† where instead actually â€Å"seed beds of the Revolution† (35) that fertilized to help bloom and grow. Inside these righteous seeds lay a growing hate against the British and the tyranny they enforced. So, in a keen sense the â€Å"good creature† sprouted the idea of revolution and independence. A thing such as Alexander Hamil ton’s whiskey tax failure was true evidence that Americans have indeed made alcohol an â€Å"American Tradition†. America’s reasons for turning to the spirits were stresses of the new industrialization, the loneliness of the frontier, and strive to build this country anew. The book is a severe eye opener; it is a serious concept that never crossed my mind. I really enjoyed most of it; other stuff was kind of boring and redundant but nevertheless I learned a lot about American History I never dreamed of conceiving.... Free Essays on The Alcoholic Republic The Alcoholic Republic by W.J. Rorabaugh During the nineteenth –century America was known for it’s drinking abilities. The question some people want to know is â€Å"was early nineteenth-century America really a nation of drunkards† (Rorabaugh 5)? The United States was among the most addicted of nations, that in this respect it had out stripped all of Europe, and that â€Å"no other people ever indulged, so universally.† Alcohol was looked upon as a disease like the plague and it was spreading wider and wider throughout the country. It was being considered as a growing evil. Statesman like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams weren’t worried about the use of alcohol for they drank themselves, but the excessive use. In 1821 a wealthy scholar, George Ticknor, warned Jefferson, â€Å"If the consumption of spirituous liquors should increase for thirty years to come at the rate it has for thirty years back we should be hardly better than a nation of sots† (6). This feared the Founding Fathers because they were afraid that the American republic would be destroyed in a flood of alcohol. To others, like foreign travelers they found the drinking habits of Americans deplorable. They were surprised to see how much alcohol was being consumed. A Swedish visitor, Carl D. Arfwesdon, reported a â€Å"general addiction to hard drinking† (6). The travelers were so astonished to see the extent of intemperance of the Americans. Americans drank mostly distilled liquor commonly known as spirits-whiskey, rum, and brandy. Most of these liquors were 45 percent alcohol or as we know it today as 90 proof. â€Å"During the nineteenth-century the typical American annually drank more distilled liquor than at any other time in our history† (7). Between 1800 and 1830 annual per capita of consumption increased and exceeded 5 gallons, which is tripled of today’s consumption. After the high taxation the drinking of distilled be...

Diversity in Workplace Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Diversity in Workplace - Essay Example According to Hofstede (2001), the culture background of an individual largely varies across different nations or their place of origin. It also influences how they interact with other people in the society, display social behaviour, perceive different stimuli and practise social customs. Thus, it can be stated that the individuals belonging from different cultural or ethnic background bear different psychological profile personality trait. stated that a workforce is more effective in delivering higher output if it is composed of employees from different cultural background. It gives the organisation a diverse employee base with employees bearing different personality traits suitable for different organisational activities. Green et al., (2012) further stated that diversity in an organisation should also be maintained on the grounds of gender distribution. As of now, in a typical organisation the male employees outnumber the female employees. These situations have become quite challen ging for the organisation and they have taken several steps towards its improvement. The racial discrimination in the US against the minority group of Muslim is quite prevalent. Major terrorist attack incidents have been linked to the entire community, which as a result has led to the increased discrimination of the Muslims by a large number of western population. According to the reports of Greenhouse (2010), the religious discrimination against the Muslims has found its way into the organisational behaviour of several firms.

