Massey Energy’s strategy leading up to the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in April 2010 was unethical. Massey attempted to convey their corporation as valuable to the nation and defined itself as being the most prosperous coal producers in central Appalachia. Their strategy was focused on revenue and productivity. This greed and thirst for profits gave top executives the excuse and desire to overlook and ignore regulations for miner’s safety set by the government. There were countless wrong-doings in their corporate strategy that put their employees at dangerous and threatening risk. I would describe Massey Energy’s strategy as immoral and dishonorable. Massey appeared to be an ethical corporation on the surface. Massey created a façade to shareholders that they were a great company by announcing all the benefits their corporation was bringing to the nation. For example Massey did bring employment, emergency relief and scholarship programs to the local area. This may have been part of their strategy to hide their scandalous actions. A few of their unethical decisions included to not properly dispose …show more content…
Massey Energy has not been a company with integrity. Massey Energy is lacking in areas such as obedience of the law and their code of business ethics. I would suggest that Massey Energy encourages a progressive and safe work atmosphere and makes enrichments and modifications for the continuous cultural improvement. If so, they would not have to hide their records of known violations. Management should always fulfill government safety and environmental laws. Management should also communicate these laws to all employees. Management must establish and incorporate consistent safety guidelines and encourage a culture where employees feel welcomed and that their voices matter and can be heard by leadership. There should also be an effort to eradicate and regulate dangers no matter the
Employers, managers and supervisors should all ensure that workplace practices reflect the risk assessment and safety statement. Behavior, the way in which everyone works, must reflect the safe working practices laid down in these documents. Supervisory checks and audits should be carried out to determine how well the aims set down are being achieved. Corrective action should be taken when required. Additionally, if a workplace is provided for use by others. The safety statement must also set out the safe work practices that are relevant to them. Hence, it is
4. Consider the bill that Representative Engle and Senator Harkin attempted to enact into a law, but which never became a law because of the lobbying efforts of the chocolate companies. What does this incident show about the view that “to be ethical it is enough for business people to follow the law “?
The second accident at the "Timken Steel Faircrest plant" company which a is an employee fall down more than 40 feet which led to several broken bones because of just a small mistake. The problem is when he made a maintenance on a crane he wasn't ware Certified safety harness which it could safe his live from the risk. I used to do a maintenance on more than one cran and my company doesn't allow me to go without waring a Certified safety harness because they have to keep all the employees a way from all the risk and even if they didn't told me to ware it, I will not go up to the cran without it, do the fact that no one knows what will happen and even if I am good at this job, I have to work safely. I agree that this company should teach all
Enron had the largest bankruptcy in America’s history and it happened in less than a year because of scandals and manipulation Enron displayed with California’s energy supply. A few years ago, Enron was the world’s 7th largest corporation, valued at 70 billion dollars. At that time, Enron’s business model was full of energy and power. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling had raised Enron to stand on a culture of greed, lies, and fraud, coupled with an unregulated accounting system, which caused Enron to go down. Lies were being told by top management to the government, its employees and investors. There was a rise in Enron 's share price because of pyramid scheme; their strategy consisted of claiming so much money to easily get away with their tricky ways. They deceived their investors so they could keep investing their money in the company.
Another corporation that operated unethically was Ford Motor Company with the production of the Ford Pinto. To compete with international competition and achieve Lee’s goal of producing the Pinto within a small time frame led to designing and manufacturing flaws. This resulted in a fuel tank design that would put the Pinto in a combustible situation should rear end accidents penetrate the poorly designed fuel tank. Realizing the design malfunction and deciding how to fix the fuel tank
In this short essay, the author will critically review Gerald M. Stern's The Buffalo Creek Disaster in terms of critiquing the author's thesis, supporting arguments, supporting evidence and authority, style, and content. It will also place the work in the context of the larger debate about the relationship between law and business. It is the position of this author that Mr. Sterns' position is correct and this position will be supported in the essay.
Many companies have ethical decisions that need to be and sometimes those decisions can affect many individuals or just a few. Making ethical decisions may be placed solely on one person’s shoulders or it may be a decision that multiple individuals must be involved in. There are several ethical issues in the Richardson Drilling case that should be considered. For instance, bribery, purchasing substandard parts with lack of disclosure that causes injuries, and revealing sensitive information. One potential ethical concern that could arise has to do with ongoing health insurance and the employer’s responsibility.
