British Petroleum: Unethical Issues

British Petroleum: Unethical Issues Referring few frequently use terms in business ethics as in, this report stressing on business ethics. Based on Crane and Matten in definition of business ethics, it is the study of business situation, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed. In a normal context, a situation cannot be considered unethical if it is not violating the law but a situation can be equivocal when conflict happened among ethical values. Importance of Business Ethics Ethical practices in business are important because businesss power and influence is greater than before. (Crane and Matten, 2010) Based on Laczniak and Murphy (1993, p. 5), consumer will have more impression on businesses that practice ethical practices in business. Based recent research of Belak and Rozman (2012), company that practices ethics will have better image and reputation. Then, it brings long term interest. Ethical practices help business to meet stakeholders expectations more effectively while stakeholders demand going more complicated and hard to achieve. (Crane and Matten, 2010) Based on the research of Holme (2008) on business ethics, he listed out few advantages of business in being ethical. He linked up the relationship between employee satisfactions levels with financial result of company. Higher satisfaction level of employee results in better financial result. Further, a company that practices ethics in business gains trust from suppliers. He further explained that a company practicing with ethical culture will influence employee to support on the company. It will influence employee to react with strong motivation and performance which is crucial to gain customer approval. Company Background British Petroleum, British  international  oil  and  gas companies headquartered London, UK. Based on CNNs Global 500 ranking of world corporations (Refer appendix B), BP ranked 4th largest company in the world and 3rd largest energy company. (Fortune, 2012) Nature of Business BP seeks to provide energy sustainably with its upstream and midstream active in 30 countries. BP works on finding, developing, and moving resources then produce and marketing the products. (Refer appendix C) Whilst providing energy and daily use products, BP investing on alternative resources, the sustainable energy with low carbon especially bio-fuels, solar and wind energy. Industrial Practices in Ethics As an international oil and gas company, decision made by the company often involve many parties and might brings serious consequences. There are ethics issues bothering BP in past few years, the human right and environmental issues. Based on BPs sustainability review of 2011, the company emphasize in enhancing safety and risk management in order to gain back trust from the previous accident in Gulf of Mexico. BP also continue working with safer drilling, avoiding environment pollution and restoring the environment resulting by deepwater horizon oil-spill. One of the industrial practices by BP in ethics is to treat people fairly and strictly eliminate child labour and forced labour. Bribery and corruption is prohibited in BP and the company seeks to not obey law. (BP Code of Conduct, 2011) BP invested in cleaner and greener energy helps preserving environment for future. Besides, BP  communicates with local community groups to avoid and minimize impact on their life. BP also helps in creating jobs. They use local suppliers and support community development. Ethical Dilemmas BPs stakeholders are the local communities, customers, employees, shareholders and analysts, governments and regulators, industry and non-government organizations. (Stakeholder engagement, 2012) In this case, stakeholder analysis is used to find out the interests of stakeholders affected by environment pollution caused by BP. How the environment pollution has impacted BP stakeholders will discuss later. Local Communities Based on an article of George in 2003, he emphasized the importance of taking interests of local communities while making decision. Supporting on local communities brings advantage of getting support from them in terms of supporting companys activities, as well as attracting and retaining good employees. Out of so many of the ethical issues, environment pollution is the issues that BP often encountered with. For example the Columbian pollution on farmland, Texas City chemical leak, and the recently deepwater horizon oil spill. The blowout of deepwater horizon rig in April 2010 has been commented as the worst oil-spill in history of US (BBC, 2010). The accident has killed 11 crew members on the rig and the rig sank two days after the explosion. The sank rig leak gallons and gallons of crude oil into sea and the leaking of oil from the exploded Macondo well polluted Gulf of Mexico and other 5 nearest gulfs, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, causing environment pollution. The incident became the biggest issue faced by BP. Environment pollution that mostly faced by BP is the pollution caused by oil-spill. The pollution has caused damage on wildlife and eco-system of the impacted area. Wildlife like birds, sea turtles, dolphins, and also sperm whales were badly impacted because of oil-spill. There are health problems faced by these animals. Just to name a few, airways and immune system damaged because of oil-spill. Then, birds drown because of oil on their fur making them failed to fly. Dolphins found death because of the toxins released into the air. Marine mammals like dolphins need to go up surface and breathe. (Environmentalgraffiti, n.d.) Gulf Coast is rich with seafood like  fish, crab, oysters and shrimp, especially oyster and shrimp that are highly concentrated in the gulfs, contributing to production of seafood in US. The pollution affected the seafood industry badly. The 23% out of $2.4billions on