Buffalo Creek Dam Case Study

In Woodrow Wilson’s article “The Study of Administration”, Wilson arguments for a strong and effective public administration were based around two points. First, the fact that the governmental system had expanded greatly from when it first started and as a result had become more complex and had many more parts to it. Second, to split government between politics and administration, as there should not be politics in administration, instead let those who wish to be involved in politics concentrate on politics and those with expertise in the field administer the policies. The case study “The Blast in Centralia No.5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped”, showed that a bureaucracy that is weak has the same affect on its constituents as no bureaucracy at all. As a result, after reading those two articles, I feel that there is a need for a strong and effective public administration system.

The Buffalo Creek flood of West Virginia is believed to be the most devastating coal relate disaster in West Virginia history. The flood occurred in the Buffalo Creek area of Logan County on February 26, 1972 when three dams broke and released 132 million gallons of water and coal waste known by miners as “gob,” and is a thick sludge-like material. The gob contains many toxic chemicals and pollutants such as mercury and arsenic that are left behind from the coal mining process. The wastewater would lie in settling ponds and dams until it could be properly disposed of. The water that was left over from processing coal would be disposed of in two different ways. Some of the water would be pumped from the dam back to the “tipple”, otherwise

The engineers at the dam had no choice, and had to take the most appropriate action, which would benefit the people living in the surrounding areas the most, based on the situation, as a result, they had to release the water and not allow it to go beyond the 200 per cent capacity limit. If they allowed the water capacity in the dam to go beyond the 200 percent capacity limit, that would mean that the secondary spillway will be activated and they would not be able to control the water flow, which would then lead to the flood levels rapidly rising. Should this occur, there is a high chance that the loss of lives would be significantly higher, and the amount of damage would be much worse than what had actually occurred in 2011. More so, in the event that no action was taken at all, and the water levels began to rise at a much higher rate, until water started to spill over the dam wall, there would have been a possibility that the dam wall would have started to erode. With the additional pressure buildup from the water it is holding back, it would have been possible that the dam wall could have then collapsed completely, which would possibly have wiped out the whole city. Judging by this, the actions taken by the engineers then are ethical and correct, as if it was not for their action to release the water, the damage that could have occurred would have been significantly worse, and would have caused more grievous harm to the majority of the population of

Every business develops a set of ethical principles that they abide by. The business ethical principles intentions: it construct the business certainty in the community , maintain the employees liveried in what the business attempt to have as structural conducts and aid the employees consume principles to make ethical choices that guards the business. In a culture with a diverse assessment structure and augmented judgment visibly by companies with changeable ethics and interests, there appears to be further difficulties on business individuals to make tougher ethical assessments. In our day-to-day performances, we depend on on our ethical principles to monitor us in the correct path and do the correct things. The substance of any efficacious and perpetual business is they segment a mutual ethical matter concentrating on presenting and generating value along with allocating their business values with the citizens they network with on a day-to-day basis.

All of us like miners in Centralia No. 5, rely throughout our lives on the immovable juggernaut of impersonal administrative systems” (Stillman 30). It seems that most people as a whole have absent mindedly become too dependent on something as abstract and complicated as public administration. It seems to be public administration and its official’s responsibility to handle any concern in the community as well as make everything flow smoothly.

Through the litigation and more specifically the discovery process, Pittston became answerable to the people of the town. Depositions of key Pittston personnel revealed that Pittston knew that it was exposing the people to significant risk of the flood. With the revelation of this information, Pittston faced true exposure to punitive damages and, consequently, power shifted to the townspeople. Thereafter, Pittston settled the claims and finally compensated the victims for their loss. Beyond that, the settlement served as a check on Pittston, deterring it from constructing another faulty dam. The threat of this type of litigation forces large corporations like Pittston to rethink business decisions that could possibly place the public in harm’s

The case seems to be strait forward with the fact that State is at fault for the

The corporate world has an unfavorable view of itself by being selfish, evil, and against the average American. Companies market themselves and their products in certain ways that makes them and their products appealing to everyone and if not everyone then a certain group of people. Every company has a mission to follow and values to go by, but some companies lack ethics and morals. In this paper I am going to talk about one company that engages in ethical behavior and another that doesn’t.

