Ethical Considerations and Dilemmas in the Crude Oil Industry Report

This report delves into the ethical challenges and dilemmas faced by the crude oil industry, focusing on the balance between profitability, environmental impact, and corporate social responsibility. The introduction sets the stage by defining business ethics and highlighting the relevance to the crude oil sector. The main body examines specific ethical issues, such as the impact of global warming and the environmental consequences of crude oil extraction. It then explores business ethical theories, including applied and descriptive ethics, providing case study implementations to illustrate their application. Recommendations are provided for addressing these issues, including promoting sustainability, using low-emission technologies, and fostering environmental awareness among employees. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of ethical practices for the industry's long-term viability and societal well-being. The references include a list of books and journals that support the research.

Business Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main body........................................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
.........................................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business ethics are those policies and principles which must be followed by an
organisation in order to maintain the corporate social responsibilities. These are those standard
which are set up to follow in order to maintain a proper working environment in the organisation.
The present report in context to ethical issues which are faced by crude oil industries. In addition
to this, Different Business Ethical theories will be described briefly such as Descriptive Ethic
and applied ethics which helps in knowing the solution for the issues. Furthermore,
Recommendation will be given for the ethical issues faced by crude oil industries.
Main body
Crude oil ethical issues
The oil industry faces most of the challenges and issues while operating business. Crude
oil is a natural unrefined petroleum product which is composed of hydrocarbon deposits and
many organic materials.(Pearson, 2017). Crude oil is non renewable resource of nature which is
very limited in nature. There are some organisation which are involved in the business of Crude
oil. While carrying out the business there are some ethical dilemmas which are being faced by
the businesses. When an establishment finds it difficult to make choices that is considered as
business ethical dilemmas. The major issue that is being faced is of climatic change which is
highly affected due to global warming. In today's world it is the biggest risk that is being faced
by environment along with business and society. This change in climatic condition due to global
warming is highly affected to future generations as well (Williams, Agle and Gates2018).
Due to many humans activities concentration of gases are rising in the environment. This
results in global warming and thus emissions in the gases like carbon dioxide due to burning of
fossils and fuels. Thus, oil industries are facing ethical dilemmas from the same as they are
operating on large scale. This industry is facing the major issue due as the core product is oil and
which is highly damageable to the environment.
Now if the crude oil industry is facing such ethical issues than it has to choose between a
profitable oil industry or about the environment and society. Every business is established to earn
profits but along with this they have some social responsibility towards the environment and
society. Crude oil is such a product of business whose extraction causes high damages to the
environment due to higher technological systems are used for its extraction. Thus, the ethical
dilemma can be solved by considering different business ethics theories.
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Business Ethical theories
Ethics is the branch of philosophy which deals with morals and specific defined
standards. It helps in knowing about what is right and what is wrong. In a situation these theories
helps in choosing between two confusing points (Robertson, Voegtlin and Maak, 2017) There
are different ethical theories which are defined below.
Applied ethics:
It is a business theory which is used while a business faces ethical issues and has two
situations from which one is required to be selected. In this major concentration is on how the
moral outcomes can be attained in specific situations. In this theory social reforms are being set
on priority. This will help the organisation in knowing that it is more important to set priorities
rather than any other thing. It refers to the practical application of ethical or moral
considerations, it is ethics with respect to real world actions and their moral ethical
considerations in the areas of public and private life, profession, technology, health, law and
leadership. For example the bioethics community is highly concerned with identifying the right
approach to moral problems or issues in the life science such as euthanasia. On the other hand
Environmental ethics is concerned with ecological issues such as the responsibility of
organisations and government to clean up pollution. Business ethics consists questions related to
duty or duties to the public or to their loyalty to their employers. Applied ethics is different from
normative ethics which is concerned about standards for wrong and right behaviour and from
meta ethics which is concerned with the nature of ethical statement, properties, attitudes and
judgements.
Case study implementation – According to the case of crude oil it can be stated that there are
various ethical or moral considerations that can be applied in the oil manufacturing practices or
organizations. Although, these companies are producing oil for the society that highly needs this
energy resources, the companies have a social responsibility to provide these resources without
harming the environment, biodiversity and local community. It is essential for the crude oil
organizations to focus on performing ethical practices without harming the environment and
community. Issues such as human rights, transparency, integrity or social function of the
activities performed by oil companies is very important in the sectors. The crude oil production
is harming environment and biodiversity which can be observed by the climatic change in the
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global environment. There is a lot of pollution caused due to the increasing practices and
organisation in the manufacturing of oil. The main reason for this increasing number of oil
producers is the profit and revenue earned in this business. But it in return it breaks many ethics
with regards to environment or biodiversity.