production of Louisiana seafood has been shut down after the oil-spill. (Environmentalgraffiti, n.d.) Till date, there are still impacts on seafood found in affected coast even though oil has been cleared. Based on article of Jamail in (Aljazeera, 2012), they found fishes, shrimps and other seafood with abnormal growth. For example, eyeless fish and shrimp believe as a result of toxics released by oil. Tourism bears the brunt of the environment pollution. Based on a report of Oxford Economics (n,d), tourism plays key drivers in Gulf regions economy. Referring to the chart below, oil spill has greatest impact on tourism revenue during year 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon Oil-spill. Bourgeois, the owner of Bourgeois Fishing Charters told The Times-Picayune (2010) that his business was down after the oil-spill in Gulf of Mexico. The visit to fishing charters decreased about 20 percent after the case, booking declined and increase in cancellation rate of trips. Besides, fishing industry has been directly impacted by the pollution, causing increase of unemployment rate. The lives of people in affected gulfs were threatened because they were unable to collect fish. William, as reported by Juhasz (2012) article in The Nation, has lost his income because of shrimp he used to catch were affected because of the oil-spill. Air pollution caused by the explosion of rig also brings impact on the health of local communities. Nicole told The Nation that there is smell of oil for the entire month after explosion and it made her daughters asthma worst. Not only that, Elizabeth, 9, Nicoles daughter also suffers from rashes, allergies, inflamed sinuses, sore throat and an upset stomach. Another example of how environment pollution impact on BPs local communities is the oil-spill of Columbia pipeline caused by corrosion of pipeline. It is a project with Columbia national oil company and 4 others multinational company. The oil leaking from corroded pipeline transferring crude oil polluted farmland. Water was poisoned, lead to death of livestock and crops were failed to grow. (Taylor, 2011) Shareholders To be straightforward, shareholder as one of companys stakeholders to provided fund. (Harvard Business Review, 2012)  Shareholder seeks profit and return on investment rather than growth of business. The environment pollution of BP has brings impact on its shareholders. Especially the blow-out and oil-spill of deepwater horizon rig in Gulf of Mexico, BP faced numbers of court cases, claims and payout for cleaning up oil. BP has accepted to pay a total of $4.5bn fine to solve all the 14 criminal charges. (Goldenberg and Rushe, 2012) Besides, BP has paid a total of $23billions on claim and cleans up. Based on the report of BP on cash dividend payout in history, there is no dividend payout in year 2010 after the accident in Gulf of Mexico. Share price drop drastically from a constant increasing yearly. The dividend increased at 3rd quarter of year 2011 but it is still very much lower than the dividend paid before the accident on Gulf of Mexico. (BP, n.d) How BP dealt with dilemmas Dilemmas have to be solved by company to sustain in business. How BP did to solve the dilemma will be discuss and apply to ethical theory. Responding to the main cause of accident in Gulf of Mexico, BP has designed its programme on enhancing safety and risk management to avoid repeating of accident like Deepwater Horizon Oil-spill. Local Communities First, BP has takes responses to helps in different dilemma caused by the accident. It includes helps in monitoring health and safety of people involved in cleaning up oil, puts effort on cleaning up both offshore and on shore, rescuing and rehabilitation of wildlife, containing the leak and compensate the people and communities affected. (BP, 2011) Few examples on how BP responses to the dilemma, BP hired local commercial fisherman and vessel owner to help in clean-up. The clean-up of affected area need large amount of manpower and BP has decided to seek help from the local, with their local knowledge. Then, BP deployed new shoreline cleaning technologies. To stop the oil leaking from the damaged well, BP used dispersant to helps in stopping oil-spilling. (BP, 2011) To resolve the damage made to local ecosystem, BP has invested on monitoring wildlife, emergency restoration projects, early restoration projects and also National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Projects. BP works on minimizing and tracking for the impact on wildlife. For example, bird observational survey and live dolphin health assessments. Emergency respond also took by BP. For example, eggs of Kemps Ridley sea turtle has been collected and protected, release after hatchlings. (BP, 2011) Furthermore, BP supports on monitoring and testing programmes of seafood. This including testing on dispersants to boost people confident on the quality of seafood. As an overall till 2011, BP has invested $33.5 million to test and monitor the seafood, and $ 48.5 million to help in promoting seafood. (BP, 2011) With the affect on tourism industry because of the accident, tourism campaigns has launch to attract people visit to Gulf Coast. Event like seafood festivals and fishing tournaments has been launched and supported by BP in terms of funding. There is another advertising campaign launch by BP designed in promoting tourism. BP contributes in community development of the affected area. The company support on various type of jobs training, and education. (BP, 2011) Shareholders Ethical Theory (Utilitarianism) Utilitarianism, as defined by Bentham and Mill, the action is morally right if it results in the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people affected by the action. The theory also known as greatest happiness principle (Crane and Matten, 2010) Organizations best practices and values Alyeska Pipeline Service Company

