Question 1
The United States Congress amended the United States Constitution on the Fourteenth Time on July 9, 1868. The goal of the amendment was to grant citizenship for freed slaves. The amendment also gave these newly freed US citizens protected civil rights. For business these had several implications, the most important of which was the movement away from the feudal system of business which was practiced by Europeans. The land-lord and slave labor system existed as an economic system, with often detrimental results. The Fourteenth Amendment also created an imbalance between the states in the north and the states in the south of the US which caused a lot of economic and social tension in that time. This amendment also ushered in the requirement of “due process” by the law which is important to uphold civil rights. It also included representation in Congress which is important in upholding democracy. . This amendment is one of the most important ones ever done by the US Congress. What we recognize as our rights and privileges personally is due to the changes made during this period.
Question 2
This century marks the recognition of dealing with complex business and ethical issues as a priority of corporations around the world. The corporate scandals we hear in the last 10 years have outraged the public, with stark images of deception and fraud overshadowing corporations. The public has reacted rather violently, with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement for example, showing how vigilant the public may become as it clamours for transparency, decency and improved corporate social responsibility and ethical practices. The Occupy Wall Street Movement stems from the perception that better integration of ethical practices must be taken on by corporations and that these corporations are opportunists, greedy and would not help regain lost wealth. According to the Arizona Character Education Foundation (2012), ethics is a set of standards that provide guidelines on how people should behave. Ethics is an important part of doing business. Business should be ethical and lawful at the same time. According to the Times 100 Business Cases (2012) on Cadbury Schweppes, ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility positive affects business through the attraction and retention of customers that translate to higher and sustained revenues; the retention of employees, reduction in turnover rates and sustained if not increased or improved productivity; the attraction of new talent, reduction in training and fulfilment of corporate goals; and the attraction of new investors, creditors and other funding sources, increase in shareholder benefits, improved market valuations, and respect from colleagues and competitors.
Question 3
I think a corporation that commits a crime to society in general is more dangerous than an individual that commits crime to an organization, given that that crime the person commits is limited in scope and reach. A corporation’s reach is farther and wider thus its actions can affect not only the stakeholders within its vicinity of operations but also people from other locales or other aspects of life it interacts with. An example is the recent oil spill by British Petroleum. On April 20 2010, a exploratory offshore drilling rig known as the BP Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico just 40 miles off the coast of Louisian. The explossion killed eleven workers and injuired 17 others. On April 22, 2010 the oil rig BP Deewater Horizon sank and the appearance of a 1 by 5 mile oil slick was discovered by the US Coast Guard. Two days after, the US Coast Guard confirmed an oil leak from two distinct fractures in the well. Shortly afterthat, Homeland Security declared the incident as a national crisis signaling a country-wide effort from all concerned agencies for a cleaning operation. The flow continued unabbated for another three months thus becoming the largest accidental oil spill in the world with about 4.9 million barrels (780,000 cubic meters) of crude oil released into the ocean. On July 15, 2010 the leaking wellhead was finally capped. The explosion of the BP Deepwater Horizon and the massive oil spill that happened as a result of the accident is the most recent of the enviornmental woes of British Petroleum, the third largest oil and gas producer in the world. Burdeau and Holbrook (2010) states that the incident threatened the environment as a whole, including the local Louisiana fishing and seafood industry, the tourism industry of Louisiana and the other nearby areas, and affecting the life of residents in those locations that were still in the process of rebounding from the damage and hardship left by Hurricane Katrina.
Question 4
Companies that use Chinese raw materials for food products should be liable to US consumers and the law if those materials are sourced from non-sanitary sources or if they fail to pass standards for safety. US companies should know that their primary concern is to ensure that the products they make available in the market place are safe for consumption and that the process to which they are manufactured should be guaranteed.
If US companies are not held liable then the public should be made we aware that these products may contain ingredients that could be dangerous and that utmost care should be taken by the public in their consumption. These products must be carefully labelled and these companies should be set-up with a fund that would be tapped if any untoward incidents stemming from the use of their products are proven.
Question 5
Government regulations could have mitigated the factors that caused the economic recession if it did a period review of its policies. The government policies on monetary and fiscal capabilities of different players in the economy are not encompassing, often to the detriment of individuals, small companies and government institutions. When government regulators became aware of the problems, the economy was already heading downhill.
Regulation is a necessity in today’s economy. It sets the guidelines to which players in the economy operate and should not be construed as a way to prevent economy from growing. The right doses of regulation is enough to keep the economy moving. The economy is more of a free-trade place and the competition set forth by the various suppliers and consumers make for an interesting mix of freedom and creativity. Regulations enable these players to have a levelled playing field, making sure that the results are those that approximate the ideal if not optimum conditions.
Question 6
Government regulations should be the standard in which ethical and lawful business is conducted. The proper amount of control will foster competition, will help improve efficiencies, will create and catalyse creativity and innovation and will enable small and big players to interact reasonably well in the market place. It will also ensure that these organizations act in accordance to their roles and observe laws that would ensure that society is not put in any position of disadvantage. This is the role of government regulations in general. How regulations are made up is up to the politicians in Congress and the Senate, them being in contact with the population and knowing what is needed by people in general, considering present and future needs.
Works Cited
Burdeau, C., & Holbrook, M. (2010). Expert:BP Gulf OIl Spill 680,000 square miles. Retrieved from SkyTruth: http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/07/bp-gulf-oil-spil-680000-square-miles-of.html
Cadbury, A. (1987). Ethical Mangeras Make Their Own Rules. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/1987/09/ethical-managers-make-their-own-rules/ar/1
Foundation, A. C. (2013, July 17). Ethics. Retrieved from Arizona Character Education Foundation: http://www.azcharacterfoudnation.org/ethical.html
Wikipedia. (2013, July 17). Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