Descriptive Ethics:
These theories can change and set a better morale by giving training to employees and
workers. It is due to the development of setting up a morale in the workers. Training is a way
through which workers can be trained for ethics they should follow at work place. Descriptive
ethics can widely referred to a study of moral issues and morality from a scientific view point. It
can be stated as the though of the branch of ethics that tries to develop conceptual models and
testing those models for enhancing the understanding of marl and ethical behaviour, moral
decision-making and moral phenomenon. This branch or area of ethics can also be referred to
behavioural ethics. Behavioural or Descriptive ethics, then determines and describes moral
phenomenon and behaviour from a social science framework or perspective. One approach to
descriptive ethics also refers to describing different aspects of business ethics. This may include
survey of moral or ethical attitudes among the managers and employees (Gerde, Michaelson and
Kaptein, 2017) Descriptive ethics is different from normative ethics which is concerned about
standards for wrong and right behaviour and from meta ethics which is concerned with the nature
of ethical statement, properties, attitudes and judgements. For example whether individual feels
it difficult to compromise ethical principles to obtain the goals and objectives of the organisation.
One may describe the types of principles that people utilise to make decisions. On the other
hand, examiners and researchers also turn their focus on organisation itself rather than
individuals as the main object of study on the descriptive ethics approach.
Case study implementation – The case scenario given on crude oil issue states that the behaviour
and attitudes of the employees or individuals working in crude oil manufacturing organisations.
They are highly influenced by the organisational context and factors. It can be determine that oil
manufacturing companies are focusing on generating profit by producing more and more oil. But
due to these practices the behaviour of employees or individuals is becoming unethical in nature.
The environment is getting damaged due to the objective of organisations producing oil. It can
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not be treated as a ethical behaviour or attitude. Decisions of managers and ethical policies plays
a major role in building and managing ethics in the organisation.
Recommendation
There are various recommendation for the crude oil manufacturing organisations to
manage ethical business practices and behaviour among their work place as well as employees.
These recommendations can be discussed as below -
The crude oil manufacturers needs to ensure its ethical and corporate social
responsibilities while performing their business practices with an aim of achieving profit. It is
very essential for the organisations to spread awareness of sustainability challenges in
organisational transactions (Bishop and Lee, 2017).The crude oil companies can develop
awareness of sustainability challenges in transaction of business at each and every level of
investment and insurance activities while being responsible for the social and environmental
consequences of the transactions or practices as well as public perception. The use of machines
that is low at CO2 emission must be used in order to prevent much harm to the environment.
Employees must be provided knowledge related to the environment and its protection. This can
be helpful in obtaining business goals as well as improve the business practices with respect to
the environment and bio-diversity ethics in relation to the applied ethics.
The another recommendation or ethical dilemma for the crude oil manufacturers is that
they can use high technology to extract crude oil from the land (Burrell, 2017). Environmentally
friendly drilling is investigating fugitive clean power,, methane and the practices and
technologies that offer alternatives to underground injection for produced water management.
This research is driven by need, and funded from different sources such as foundations,
government grants and industry interests. The organisations can implement Environmentally
friendly drilling (EFD) systems to produce oil in a more environment friendly manner. This
method can helps them to improve their business efficiency and effectiveness, increase profit as
well as helps to perform environment friendly practices. The Environmentally friendly drilling
has created workforce resources to foster environmental awareness by training workers in
mitigating and identifying environmental impact of production and exploration activities.
Both the above recommendations can be very useful in developing and managing ethical
working practices in the oil manufacturing organisations. It is very important to perform ethical
business activities in order ensure environment protection. The crude oil is non renewable
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resources, therefore it is also essential to save it for future generation. The organisations must
focus on various environment friendly activities and programs such as Environmentally friendly
drilling technology integration program that secure more than twelve sited at which following
trial are being conducted. The field trials evaluated management practices and technologies to
improve the measurement and monitoring as well as reducing emissions.
Conclusion
From the above report it has been summarised that there are various ethical issues and
dilemmas which are faced by the organisation. It is a situation where company needs to take
decision between what to do and what not to. In addition to this, different theories and its
implementation helps in knowing and analysing the situation and provides such path which is
beneficial for company as well as society. The crude oil is non renewable resources, therefore it
is also essential to save it for future generation. Furthermore, every organisation should focus on
completing their ethical social responsibilities towards the society also that future generation can
also be prevented by the same. Along with this, Ethics is the branch of philosophy which deals
with morals and specific defined standards. It helps in knowing about what is right and what is
wrong.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Pearson, R. (2017). Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the
idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.
Williams, R. N., Agle, B. R., & Gates, D. (2018). Teaching business ethics: current practice and
future directions. In The Routledge Companion to Business Ethics (pp. 80-96). Routledge.
Robertson, D. C., Voegtlin, C., & Maak, T. (2017). Business ethics: The promise of
neuroscience. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(4), 679-697.
Burrell, G. (2017). Virtual special issue on ‘sociology and business ethics’.
Bishop, D. L., & Lee, D. S. (2017). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases (Asia
Edition).
Gerde, V. W., & Michaelson, C. (2018). Special Issue: Global Perspectives on Business Ethics
from the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at
Bentley University, 2016.
Kaptein, M. (2017). The battle for business ethics: A struggle theory. Journal of Business
Ethics, 144(2), 343-361.
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