Professional Ethics and Toxic Waste, Coursework Example

Discuss why Rachel has an ethical responsibility to take some action about her suspicion of the illegal dumping of toxic wastes.

Alberta Mining, like any other organization is not only answerable to its direct stakeholders such as employees, investors, and customers but also indirect stakeholders such as the government and the general public. Every employee of Alberta Mining has an ethical responsibility to carry out his job to the best of his/her capacity without sacrificing ethical values. In addition, employees also have an ethical duty to report behavior that may violate the rights of any stakeholder/s of Alberta Mining. Rachel O’Casey is the director of financial reporting for Alberta Mining. She is a high-level company executive who is part of the management’s finance team and part of her job responsibilities is to ensure that the company reports all of its activities with financial implications as accurately as possible. Doing so will protect the rights of various stakeholders who trust the company to provide honest reporting of its activities.

The government ensures that the company is following all applicable laws and is competing fairly in the marketplace. The investors rely on these reports to measure the value of the company for investment purposes. Similarly, the general public and environmental organizations rely on these reports to make sure the company is carefully disposing of waste material and taking appropriate measures to minimize the damage to the environment. All these stakeholders put their trust on Rachel as Alberta Mining’s Director of Financial Reporting that she will ensure the honest and accurate reporting of company’s activities. Failure to report what Rachel knows will be an ethical violation of her professional responsibilities and will have huge negative implications for the various stakeholder involved. Rachel has now two options to maintain her professional integrity. Either she reports everything as it is or she takesinternal actions to ensure the company takes measures to reverse the trend as well as rectify its previous violations. Doing nothing will be an unethical response on her part.

For each of the three alternative courses of action, explain whether the action is appropriate.

Seeking the advice of her boss, the vice president of finance for Alberta is an appropriate course of action. Her boss is also part of the management team responsible for planning and monitoring the financial aspects of the company’s operations. Moreover, going to immediate superior is sometimes more logical response to a crisis rather than going all the way to the top and contacting the most senior management executive. Her boss has greater authority and influence and if she can convince him, he will be able to do more about the waste disposal issue than she might be able to achieve on her own. This will also give her credibility that she tried to use all available channels before going for extreme measures if her superiors ignore her plea.

The second option is to anonymously release the information to the local paper. It may be an appropriate response if all else fails but not now. First she should approach her superiors as well as follow other procedures that have been specified by the company policy to follow in case of ethical violations. If nothing else works, she may choose this alternative but before that she should give the management a chance to address the problem. It may be that some senior executives do not know about this issue or they would never have let it happen. It’s better to gather the facts and analyze them instead of immediately going for an impulsive reaction. The third option is to give information to an outside member of Alberta’s board of directors. This is also an appropriate response but she should try it after the first option of contacting her superiors. If they don’t respond in a desirable manner, she may approach the outside member of Alberta’s board of directors and persuade him/her to discuss the matter with other board members.

Assume that Rachel sought the advice of the vice president of finance and discovered that he both knew about and approved of the dumping of toxic wastes. What steps should she take to resolve the conflict in this situation?

If Rachel discovers that the vice president of finance knew about and approved of the dumping of toxic wastes, she should approach the next higher person in the organizational hierarchy (National Institute of Accountants)who in this case may be president of finance. If the president of finance also turns out to be a party to the issue, she could approach the CEO. If even approaching CEO and then Board of Directors doesn’t work out, she could use other alternatives or may even resign her position because it has become very difficult if not impossible for her to maintain her professional integrity in the performance of her job duties.

References

National Institute of Accountants. Do you have an ethical dilemma? 28 May 2011 <http://www.publicaccountants.org.au/media/12838/a00014364%20-%20ethical%20dilemma.pdf>.