Human Rights Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Human Rights Law - Essay Example Human rights tend to be a very modern concept that primarily evolved after the World War II, in the aftermath of the gargantuan genocides and atrocities marking the Holocaust, leading to the adoption of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations at Paris in the year 1948. Hence the development of the European notion of human rights is a very recent phenomenon, unfolding after the secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics, which is still being extended legal and political legitimacy through relevant legal and statutory instruments. In that context, the English human rights law has evolved from the potent traditions pertaining to liberty and freedom existing in the English law and conventions as well as the apt developments taking place in a pan-European scenario.3 The UK law pertaining to human rights owes much to the European Convention of Human Rights. ... The primary objective that these classifications tend to achieve is to assure that under no circumstances a person is deprived of one’s liberty in a manner that is arbitrary.5 The quintessential spirit of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights is to safeguard the individuals from such actions of the state that may be deemed to be unlawful and unexplainable. Yet, in the same breath, Article 5 tends to acknowledge that the scope of liberty could not be extended to the limits of absolute.6 Thus, in the remaining part, Article 5 attempts to enumerate the conditions and circumstances that justify the lawful restraints on the liberty of a person. Yet, each of the exceptions mentioned in Article 5 are subject to accruing legitimacy on the existence of reviews by the independent bodies of opinion. Hence, it is in totality, when one observes these twin ramifications of Article 5 that one could not help acknowledging the possibility of violations arising from faulty or int entional interpretations and applications of Article 5. The Human Rights Act 1998 of the United Kingdom was a direct initiation of the spirit for human dignity and liberty ushered in by the European Convention for Human Rights at a local level.7 The Human Rights Act 1998 came into application and force in the year 2000. The very purpose of this Act was to infiltrate in to the British Law, the rights upheld and supported by the European Convention on Human Rights. This Act lay to rest the requirement for approaching the European Court of Human Rights located at Strasbourg, by extending a remedy for the violation of Convention Rights, within the United Kingdom law. This Act makes it unlawful for a public body in the United Kingdom to act

Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 50

Case Study Example The duration is beyond the qualifying period set forth under Section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996) for claiming unfair dismissal. 3. The Claimant spent most of the time driving long-distance trips as he is the most experienced driver in the Company. On Fridays, he normally worked in the office and dealt with administrative work. He usually worked a 40-hour week. 4. On 9 May 2014, the Claimant was responsible for the Oxford Blenheim Palace Tour Weekend Trip. He had to drive back from Oxford to Mumford with 48 customers on his coach after a weekend at Oxford. The Claimant has driven this route several times before and is familiar with both the itinerary and the motorways. 5. At around 5:45 pm, the Claimant’s mobile phone rang. The Claimant was driving the coach at the time. He is aware of the Company’s policy on mobile phones, namely that only hands-free kits are permitted whilst driving. However, the Claimant could not find his hands-free kit that day. He could see that it was his wife who was ringing him. His wife knew his work schedule well. It was unusual for his wife to ring him whilst he was driving so he decided to take the call. The Claimant’s behaviour fell below the ethical standards of practice which he swore to protect. Besides paragraph 3 of ACAS 2015 leaves open the Client’s response to employee misconduct, which in this case, was commensurate with summary dismissal. 6. The Claimant spoke to his wife for about 2-3 minutes on the phone. The Claimant’s wife had slipped in the bathroom. Although she was uninjured, she was shocked and just wanted some reassurance. The Claimant provided as much support as possible on the phone and told his wife that he had to hang up as he knew that he would be risking the passengers’ safety if he continued talking on the phone. The duration on the phone may be fair considering the emergency call. However, the fact that the

