Business and Society

at
Categories
Tags

 

Read the Union Carbide Corporation and Bhopal case that begins on page 384 of your Business, Government, and Society textbook. In lieu of answering the questions that follow the case, you will respond to the prompt below;

Consider the concerns as described in this case and prepare a memorandum that addresses the concerns described below. Your memo should be completed in narrative form (you may use headings if you choose to do so for organizational purposes, but do not list your responses in bullet form). Minimum page length: 6 pages; Maximum page length: 10 pages (double spaced).

Identify all of the potential ethical issues you see (if any). Describe and analyze the implications of each issue, including who or what were affected by the company’s response. In identifying issues and addressing their implications, your discussion should be as comprehensive as possible—you should consider any economic, social, or ecological implications.

Additionally, your analysis should thoroughly identify and discuss at least two potential courses of action that the company could have taken with respect to each issue you have discussed. Clearly demonstrate your reasoning process—identify and explain any ethical principles or arguments you are relying on; do not simply state unsupported conclusions.

If you choose to apply any approaches to ethical reasoning that you learned about in this course, clearly state what they are and how you are applying them to this case. Of the possible solutions you identified, which would you recommend that the company should have adopted as a resolution? Again, fully explain and justify your recommendations. Finally, explain how you would implement each solution you have recommended.

 

 

 

Sample Solution

While a set of frameworks complement and build on each other, the delineation of the concept focuses heavily on vertical versus horizontal dimensions in a time-sliced fashion. That is, time dimension in accountability has not been of primary importance. However, it is worth noting that the time dimension is closely interrelated with a series of conceptual distinctions made in previous literature, and it may cover complementary aspects of the question concerning two sequential lines represented by administrative responsibility versus political accountability. First, the positioning of accountability actors depends on the time dimension. Civil servants usually have longer terms to serve the public interest over the long term. At the same time, they are responsible to the elected representatives of the public who tend to have “a limited time horizon” and “prefer policies that yield tangible benefits for constituents in the near term” (Posner, 2004: 137). For this reason, the priorities expressed by elected officials may be far more related to short-term issues and temporal problems instead of long-term solutions, whereas the long-lasting forms of civil service personnel would prioritize sustainable solutions to secure a long-term perspective of the citizens, both current and in the future. Second, the time frame is essential to distinguishing between two main streams of accountability. Accountability mechanisms focus predominantly on retroactive accountability for the past outcomes, while accountability as a virtue takes a proactive approach to ensuring ethical behaviors in the future. The timeline is also useful to distinguishing between ex ante accountability of the decision-making process leading up to the decision and ex post accountability where the results available from the decision already taken or where questions of compliance are identified and addressed. In other words, ex ante accountability refers to being accountable for the decision before an administrator act, while ex post accountability is suggestive of situations where administrators are accountable for the outcome of their decisions. For example, the focus of traditional bureaucratic administration is very much

This question has been answered.

Get Answer