Alternative Actions And Consequences Of Mercury Energy

Because corporations are established to profit and shareholders invest money with expectations of a greater return, managers cannot be given a directive to be “socially responsible” without providing specific criteria of checks and balances to which needs to adhere. Therefore, it is imperative to the success of a corporation for managers to not act solely but rather to act within the policies of the shareholders.

Many believe that business entities should have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations look for opportunities to be socially responsible while also creating shareholder wealth.

Court cases like Martha Bull’s who reads “Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center had been negligent in treatment of Martha Bull, 76, who died at the nursing home April 7, 2008 after staff failed to act on a doctor 's orders to get her transferred to a hospital emergency room for treatment of severe abdominal pain,” are one of the many that support this disturbing stigma. Something as simple as a competent health provider, that was willing to see a task out into its completion could have been the saving grace for this women. For almost an entire twenty-four hours’ staff heard her cries of agony yet never made sure the proper paperwork was completed once it was filed. (Brantley, 1) In the case of Holder Vs. Beverly Enterprises Texas, Inc. an 83-year-old, bedridden woman by the name of Ruth Waites was hospitalized for dehydration as a result of an understaffed nursing home. Once admitted back to the nursing home she had developed pressures sores from being left unattended. The pressure sores soon became so severe that they caused a serious infection and led to Ms. Waites’ death. This entire case is a story of neglect, what the nursing home states as understaffing, and fraud. The fact that the nursing home was understaffed should have never been hidden from the families of the patients. These are facts that should have been announced to the community so that the appropriate qualified personnel could have attempted to solve the issue. (Nursing, 1) Another case follows with

Mercury has 121 neutrons and 80 protons in its nucleus. It also has 6 electron shells with 2 electrons in the first shell, 8 electrons in the second shell, 18 electrons in shell 3, 32 electrons in the fourth shell, 18 electrons in the fifth shell and 2 in the sixth

Breaking down an overview of Lockheed Martin’s organization leads to Terris’ elaborate plan to gain a general overview of the evolution of business ethics and revealing a balance between profits and stakeholder concerns. Responsibilities of top leadership involve several different form of involvement. These leaders have to be aware, decisive, honest, focused and inspiring. A top leader is usually referred to as a chief executive officer, CEO. CEOs have helped throughout the history of business ethics by seeking unfair advantages through immoral arrangements and creating new ways of business. With business changing occurring, welfare capitalism becomes a major aspect in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a result of issues with welfare capitalism, corporate social responsibility has made its appearance in the twentieth century. Programs of corporate social responsibility now form many of corporate America’s largest advertising campaigns, especially in industries that have been vulnerable to public criticism for their social impact (Terris, 2005, p.42).

On the contrary, social responsibility applies only to an organization or business, whereas ethics applies to people’s behaviors and how the obligations determine whether an action is right or wrong. Social responsibility is the application of a set of ethics to a business or organization. Edwin Epstein’s definition of corporate social responsibility supports the idea that corporate responsibility is ethically based in its decisions with the agents associated with the company. Epstein stated, “Corporate social responsibility relates primarily to achieving outcomes from organizational decisions concerning specific issues or problems which have beneficial rather than adverse effects upon pertinent corporate stakeholders” (Carroll, 1996). Social responsibility contains both the responsibility to discover employee misconduct while also maintaining good relationships with those outside of the business. According to Berenbeim, it is the corporation’s responsibility to maintain those good relationships with the agents of interest paramount to the obligations to minimize the risk of employee misconduct (Berenbeim,

The contractor was informed on the need for continued power supply in the Muliaga’s house. The contractor even acknowledged to have seen the oxygen machine in the house. However, he went ahead to disconnect Muliaga’s power supply making the oxygen machine useless for the patient. Mercury Energy ignored the fact that disconnecting power from the Muliaga’s residence would have life threatening consequences (Thomas, & Dienhart, 2004. Mercury Energy ignored ethics and chose to adhere to their business policy regarding the disconnection of power. Mercury Energy gives customers 6-7 weeks before it disconnects its

