Ethical Issues and the Bp Oil Spill
Autor: jgraeff • January 22, 2013 • Research Paper • 1,244 Words (5 Pages) • 2,812 Views
ETHICAL ISSUES AND THE BP OIL SPILL
JASON GRAEFF
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Kearney, NE 68845
Email: graeffjt@lopers.unk.edu
ETHICAL ISSUES AND THE BP OIL SPILL
Introduction
Many companies in today’s business world are forced to make decisions regarding ethics. The stakeholders in those companies rely on the people within the company to make ethical decisions that will benefit them. However, sometimes companies do not make ethical decisions. The purpose of this paper is to use ethical principles to demonstrate why some of the actions of BP before and after the BP oil spill were unethical. BP acted dishonestly and unethically with investors regarding safety policies, the size of the spill, and the company’s responsibility for the oil spill. The principles of personal integrity and corporate social responsibility will be discussed as reasons why BP’s actions were unethical.
Personal integrity is defined as “one’s completeness within themselves, often derived from the consistency or alignment of actions with deeply held beliefs (Hartman & DesJardins, 2008). Personal integrity can also be described as following moral and ethical principles and being honest. Corporate social responsibility is defined as “the voluntary actions that companies undertake to address economic, social, and environmental impacts of its business operations and the concerns of its principal stakeholders (Hartman & DesJardins, 2008). These principles will be used to explain how BP acted unethically regarding the BP oil spill.
Background
On April 20, 2010 there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed BP workers and caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history. In the wake of the oil spill, BP is being sued by investors for misleading them about numerous things including their safety policies, the size of the spill, and BP’s responsibility for the spill. “The investors allege that they lost “substantial sums as a result of BP’s misleading statements”, and are suing under Texas law for common law fraud and negligent misrepresentation, and for statutory fraud” (Gosden, 2012).
Discussion
The first principle that will be discussed is personal integrity. BP showed bad personal integrity during and after the 2010 oil spill. The first case where this is shown is the company’s safety policies. Investors in the company claim that BP misled them about safety policies that were in
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