Jumping right into the summary then. Enron was one of the most successful corporations in America during its prime. Marketing electricity and other commodities, as well as, providing financial and risk management services to other companies were the main types of business that Enron conducted. However, Enron’s successful appearance was found out to be a façade, when it came out that the corporation was making a plethora of unethical business moves. Once the corporation’s actions became public, Enron’s fall from grace quickly followed. (Johnson, 2003)
This case study analyzes the experiences of Courtland Kelley at General Motors (GM). Courtland Kelley a third generation GM worker put his job on the line by pushing the GM managers and executives to fully respond to the safety issues found while working as a safety inspector at the company. Kelley along with his supervisor Bill McAleer first discovered the issues while auditing GM cars at rail yards across the country, a spot check of vehicles before the cars were cleared to be delivered to the dealers. McAleer was taken off the audit as a result, who subsequently sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in favor of GM. The judgement only increased Kelley’s
Enron was named the most admired company for six years in a row, and it was widely considered one of the best companies to work for by Fortune magazine. Enron shocked the world, and it's stockholders when it was revealed at the end of 2001 that the company’s “reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud”. (Enron, 2011, para. 1) Enron maximized it’s long-run profits for itself, but not within the limits of the law. Enron disregarded it’s social responsibility to it’s stackholders when the company only strive for it’s maximized profits, and didn’t strive
Being the managing director of a plastic manufacturing firm in Texas, I was very loyal to my employer, Mr. Brown, the owner of the firm. The managing director had the sole responsibility of managing all the departments in the company. Despite of all the challenges facing the company, all the schedules had to proceed as ordered by the director. All the workers were expected to follow all the orders from their respective head of departments without questioning their seniors. They were not allowed to have or join any union and they had to work for long hours, with no overtime payments. The most dangerous part concerning the company was that the manufacturing plant released too much poisonous gases that caused harm not only to the employees but the surrounding environments (Gerhardt, 2011). These gases increased the level of greenhouse gases in the
One of the “worst business law decisions to emerge in the past decade” is Western Ecosystems Technology v. GreenHunter Wind Energy LCC. GreenHunter Resources, Inc. is a publicly-traded company from Delaware that focuses on water management solutions for oil and gas operations in the Eagle Ford, Marcellus and Bakken shale basins. GreenHunter Resources Inc. was formed to be “the first publicly traded renewable energy company based in the United States that provides to investors a portfolio of diversified assets in the alternative energy sector.” Their business plan was to acquire businesses and operate assests in the wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and biofuels (biodiesel and ethanol) renewable energy sectors. They aimed to change the way power and renewable energy fuels are produced and distributed. Their main goal was to be more efficient and facilitate increased stockholder value.
Question 1 Summarize 1 one page how you would explain Enron’s ethical meltdown: Enron was an energy company founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 through a merger of vast networks of natural gas lines. Enron specialized in wholesale, natural gas, and electricity, and made its money as a wholesaler between suppliers and customers rather than actually owning any. Enron in fact didn’t own any assets, which made their accounting procedures very unusual. The lack of accounting transparency at Enron allowed the company’s managers to make Enron’s financial performance better than it actually was. The organizational culture at Enron was to blame for it’s ethical meltdown. Enron’s accounting scheme slowly began to erode its ethical practices, which soon led the culture of Enron to become a more aggressive and misleading business practice. Enron reported profits from joint partnerships that were not yet attained in order to keep stock prices up (or make wall street happy). As this was happening employees began to notice the ethics in senior management (leadership) deteriorating, and soon after they to would follow in their footsteps. Senior management thought they were saving their company from financial ruin and though lying was ok if it meant saving the company. Investors would surely sell their stocks if they really knew the situation the
There was a vast number of ethical issues raised in the movie “Enron-the Smartest Guys in the Room” but the four I am going to focus on are listed below. Art Anderson, Ken Lay and all of the other executives did a number of unethical things which ultimately brought down Enron and affected thousands of employees and their futures. The bottom line was that each and every one of them acted out of greed for the almighty dollar.
Widely known as the champion of the energy industry, Enron is suddenly faced with a corporate crisis in the form of a scandal. This scandal involves not only Enron’s accounting practices but also its corporate governance and culture (Lawrence & Weber, 2008). This report will recommend some potential strategies for Enron to move forward from the scandal. To do this, we must incorporate stakeholder theory, which “argues that corporations serve a broad public purpose; to create value for society” (Lawrence & Weber, 2014, p 6.). This means that Enron must take responsibility for the scandal it created and take actions to regain its stakeholders’ confidence. To accomplish this, we will first identify and analyze Enron’s primary