Amy Tans The Kitchen Gods Wife Essay -- Kitchen

Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife is the story of a relationship between a mother and daughter that is much more than it seems. This touchingly beautiful narrative not only tells a story, but deals with many of the issues that we have discussed in Women Writers this semester. Tan addresses the issues of the inequality given women in other cultures, different cultures' expectations of women, abortion, friendship, generation gaps between mothers and daughters, mother-daughter relationships, and the strength of women in the face of adversity. Tan even sets the feminist mood with the title of the book, which refers to a woman in Chinese Mythology who cared for a selfish man who became a minor god. She pulls from her own life experiences, relatives, and emotions to write this story, a factor that probably contributes to the realness of the plot and the roundness of the characters. Tan's mother's previous marriage to an abusive man, her father's death, and her loving relationship with her relatives (specifically her mother) all show themselves in the intricately woven story of a mother named Winnie, and a daughter named Pearl, and their struggles as Chinese-American women.    Much of this story stems from Tan's love for her own mother, Daisy Ching, who gave birth to the brilliant Amy in 1952 in California. Daisy Ching, a great inspiration for this novel, has a vividly detailed recollection of her life in China which she shares with her daughter. Tan, in turn, shares some of this with her readers in The Kitchen God's Wife through the voice of the mother-figure, Winnie. Like Daisy Ching's eldest son (Amy Tan's brother), the main character, Winnie, experiences the de... ...rength will preserve her memories forever. Tan teaches her readers that women have the strength, despite the fact that society has said otherwise, to overcome all obstacles. She also shows the sad plights of our predecessors who have committed sins out of love in their oppressed existence. With the love of a mother and a daughter, both real and imaginary, Amy Tan demonstrates these three things (and more) that we have discussed this semester: women's strength in the face of adversity, the idea that taking a life is better than giving a bad one, and the incorporation of one's own experiences into writing. Tan has written a beautiful piece of literature worthy of being read by men and women alike.    Works Cited 1. Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife. Thorndike Press: Maine 1991. 2. "1st Person: Amy Tan" Http://www.sunherald.com/1ptan/html/la.htm

Employee Welfare and Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is supremely important in an organization because it is what productivity depends on. If your employees are satisfied they would produce superior quality performance in optimal time and lead to growing profits. Satisfied employees are also more likely to be creative and innovative and come up with breakthroughs that allows a company to grow and change positively with time and changing market conditions Employee welfare defines as â€Å"efforts to make life worth living for workmen†. These efforts have their origin either in some statute formed by the state or in some local custom or in collective agreement or in the employer’s own initiative. Job satisfaction represents the constellations of person’s attitude towards or about the job. In general, job satisfaction is the attitude towards the job as a whole. Job satisfaction is a function of satisfaction with different aspects of job, i. e. supervision, pay, works itself, co-workers, promotion, etc. , and of the particular weighting or importance one attaches to these respective components. Modern management considers human being as resource and it is an importance for the success of any organization. It is the strength and aid. Therefore employees attitudes, interest, quality, job satisfaction, etc. , have a bearing productivity of a firm unless the management is able to recognize employees needs and wants they will lose motivation and morale and it will affect the best interest of the firm. Work is one of the most important activities in a person’s life. Who do have satisfying job rarely have fully satisfying lives. Dissatisfaction in work can lead in many circumstances to lower production and friction on the job. So that it must be considered by the management and steps should be taken to find out the factors which cause job dissatisfaction and to reduce such dissatisfaction. In general employee satisfaction is the attitude towards the work environment, salary, relationship with their colleagues, job security, grievance handling, performance appraisal, training and development, management style, quality policy, career counseling and so on.