Effects of chinas one child policy on women

Effects of chinas one child policy on women As the most populous country in the world, the Peoples Republic of China has been adopting the One-Child Policy since 1979 in order to improve the problem of overpopulation which is seen as an obstacle of the growth and development of the country. While the Chinese Government emphasizes its achievements of population control in China, the controversial policy has been widely criticized for its negative influences. This paper presents the One-Child Policys effects on the position of women. Womens position in this paper is basically defined by womens rights, freedom, respectability and social status .I will first briefly introduce the policy, then analyze both the positive and negative impacts with relevant data and statistics, and lastly come to a conclusion. The Policy and Population Growth Introduced in 1978 and implemented since 1979, the One-Child Policy is a family planning policy adopted by the Chinese Government in order to improve Chinas over-rapid population as to prevent its unfavourable effects on economic and social development of the country.(Information Office of the State Council Of the Peoples Republic of China 1995) The policy restricts married urban Chinese couples from having more than one child by imposing monetary penalties on families with extra children yet exemptions are allowed for couples who belong to ethnic minorities, live in rural area or do not have any siblings.(BBC News 2000) The One-Child Policy is considered successful in terms of its control on Chinas population growth as the birth rate in the county has been greatly decreasing since the introduction of the policy. (see Figure 1) Compared with 1970, in 1994 the birth rate dropped from 33.43 per thousand to 17.7 per thousand; the natural growth rate, from 25.83 per thousand to 11.21 per thousand; and the total fertility rate of women, from 5.81 to around 2à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦According to statistics supplied by the United Nations, Chinas population growth rate has already been markedly lower than the average level of other developing countries. (Information Office of the State Council Of the Peoples Republic of China 1995) Figure 1. Changes in the total fertility rate in China Source: National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (2006) Violation of Womens Reproductive Rights Despite its success in population control, the One-Child Policy gives rise to criticisms among which one lies in its violation of womens reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights first recognized at the United Nations International Conference on Human Rights in Teheran on 13th May 1986. According to the 16th article of the Proclamation of Teheran, Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children. Dixon-Mueller (1993: 12) suggests that reproductive rights can be defined as three types: 1. the freedom to decide how many children to have and when (or whether) to have them; 2. the right to have the information and means to regulate ones fertility; 3. the right to control ones own body. Reproductive freedom is the core of individual self-determination. The One-Child Policy does not only violate womens rights by limiting the number of their children but also leads to forced abortions in the country. Under the enforced policy, every 2.4 seconds there is a woman undergoing a forced abortion in China and this makes a total of about 35,000 abortions per day. (Phillips 2010: 1) Abortion is legal in China and as reported in China Daily in 2009, 13 millions of abortions are performed in China every year, which largely exceeds those performed in other countries such as the United States and Canada. (see Figure 2). There is a direct relationship between the One-Child Policy and Chines abortion rate. PostenYaukey (1992: 290) point out that the abortion rate in China increased by nearly 50% between 1978 and 1979 when the policy started being implemented. It is widely known that abortions can cause women health problems, not to mention its negative impacts on emotional and mental health. Ms. Reggie Littlejohn, president of Womens Rights Without Frontiers, criticized that The one child policy causes more violence toward women and girls than any other policy on the face of the earth. (Jiang 2009) Figure2. Abortion statistics in China, U.S.A., U.K., Canada and Australia Source: Jiang (2009) Unwanted Daughters and Sex-Selective Abortions A saying among peasants in China goes like this:The birth of a boy is welcomed with shouts of joy and firecrackers, but when a girl is born, the neighbours say nothing(WestleyChoe 2007: 2) In spite of Chinas modernization over the past decades, it is still common for Chinese parents to prefer sons to daughters. (Wang 1999: 197) Such a preference indirectly leads to sex-selective abortions as female fetuses are usually considered less precious than male ones, especially if the couples are allowed to have only one child. With fetal screening technologies such as ultrasound, amniocentesis and chorionic villi sampling, the sex of unborn fetuses can be recognized before their birth. Such technologies and available abortions result in the possibility that couples selectively abort female fetuses in the hope of having a son instead.(WestleyChoe 2007: 3) Beside sex-selective abortions, Chinas infant mortality rate is another thing to look into. Generally the mortality of male infants is expected to be greater than that of female ones as male infants are biologically weaker than female infants.(Li, 2007: 2) This assumption is also proved by the worlds infant mortality rate by sex.(See Table 1) However, as shown in Table 2, China goes in the reverse direction. It is believed that this unusual tendency is caused by female infanticides and daughter abandonments resulting from the son preference. Table 1. Worlds infant mortality rate by sex 1980-2010 Source: United Nations Population Division (2010) Table 2. Chinas infant mortality rate by sex 1980-2010 Source: United Nations Population Division (2010) Gender Imbalance Blessing or Curse? Together with the increasing female infant mortality, there is a rising trend of the sex ratio in China since the implement of the One-Child Policy.(See Figure 3) It is estimated by the State Population and Family Planning Commission that there will be 30 million more Chinese man than Chinese women in 2020. (BBC News 2007) Because of the supply-and-demand law that supply decreases t and demand remains unchanged then the value of supply increase, some people assume that if there are less women in China their values and social status should naturally rise. However, this law would make sense only if the demand of women was high. Poon(2008) points out that when women become the minority in a male-preponderant society like China, China may face a period of unprecedented male aggression, which would likely render women as victims and womens status even more precarious and vulnerable to subjugation. Figure 3. Rising sex ratio and excess female infant mortality in China Source: Sun (2005) Womens Empowerment The Mistaken Focus It is always emphasized by the Chinese Government that the One-Child Policy helps promoting womens empowerment and improving womens position as they are freed from heavy burdens brought about by having many children(National Population and Family Planning Commission of China 2006). This claim contains two causal relations: 1) Because of the One-Child Policy women have fewer children. 2) Women have fewer children so they can spend more time on their career. Both of them make sense in a large extent, but is the One-Child Policy a must to control the number of womens children? Probably no. Despite that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the PRC, the One-Child Policy is never implemented in the city, where the social position of women is relatively high. As shown in Figure 4, the fertility rate of Hong Kong kept dropping even and was even lower than that of China. Of course one can argue that there are various factors contributing to Hong Kongs low fertility rate, yet one can also question whether the One-Child Policy is the only factor causing the decline in fertility rate and the rise of womens position. Figure 4. Fertility rates from 1960-2005 in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and East Asia Pacific Source: The United Families International (2010) The Single Child Generation The One-Child Policy does not only aim to decrease the birthrate but also to improve the quality of the new generation, the future pillars of China. It is commonly believed that having single daughters will raise the position of women as their parents provide them with better and more concentrated resources such as education and materials. It may be true in some ways, but Greenhalgh(2007.) points out that the One-Child Policy has produced the most materially and educationally privileged generation of young people in Chinese history who are spoiled and egocentric. Having been the focus of attention from the family throughout their growing-up years, these children are more dependent on others and easily hurt psychologically.(China Daily 2005) The new single-child generation in China has already concerning Chinese from the older generation. Do better resources necessarily create a better generation? If it does not, how can we expect a decline in qualities of children (both male and fema le) will result in better positions of women? Conclusion The One-Child Policy was claimed to be a short-term measure when it was first introduced in China.(Hesketh, Li Zhu 2005) Now that the policy has already been implemented for three decades, its negative consequences eventually appear and have aroused worries from the society. The policy negatively affects womens position as it violate womens rights and enhances the existing favoritism towards male children and it is not coming to an end yet. According to Zhao Baige, deputy director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China, although it is said that the policy has been slowly being relaxed ,Chinas family-planning policy will remain unchanged until at least 2015. (Kumar 2010) (1631 words)