The problem to be investigated is the application of business ethics. In the business world, ethics are extremely important. Ethics are prime elements that help a business to grow and to become more productive. It is by applying proper business ethics that a business can operate in a moral or ethical business environment and managed to conduct all activities in a manner that maximizes profits while not compromising all other non-economic concerns(Schwab, 1996). Businesses have over the years failed to nurture business ethics in order to fulfill shareholders' interests and to have a culture that is oriented towards profit maximization and high performance(Jennings, 2012; Sims & Felton, 2006). This has led business to have gray areas in their activities. Gray areas are those situations or problems that do not fit exactly into any ethical analysis. These are the activities which may be represented to be immoral as a result of lying and false representations on the part of the business.

As I began to read this case, it was clear from the start that I would need to separate my emotions from the objective facts of the situation. It was tragic what these people went through but my analysis would not change anything that has already happened. On whether or not I agree with the court, my opinion at first was that the individuals hurt during this disaster did not get paid enough. However after much reflection, this was most likely the most they could be awarded and additionally, keeping inflation in mind, the victims got paid much more than I had originally believed they were paid.

This will be an over view of ethics as it relates to business in our society. Concepts from Philosophy will seek to describe the correlation between actions that are classified as morally right or ethical in our dealings with each other as human beings. Clear and concise examples will be given as well as ways in which to improve upon business ethics.

This paper introduced Manuel G. Velasquez and his four ethical precepts in business. These four ethical standards are specifically discussed in Chapter 2 of his book, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases. These four standards or principles are usually used as a guide for people to considerate in making business decisions, which are the utility, rights, the justice and the care. They are described and explained with examples respectively below to indicate basic principles that people should follow as a member of a group when working for a same goal.

Today’s business world presents numerous ethical issues. In today’s world above board/moral ethics in organizations do not often materialize intuitively. Organization must strive to provide employees with a clear understanding of the overall company vision. This will aid employees in practicing the code of ethics, policies and procedures in the workplace. Companies must be unwavering in continuously delivering the uppermost ethics of provision in which customers, applicants and employees are entitled to under fair business practices. One major core value is to uphold responsible and fair business practices.

Today, employees can be considered as the greatest strength of the company. They are the ones who help build the reputation of the company, it is their job to ensure the success of the business, which is why it is very important to keep them satisfied. A recent statistic shows that an American worker has an average of eight jobs in his career (Rudman, 2003). This stat shows how difficult it is to retain a core strength of a company. In this essay, an analysis of a case study is made. The case includes at first, a discussion between Chip Brownlee and Arch carter, the CEO and lead director of Galvatrens respectively. During this conversation, they discussed a lawsuit that a former employee sent to the company for being wrongfully relieved of his duty. Also in the case study after investigation the board of Galvatrens and their CEO made a meeting in order to tackle the problems and know what really happened. In this essay, it will explain the main ethical dilemmas in the case study, and according to these dilemmas a comparison will be made between utilitarian, libertarian, deontological and virtue ethics perspectives. Finally, as a form of an ethical point of view will be used to be the best solution to solve the dilemma of the recommendation.

In their personal and professional lives, people can and, unfortunately, sometimes do go against their moral and ethical standards. Ethical standards are what it means to be a good person, the social rules that govern our behavior. Ethics in business is essentially the study of what constitutes the right and wrong or the good or bad behavior in the workplace environment. A business is an organization whose objective is to provide goods or services for profit. The organization has a group of people that work together to achieve a common purpose. The moral challenges that these men and women face each day along with a whole range of problems that could occur, are why ethics plays such an important