Theories of Patriarchy essays

Theories of Patriarchy essays Assess the claim that gender inequalities in the domestic and occupational divisions of labour are best understood with reference to the concept of patriarchy. You should illustrate your answer with reference to a range of feminist perspectives. Western female thought through the centuries has identified the relationship between patriarchy and gender as crucial to the womens subordinate position. For two hundred years, patriarchy precluded women from having a legal or political identity and the legislation and attitudes supporting this provided the model for slavery. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries suffrage campaigners succeeded in securing some legal and political rights for women in the UK. By the middle of the 20th century, the emphasis had shifted from suffrage to social and economic equality in the public and private sphere and the womens movement that sprung up during the 1960s began to argue that women were oppressed by patriarchal structures. Equal status for women of all races, classes, sexualities and abilities - in the 21st century these feminist claims for equality are generally accepted as reasonable principles in western society; yet the contradiction between this principle of equality and the demonstrable inequalities between the sexes that still exist exposes the continuing dominance of male privilege and values throughout society (patriarchy). This essay seeks to move beyond the irrepressible evidence for gender inequality and the division of labour. Rather, it poses the question of gender inequality as it manifests itself as an effect of patriarchy drawing from a theoretical body of work which has been developed so recently that it would have been impossible to write this essay thirty years ago. Although ... patriarchy is arguably the oldest example of a forced or exploitative division of social activities and clearly existed before it was ever examined by sociologis...

Critical analysis essays

Critical analysis essays On September 11, 2001 our world became united due to tragic events that occurred in the United States. No one really understands why these events took place, but Louis Jaramillo tried to further explain his thoughts in an emotional, creative, visual form. In Louiss thought provoking piece he exemplifies primary, secondary, and complementary colors. He provides line, value, and overlapping. The explosion of many colors used in the piece each illustrates a very important meaning, which to me represents the implosion of the twin towers. A large portion of the piece is red, which relates to the massive amount of bloodshed during the September 11 attacks. In addition to the red there are many other colors following a circular pattern around the piece. These colors each represent their own individuality as a country, but as the colors blend together they signify unification. These colors represent the many nations involved in the uniting of our world. In the center of the piece there are two very distinct objects. One of the objects appears to resemble a circular drawing that allows the piece to continue the circular flow, just as the world would. The other object signifies the writings of a foreign language, which represents the terrorists. It is art like Louis Jaramillo that make us reflect on the tragic events that occurred on September 11, 2001. It stirred the emotions of sadness as well as love for a country were people pull together and become one in a time of tragedy. ...

What role can and Should HRM play in an organization that is seeking Essay

What role can and Should HRM play in an organization that is seeking to expand its international operations - Essay Example As the individuals working for the company in different locations are likely to come from different cultures, the culture of the company itself can only be established with good HR policies and effective HR management (Hollinshead & Leat, 1995). As defined by Ozbilgin (2005), International HRM is the practice of getting the maximum business value from human assets which are distributed across the world working under the umbrella of a single company. Historically, the cultural differences between the home office and the branch office located in a different country meant that sooner or later HR managers had to face the problem of culture clash which is defined as different cultures affecting work processes and workflow (Faulkner, D. 2002). In the past, these cultural differences were largely ignored and it was thought that the culture of the company would prevail while the culture of the country where the company was located would not matter as much (Kamoche, 1996). However, recent evaluations have shown that culture conflicts might need to be actively countered and could even be used to motivate workers rather than put various managers in conflict (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1998). With these definitions and with the help of practical examples as well as expert opinions, it can be shown that the role played by HRM in an organisation that is seeking to expand its international operations is a twofold role. Firstly, HRM can help the arms of an organisation (both local and branch offices) come to terms with each other in view of their different cultures. Secondly, HRM can help and should help in creating policies which are localised for international operations. The central cultural difference that exists between the UK and a culture such as China or India comes from the very basis of the culture i.e. language. While the predominant language in the UK is English, it may not be used as the lingua franca in China since it is only learnt as a second language.

Eight steps in developing effective communications Essay

Eight steps in developing effective communications - Essay Example Eight steps in developing effective communications Sulemana asserts that successful corporate communication plans are those created after a thorough appraisal of a corporation’s former and current strategies of communicating with its customers and employees. He cites a study conducted at Columbia University’s Centre of Continuing Education that found that an excellent communication plan is one that identifies ways that a given company can move from the status quo to its desired point in the future. Salisbury points out that change management is thus successful when it takes into consideration the views of the target group. Furthermore, this helps to cement choices of the kinds of communication styles one wishes to use, the budget, audiences to use and the ways of conducting an appraisal of the communications program. A plan also helps company executives to guard against last minute interruptions or unnecessary changes. They are also able to control effectively the program with great peace of mind. A proper communications strategy is a vital aspect of any company’s success. It determines a company’s perception by the outside world, which in turn determines the company’s reputation as well as profitability. It also enhances teamwork and understanding among the employees helping them to remain highly motivated. As a result, their productivity increases which serve to benefit the company. All companies should consider investing in a communications plan as it certainly has the potential to boost growth.