BMGT3001 - Ethics and Business Conduct: A Case Study Report

This report examines ethical considerations in business conduct, particularly within the healthcare sector, focusing on occupational health and safety (OHS). It begins with an executive summary and table of contents, followed by an introduction that defines ethics and its importance in business, referencing the Australian WHS regulation. The report presents a case study concerning a healthcare organization, detailing its history and the ethical issues it faces. A discussion of the case includes legal aspects under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. The report then explores ethical decision-making approaches, including the utilitarian and rights approaches, offering insights into how these theories can guide ethical practices. The conclusion summarizes key findings, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in ensuring a safe and responsible work environment. The report highlights the significance of legal compliance, ethical frameworks, and their combined impact on organizational success and employee well-being. References to relevant literature are included.

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Ethics and Business
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Ethics tends to be based on specific standards of behavior that would inform society about
the human beings that have to act in various situations. However, it would show vital respect for
their employees by valuing their individual opinions and treating them as equal levels. It shows
complete respect for their customers by listening to their employee’s problems. It is important
for an organization to deal with ethical issues that are associated with the employee’s health and
safety. Henceforth, this report highlights the theories that can assist in effective decision-making
for the better development of the society as well as an organization.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
Topic: Occupational health and safety............................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
History of the organization..........................................................................................................4
Case Discussion...........................................................................................................................5
Argument.....................................................................................................................................6
Ethical decision making approaches and theory..........................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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Topic: Occupational health and safety
INTRODUCTION
Ethics is an important aspect which is concerned with the positive values of an individual
and society. In fact, the code of business generally relies on the core principles that have been
framed to provide the right direction to their workers. The Australian WHS regulation ensures
that the health and safety of their workers should be maintained with honesty and integrity in all
aspects that would represent the business firm (Minus, 2013). Moreover, there are certain
workplace issues like transportation accidents, workforce violence, toxic events, ergonomic
injuries and hearing loss. However, it has been seen that plenty of issues that are faced by
employees can lead to serious stress, unsafe working practices that could contribute to injury.
Therefore, it is important to provide the right kind of training and education to their employees
on effective workplace practices so that they can remain safe from any kind of harm or damage.
History of the organization
In the present scenario, the healthcare organization is held responsible for providing more
relevant services to the public. The private system like health service providers that are owned
and managed by specialist medical and pharmacies are taken positive steps towards the
betterment of the society. The Australia public accesses care within the community health system
for charge-free or at a minimum cost by Medicare which is funded individually by 2% for low-
income earners. Health informatics Society Australia (HISA) is one of the healthcare
organizations in Australia has shown remarkable growth opportunities for their patient and
society. It was established in the year 1992 for the health informaticians and for those with a
proper interest in the health sector. It aims to deliver health by health services (Hartman,
DesJardins and MacDonald, 2014). It would also provide a national focus for the science and
practice of health practitioners. Taking proper care of people's health is the utmost task, so in
case they need care, the organization needs to provide the best suitable services that can easily
satisfy the needs of the people. The doctors along with their general practitioners are often
responsible for better healthcare of their employees (Durkheim, 2018).
Henceforth, it was entirely relied on the healthcare system, because funding can come
from the government as well as private health insurers. It is a kind of government plan that gives
proper access to healthcare that covers 75% of the fee on a government list in case the patient
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belongs to the private category. It would be expensive if an organization needs to have the
treatment they could learn more regarding options for the treatment of their medical services.
The codes of ethics stress that the primary goal of occupational health can easily help to prevent
work-related problems. It cannot be done without securing worker's overall well-being. They
could accurately deal with the OHS from the point of view of human rights as well as social
needs (Sidgwick, 2019). However, they do have certain issues related to the OHS which will
lead to serious consequences for the profitability and success of an organization. For examples,
the hospital has launched full body check-up services for their units in one of the cities. They
were asked to send their workers for a check-up during a particular period (El Garah and Rophel,
2012). Moreover, some of the workers complained that they were not being provided the reports
of the evaluation. The authority was approached; they said that reports were confidential as well
as cannot be disclosed to the workers. The occupational health professional would request for the
confidentiality of the health records of the workers. Thus, it is important for every healthcare
organization to provide proper safety and security to their patient, employees and other workers
those are a crucial part of this healthcare organization. If proper health care management
program is aligned with the ethical set code of conducts then it helps in strengthen the overall
program (Sidgwick, 2019).
Case Discussion
Healthcare and social assistance: Defendant E227230, s.33 of the duty under s.19(1) Work
Health and Safety Act 2011
According to this particular case, the defendant company has held responsibilities under
S.19(1) of the work health and safety act 2011 for having a professional employee services
contributor. On 19th April, 2016, the WFD staffs were placed by the defendant to analyze the
work at a regional basis, but at 12:15pm a WFD member died after falling back from the flat bed
trailer towed by a tractor. It was highly recommended by an employee to their WFD workers to
use the tractors for the purpose of collecting bins from the grounds. They were provided with a
tool-box those were undertaken at the showground. It is important in public hospitals and other
work premises because a major problem exists such as injuries, death and manual handling of the
patient
Court results
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On October, 25 the defendant was found guilty in the Toowoomba magistrate’s court for
breaching S.33 of work health and safety act 2011. It has been seen that having failed to fulfil
their work and safety standards and was sentenced. The courts also found that the supervisor was
failed to deliver proper supervision, training and risk assessment was an essential breach of this
particular act (Kesselheim, and Avorn, 2016). The prosecution was suspected that while the
defendant is having a suite of legal policies and steps, it failed to secure that they were being
followed by staff evaluation program. The court acknowledged this was a clear category of
offence and it can be charged with maximum penalty of $500000. However, the magistrate,
examine that this was an obvious risk and it was associated easy to take steps to deal with such
type of risk. Moreover, the defendant was also asked to make payment to court that cost around
$1400 (Sison, Beabout and Ferrero, 2017).
