Sustainable Management Futures (Essay Sample)

Sustainable Management Futures
Name
Institution Affiliation

Sustainable Management Futures
Deontology
Deontology is the pillar of probity; it analyzes the process that should be followed when making important decisions. It also discusses the duty of all individuals in their environments and societies. The pillar of probity is concerned with the principles that influence situations, the fairness of the matter and the ‘no harm’ part of it (Fisher 2013). The action being taken should not harm the persons involved, especially, the end receivers/users.
Advantages of deontology
• Deontology seeks to prevent people from exploiting others. An idea could be good for business and the society. However, one party may end up being cheated or denied the privilege to enjoy the benefits of an idea. In reference to our case, the German chemical firm’s idea to put up a branch in Southern Carolina was a good idea. It would have improved the economy of the Beaufort County as well as living standards of its citizens. However, the implementation of the idea would also cause the county to incur some losses in the future; the idea would pollute the country. This means disadvantages of the tourism idea would have eventually outweighed the benefits that would arise from the venture. No tourist wants to relax in a polluted environment (Esti and Winston 2009). The firm would have provided employment to the county’s residents, but it would also exploit the county. Eventually, the county would end up spending a lot of money to control the negative effects of pollution.
• In deontology, actions are only taken as duties and not because a reward is expected at the end of the day. Doing the right thing is the main motivation behind decisions and actions made in accordance to the principles of deontology. People do the right thing because it is right and not because there is a reward for making such decisions.
• In deontology, a lot of effort is usually made to manage risks. In case such risks happen, their negative effect is usually minimal because of the measures and precautions that were taken beforehand. This principle is mostly put into practice when there are issues to do with business and policy making, and this is especially in terms of risk management. It is mostly used in pollution and environment degradation. When this principle is used, the manager can make a decision especially in regards to the creation of employment. The Deontology theory, therefore, seeks to prevent manage risks rather than correcting their effect after a disaster occurs. It seeks to reduce or reduce the chances of disaster from occurring even if there is no scientific evidence that harm will occur.
Disadvantages
• The deontology theory does not seek to improve the economic, social or political feature of the society. All it seeks is for the right thing to be done.
• This theory is not always practical for normal business activities; in fact, it is rarely used. It is supposed to be used to identify the characteristics of a just society and the original state of the matters. It is usually hard to make business decisions, and to examine the actual state of things, when using the deontology theory.
• The other disadvantage of the theory is that people are supposed to assume that they do not have an identity. They are also supposed to assume the existence of a fairness and justice in the society whereas this is not the case (Egri and Herman 2009). The theory advices people to be ignorant of what is happening in their surroundings. On the other hand, people are supposed to envision the world they would like to live in. The theory, therefore, brings confusion to people making it hard to make decisions in life.
Uses of deontology in making the decision of whether to put up the chemical firm or not
Justice as fairness does not present the reality of the people’s experiences in their everyday life. It presents a situation where we are given a chance to choose what the society should be or the actual state of affairs in the society (the original position of things in the world today). The actual state of the matter in this case is that the Beaufort County badly needs to have a firm that will provide employment for the millions of people in the county. The county is already in a bad state despite the fact that the tourism sector is doing well. For a practical person, this chemical firm would be a blessing. It would provide employment for the unemployed millions of residents in the county. It would also raise the standards of the county because people will be able to provide for themselves, and poverty will be a thing of the past. The per capita income of the county would go up considerably, and everybody else would be happy. The standards of living would go up and so much more. Looking at this scenario, this is should be the desirable state of the society (Henriques and Sardosky 1999). However, the truth of the matter is that the firm will be a health hazard to the environment and the residents at some point. If the manager is rational, he should be able to adopt a maximin strategy, a strategy used to study what would happen if he opted to take any of the two options. What would happen if the company is set up, what would happen if it is not? Once he looks at both the situations critically, he should be able to come up with a decision. The manager should then look at the one that does not present lots of challenges and proceed with it.
. Tourism needs a good environment that has clean water and clean air. However, once the chemical firm is set up, the county will suffer; it will be the start of the end. Once the environment starts deteriorating, tourist number will reduce gradually and this would symbolize the end of tourism. The county’s government should, therefore, look at the bigger picture instead of concentrating on the immediate benefits that are expected to be realized from the venture. Moreover, the venture would also affect the health of the venture’s worker thus reducing their productivity. This presents another reason why the chemical firm should not be set up in the Beaufort County to prove to the county’s residents that he had their best interests at heart. The manager should use the deontology theory as basis for making the right decision. This decision not to set up the firm would seem impractical from the investor’s point of view, but morality demands him to do the right thing; to protect the flourishing tourism industry in the county.
The ‘do no harm’ principle should also be used by the manager to come up with a decision of whether he should set up the firm or not. This might be at the lowest part of the pillar, but it is always very important. When one is doing something, he should always consider acting well. However, if he cannot, he should avoid acting in a bad way at the very least. This is one of the principles used in business and policy making matters in the society (Anderson and Batemann 2000). It is a precautionary principle, and it is expressed through risk management. It is evident that putting up the firm is a risk to the environment and the society’s people. This principle is used to prevent harm rather than rectifying the harm after it has already happened. Therefore, an action should be taken to prevent a disaster from taking place or to mitigate the effect whenever they occur.
In this case, preventing the severity of the harm is impossible because it will turn out to be a very expensive affair for the BASF chemical firm. There is no way that the harm will be limited because the effects of usually worsen over time. It might start small, and measures could be taken to control to control the pollution, but as time proceeds, it will become harder to contain the harm (Smick, 2009). However, it is the environment and the people who will suffer most from the firm’s activities. This is because the firm has an option of closing its business in the country8 and starting the business in another country. However, the damage to the environment will have been done already and reversing the situation will be hard.
The BASF manager should also use the principle to come up with a decision whether to set up the company or not. This principle should be used well because it provides a basis for moral obligation because it involves people’s lives. The manager should understand that people should stop being treated as commodities but with respect. This is a market transaction and employees, customers, employers and all the stakeholders should be treated with respect. He should also understand that the end does not justify the means. He should know that at the end of the day, it is people he is dealing with and he should consider their health before anything else. If the firm will be a health hazard to the people and the environment, then it should not be set up.
Scenario 2
Financial professionals always find themselves in dilemmas. They often pressured by their superiors to violate their client’s rights to increase a company’s profitability. Sometimes it is so hard to do the right thing especially in the current economy. One may be willing to do the right thing, but he is forced to be unethical by the administration just for him to keep his job. In dealing with ethical issues, we will look at two ethical categories and these are ethical neutrality and ethical awareness.
Ethical neutrality
Ethical neutrality refers to a situation where people choose to deliberately disregard some ethical requirements to ensure the achievement of certain goals. However, this trend should not be used as an excuse whenever companies act unethically. There are several reasons that can be used by companies to explain their decision to act unethically. F...