As managers, our job is to make sure that we operate our business in ways we make a profit for our company and also follow business ethics. Furthermore, managers should follow the same standards of ethics when doing business outside the country (for example, outsourcing) than when we do business in this country (U.S.). Social responsibility and business ethics

Folole Muliaga was Samoan national living in New Zealand and working as a school teacher. Mrs. Had acquired obesity related lung and heart complications. After doctors determined that her condition was untreatable, they discharged her from hospital with a home oxygen machine that she was supposed to use all the time. Mrs. Muliaga’s medical condition had depleted her family’s finances, and as a result, the Muliaga had debts. One of her outstanding bills was the electricity bill. On 29th May 2007, Mercury energy ordered the disconnection of power from Mrs. Muliaga home. Her children efforts to reason with the contractor of the need for continued power supply in the house proved futile. Mercury energy, which alleged that the Muliaga’s had overdue

Mercury is a heavy, silver-white, highly toxic metallic element. It is the only metallic element that is liquid at room temperature. Mercury can be used in thermometers, pesticides, pharmaceutical preparations, surfaces of mirrors, and dental fillings. There are several forms of mercury which include elemental or metallic mercury, inorganic mercury compounds, and organic mercury compounds. Elemental/metallic mercury is liquid at room temperature and turns into a colorless, odorless gas when heated. (Mercury: Basic Information, 2014)

The contractor clearly stated that he did see the oxygen machine, therefore the disregard is understood to be adherent. The abandonment of care caused the death of an account holder. Heedlessly of the family behavior, the orginzation should have safeguarded against a negative impact. This incident produced damaging public opinion.

Nowadays, the employment of ethical principles and standards to the decision and actions of business organizations-better known as Business ethics- is a crucial issue for its strategic management; businesses are expected to have a formal code of ethics or policy that encourages corporate environmental sustainability. To do so, businesses have used different frameworks such as the eco-efficiency, natural step, triple bottom line, ecological footprint and so on, in fact, along with the TBL approach the CSR programs are the most commonly used, it is defined as the “management of stakeholder concern for responsible and irresponsible acts related to environmental, ethical and social phenomena in a way that creates corporate benefit” (Vaaland et al., 2008, p. 931), and can help business to display a more congruent and coherent identity that consequently will lead to enduring and substantial relationships with stakeholders.

Crane, A. and Matten, D. (2010) ‘Corporate social responsibility’, (3rd edition) Business Ethics. Oxford: Oxford university press, pp.51-60

Corporate social responsibility is the voluntary stance or set of actions from a corporation that demonstrate a contribution to a better society and a cleaner environment. Corporations are already required to operate within the law, but laws do not always protect all people or individuals who will be affected by the corporation’s actions. In addition to this, it is very common for special interests to play a part in legal decisions through lobbying efforts, so it is assumed to be an additional effort for a corporation to be socially responsible. Being socially responsible essentially comes down to being considerate and calculated in the decision making process, paying attention to the consequence of every action. In the ethical decision making model, there are two particular steps that I believe to be of greater importance than the others. The first would be that of

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has rose to an important thought when companies form their mission statements. In the global business community, this has increased for the last couple of decades. The expanding interest on how business practice is affecting the planet as well as the media coverage on corporate scandals have put companies in the spotlight as to how they can conduct themselves in a way that shows responsibility when operating their businesses. “Consumers more and more are looking to buy from socially responsible companies, and they’re actually willing to pay more for products in certain cases.” (Biery) Different watchgroups and media have made it a mission to finding and holding businesses accountable for the negative impact they may have on society. For example, many organizations actually rate companies on their activities and performance to corporate social responsibility. These ratings draw scrutiny from the ever-demanding public. Remember when Nike was cited using children to make their shoes at its Indonesian suppliers? Consumers ended up boycotting after publications such as the New York Times and other outlets recorded negative labor practices. Food companies and fast food restaurants are now being held accountable for the lack of nutrition in their products.