Jump to content

User:JoshMuirWikipedia/sandbox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< User:JoshMuirWikipedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JoshMuirWikipedia (talk | contribs) at 10:09, 20 March 2019 (Essay). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Managers of organisations often need to make ethical decisions, enabling sustainable relationships between stakeholders (Maak et al., 2006, cited in Maak et al. 2009, 539). Global warming, which has garnered substantial public attention in recent years in regards to Corporate Social Responsibility, (Gustayson 2009, 489) has generated such decisions, for example, should managers sacrifice profits to reduce carbon emissions. Managers use utilitarian, moral rights, justice and practical rules to guide these choices (Jones et al. 2017, 129). This paper will advocate managers accept the decision, using the utilitarian rule.

Using the practical rule, managers assess if decisions are socially acceptable and whether they could, without reluctance, communicate them to the public (Jones et al. 2017, Number). As, despite scientific consensus, only 36% of Australians in 2012 supported the statement "global warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if it involves significant costs" (Hanson 2012), managers are ethically validated to work selfishly, maintaining carbon emissions. This highlights a flaw in the practical rule: ethics reliant on social norms do not always act in stakeholder's best interests (Sama and Shoaf 2002, 96).

Moral Rights principle guides managers to make choices that best maintain affected people's inalienable rights (Jones et al. 2017, Number).  One is the right to life (“Drafting Committee” 1948), which maintaining emissions breaches, as in a warmer Australia, more extreme weather will put lives at risk. This decision alleviates concerns had of moral rights, while Cavanagh states moral rights can "encourage individualistic, selfish behaviour" (Cavanagh et al. 1981, 367), in this case, the principle defends a collectivist stance.


The justice model encourages decisions to have equitable and fair outcomes (Sama and Shoaf 2002, 95). Applying the justice model leads to a conflict of justice between stakeholders. Maintaining emissions harms the broader community. Reducing emissions harms shareholder’s investment. However, the major shareholders, in requesting the change, expressed a preference for prioritising the community, meaning a decision informed by justice would cut emissions.

The utilitarian model recommends managers choose options that produce the "greatest good for the greatest number" (Sama and Shoaf 2002, 95). While countries that met in 2015 for the Paris Climate Summit agreed to aim to reduce cooling to below 2°C of warming ("COP21" 2015), according to author Peter Christoff, there is "widespread agreement" that current mitigation efforts will likely result in 4°C of heating (Christoff 2014, 1). As global warming’s extreme weather effects (extremely high temperatures, extreme rainfall events etcetera.) will affect all stakeholders (Christoff 2014, 54), a utilitarian decision would strongly recommend reducing emissions. The issue's broad effects on all stakeholders mitigate problems that arise in utilitarian decisions of quantifying the satisfaction of each party (Sama and Shoaf 2002, 95).


To conclude, most ethical decision-making frameworks, including utilitarian, support cutting emissions. The contrast between utilitarian and practical decision’s outcomes highlight the public not always acting in their own best interest, even as they are the stakeholders most harmed by a decision of not reducing emissions.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Maak, Thomas, and Nicola M. Pless. "Business Leaders as Citizens of the World. Advancing Humanism on a Global Scale." Journal of Business Ethics 88, no. 3 (2009): 539. www.jstor.org/stable/40295017


Gustavson, Royston, 2009. "Australia: Practices and Experiences." In Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility, Samuel O. Idowu and Walter Leal Filho, eds., 463-495. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. link-springer-com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/book/10.1007%2F978-3-540-68815-0


Gareth R. Jones, Jennifer M. George, Mary Barrett, Beverley Honig, 2017. Contemporary Management. 4th ed. North Ryde, NSW: McGraw-Hill Education


Hanson, Ferguson. 2012. The Lowry Institute Poll 2012: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy. Lowry Institute. https://archive.lowyinstitute.org/publications/lowy-institute-poll-2012-public-opinion-and-foreign-policy


Sama, Linda M., and Victoria Shoaf. "Ethics on the Web: Applying Moral Decision-Making to the New Media." Journal of Business Ethics 36, no. 1/2 (2002): 93-103. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25074695


Drafting Committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html


Cavanagh, Gerald F., Dennis J. Moberg, and Manuel Velasquez. 1981. "The Ethics of Organizational Politics." Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review (Pre-1986) 6 (3) (07): 363-374. https://search-proquest-com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/229995360?accountid=10382.


"COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris" 2015. BBC, December 13, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35084374


Christoff, Peter. 2014. Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hotter World. Routledge. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/curtin/reader.action?docID=1480730

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:JoshMuirWikipedia/sandbox&oldid=888622972"