Introduction
Companies must abide by ethical principles in order to have their businesses running in an ethical manner. The ethical fibre of a company rests on its employees and the manner in which they respond to ethically challenging issues (Hoffmaster, 2012). Situations that demand the ethical and moral actions and take of employees are critical in building up a business and the employees themselves. The following paper will analyse an ethical situation concerning a company that deals in waste disposal paying critical attention to one particular employee and the decision they have to make.
Relevant Facts of the Case
The chemical company is faced by the ethical issues surrounding the disposal of waste solvents by paying a company that disposes the wastes in a specialized site of land. William Jones is asked by the board of directors to find ways of reducing the cost of waste disposal, who then asks David Hendricks to determine the effectiveness and cost of equipment for recycling solvents.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The equipment would reduce the disposal of these waste solvents by a substantial amount but the expected future cost savings are undetermined (Atkinson, 2016). David does two analyses because he receives uncertain values in relation to cost savings. However, David is uncertain of what analysis to present to Mr. Jones because both seem fit with equal negative consequences.
The board of directors are interested in the net income and ROL and it is the belief of David that presenting both analyses to Mr. Jones will not gain support of the plant manager (Atkinson, 2016). However, presentation of the second analysis will gain support and recommendation to the board of directors by the plant manager that asked him to carry out the analyses in the first place.
Ethical Issues
The ethical issue involved in waste disposal is the dilemma of continuing to have the waste to a land fill or finding better ways of managing the waste through recycling. cutting down the cost of disposing solvent wastes and still offering the best disposal so as not to harm the environment. The business has to make informed decision regarding their role in protecting the environment by proper waste management while still checking into the fact that the company can manage the decision to proper waste management.
The second issue is the handling of the information that David found out regarding recycling of the company’s waste. David is faced with a dilemma of an ethical issue regarding presentation of the information and the response that he gets from the management. Presenting ideas to his manager will lead to gaining of favour over the other but It is ethical for him to present both ideas for the board to decide on which one to settle for but David is afraid that the intermediate boss will not further both to the directors.
Primary Stakeholder
The primary stakeholders of this case study are the board directors of the company, clients that engage in waste management and the staff. According to the study, the board wishes to reduce the cost it spends on paying for disposal of wastes because it is in the money-making business. However, it must cut down on cost in a manner that does not affect the environment or the clients in any way. The staff is also concerned with the company proceeding because reduced costs mean better pay for them and increased bonuses. The companies of waste management are also a determinant to the direction that the company decides to take. David observes this consideration in his analysis being one of the reasons that holds him back from telling the plant manager about the first analysis.
Possible alternatives
The situation at hand provides two alternatives for David. David can go to the board and present the two analyses for the board to decide. In doing so, David would have gone against the chain of command because he would have conveyed information directly to the board without going to the plant manager.
Secondly, David could present the second analyses only that would gain favour both from the board and other staff members not forgetting the plant manager.
Ethics of the Alternatives
Utilitarian Perspective
From a utilitarian perspective, the consequences of undertaking the project of recycling waste will lead to an outcome that protects the environment, reducing production cost of the company thus boosting profits. The consequential outcome is way better since it leads to many people benefitting as stipulated by the utilitarian ethical theory. The alternative to present only one analyses serves to ensure the satisfaction of everybody in the company and gain favour for himself as well as gain bonuses. It helps him gain mileage in the company that could bring him serious benefits.
Rights Perspective
The second alternatives that is to go directly to the board and present both analyses ensures that David acts to do the right thing because it is ethical for the board to make a decision after being informed of all possible scenarios. The decision that the board will make will rest on them as David would have already done his part.
The board of the company has a right to be informed of all possible choices and consequences so that they can make a sound decision in consideration of all factors regarding recycling. It is thus only proper for David to present all the information to the board.
Justice Perspective
It is evident that David has all the information on either choices and he knows the pros and cons of both choices. However one choice of building the recycling plant has more benefits in the long run. It is just that he finds more information that stresses on the protection of the environment and give all the reasons why the board should seek to protect the environment. It is only just that all information is presented without hiding any for ones own ideas but rather provide sufficient information so that decisions arrived at are sound and considerate.
Practical Constraints
The practical constraint evidently observed in the case is the financial requirement that must be achieved by the analysis. David is forced to present the best alternative of disposing wastes in terms of the least amount of costs going into the disposal process. The recycling will cost the company a lot of many to establish. However, the long run practicality of matters is that if the plant is established, the company will have more returns and ROL as well as protect the environment.
Action to be taken
David should approach his plant manager with both analyses and present them to him. In the event that the plant manager fails to act right by telling the information to the board of directors, then David should take it upon himself to proceed to the board and convey the information. By doing so, David would have acted both ethically and in fulfilment of his capacity as a point man in the company (Nielsen, 2010).
If the board is after protecting the environment which should one of their priorities, it will make the best judgement without checking just the monetary impact on their side but a decision that will provide benefits to both the company and the environment.
Conclusion
Companies must abide by ethical principles in order to have their businesses running in an ethical manner. The ethical fibre of a company rests on its employees and the manner in which they respond to ethically challenging issues. The case scenario shows David, an employee of a waste disposing company charged with the task of sourcing out the cost effective way of disposing wastes. However, David is at crossroads because his manager would not approve of his analyses but instead settle for only one. The utilitarian approach is very useful in solving this case scenario such that the theory seeks to benefit all the involved parties at the same time considering most the outcome of the undertaking. It is therefore just that one presents all the information for proper decision making to be completed.
References
Atkinson, S. (2016). Recycling Equipment – Turkish Integrity Center of Excellence TICE. Retrieved from http://www.tice.org.tr/recycling-equipment/
Hoffmaster, B., Freedom, B., & Fraser, G. (2012). Clinical ethics: theory and practice. Springer Science & Business Media.
Nielsen, R. P. (2010). Practitioner-based theory building in organizational ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 93(3), 401-406.