Communicaton between animals and humans Essay -- essays research paper

INTRODUCTION The importance of communication between animals cannot be underestimated. Through communication, animals are able to concentrate on finding food, avoiding their enemies, mating and caring for their young. The study of communication between animals and humans is a never ending fascination and a way to learn more about ourselves. The development of human communication is what makes us exclusive to any living thing on this planet. The ways in which we communicate with one another is uniquely important in our everyday lives. Without it’s presence, the world would have no development, holding the same appearance as one million years ago. We would be lacking a sense of society and most probably be still in the Stone Age. The mystery of the development of human language constitutes how we are uniquely human from other animals. Human beings have a daily working vocabulary of 1000 words, and with our knowledge on how to use grammatical rules is what makes our sense of communication more sophisticated than any animal. Verbal communication between humans is the central, most relevant factor in a sophisticated society. People have evolved into expressive and capable members of society. The human language has been around for five thousand years and it is apparent that language has been complex long before that. The human language is quite problematic as grammar and syntax play a major role in defining language. Animals have an extremely primitive way of communicating compared to humans, and the way in which we communicate. Animals cannot verbally speak like us humans and studies verify this. HUMAN AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION It is the existence of human communication that has made the world the place it is today. Through communication, human beings have created skyscrapers, long bridges to complicated forms of transportation. We have also had the ability to start world destruction and encourage world peace. It is through learning how to communicate with other humans for almost five thousand years that a persons way of thinking has expanded and information has been passed on from generation to generation. Without a well-advanced language system, we would not be able to function as a successful society that is constantly making advanced and technological developments. The ways in which we communicate to each ... .... Humans have also been able to build a comfortable society and work at it from generation to generation. As far as we know, animals are still using the same forms of communication as hums did 5000 years ago. There have been no signs of advances in the ways in which they live or the ways they choose to communicate. I don’t underestimate animals as I think they can be intelligent in their own little ways. In conclusion, the only means of animal communication involves a basic information transfer from the sender to the receiver. However, no animal could come close to an affective communication system like the human language. They can however convoy their needs, desires and reactions to the environment via some sophisticated signalling of their own. BIBLEOGRAPHY (1)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Harley T (1996) â€Å"The psychology of language from Data to Theory†. Psychology press publishers. (2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ting-Toomey. S and Korzenny. F (1989) â€Å"Language, Communication, and Culture†. Sage Publications Ltd (Volume X111) (3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wardhaugh. R (1993) â€Å"Investigating Language†. Blackwell publishers.