Argument
From the above case evaluation, it has been found that the defendant was required to be
more concerned with their employee’s safety standards. It has been argued that, while working in
the social assistance sector, where there is exposure to risks they need to consider certain
important duties such as (Tavani, 2016).
Work health and safety act 2011
 Code of practice 2011
 Managing risk that can affect the health of the workers.
It is an important aspect for every healthcare organization to have proper standards that can
help in protecting the health-related problems within their employees. However, OHS is being
designed to deal with health and safety to give an organization more reliable chances of having
an incident-free workplace (Kibuule, Kagoya, and Godman, 2016). Thus, a well-organized
approach to OHS could need to be brought in attention so that critical incidents can be fixed at
the right time. In the case a person is identified with a risk of harm, they must be taken into
account reasonable care in response. It happens to be a common concept to innovative
occupational health and safety regimes. A duty of care is considered as a legal aspect that is
forced on an individual requiring loyalty to a standard of valuable care (Floyd and Rohan, 2013).
Ethical decision making approaches and theory
Occupational health and safety tend to cover various important aspects that are related to
staff health, safety, and welfare in the workplace. It is important in public hospitals and other
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work premises because a major problem exists such as injuries, death and manual handling of the
patient. It could lead to serious implications on the potential people that can affect the health
condition of an individual (Quinn, 2017). However, it is an essential decision to make use of
effective approaches that can deal with ethical standards. It would help an organization to deal
with all kind of issues that can lead to serious consequences for the people and society. However,
the theoretical work program and ethical code of practice both should be aligned to strengthen
the health care program. Certain approaches that can help in evaluating the issues are being
mentioned below (Strickland, and Stoops, 2015).
The Utilitarian approach: This method gives maximum emphasis on the ethical action
that is having specific actions that provide the most positive results or less harm which will
provide a proper balance of good over bad issues. It will assess proper evaluation in terms of
generating better outcomes for the society as well as an individual. It strives to attain maximum
opportunity that can protect the interest of the workers who are working within an
organization. It believes that the overall objective of morality is to provide a more effective life
by increasing the level of good things. From the above case, the defendant needs to make sure
that every employee is following all specific standards that can lead to less harm to their life
(Abend, 2016).
The right approach: This method suggests that ethical action is one of the best suitable
for protecting the moral rights of people that are suffering from health and safety-related
problems. It begins from the set of belief that people have a dignity which relies on its human
nature. On the basis of such dignity, they have the option to care for as ends and not simply as a
way to other ends. According to the above case situation, they need to have a moral right to
respect their employees as equal and duty to respect others in similar ways. Hence, an ethical
decision is one of the reliable aspect to maintain right of the workers those are affected by the
incident within the organization (Wexler, 2016). If proper health care management program is
aligned with the ethical set code of conducts then it helps in strengthen the overall program.
However there is no right approach which could be taken but proper undertaken of set code of
conduct and ethical practice is used to strengthen the health care program. Well-organized
approach to OHS could need to be brought in attention so that critical incidents can be fixed at
the right time (Van Cauwenberghe, Van Broeckhoven, and Sleegers, 2016).
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CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that health and safety are essential
aspects of an organization. However, it is based on a fraction of planned staff that have managed
to access the imperfect channels of OHS. It has been seen that unless the relevant legal provision
is legally enforced, the barriers to OHS could not be tackled properly. The laws should be framed
on the basis of ethical consideration. Therefore, it must be ensured that the legal regulation is
successful in examining the challenges that are arises within a healthcare organization.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Abend, G., (2016). The moral background: An inquiry into the history of business ethics (Vol.
60). Princeton University Press.
Durkheim, E. (2018). Professional ethics and civic morals. Routledge.
El Garah, W., and Rophel (2012). Toward applied Islamic business ethics: responsible halal
business. Journal of Management Development.
Floyd, L.A., and et.al., (2013). Ethical outcomes and business ethics: Toward improving business
ethics education. Journal of business ethics. 117(4). pp.753-776.
Hartman, L.P., DesJardins, J.R. and MacDonald, C., (2014). Business ethics: Decision making
for personal integrity and social responsibility. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kesselheim, A. S., and Avorn, J. (2016). Approving a problematic muscular dystrophy drug:
implications for FDA policy. Jama, 316(22), 2357-2358.
Kibuule, D., Kagoya, H. R., and Godman, B. (2016). Antibiotic use in acute respiratory
infections in under-fives in Uganda: findings and implications. Expert review of anti-infective
therapy, 14(9), 863-872.
Minus, P.M. ed., (2013). The ethics of business in a global economy (Vol. 4). Springer Science
and Business Media.
Quinn, M. J. (2017). Ethics for the information age. Pearson.
Sidgwick, H. (2019). The methods of ethics. Good Press.
Sison, A.J.G., Beabout, G.R. and Ferrero, I. eds., (2017). Handbook of virtue ethics in business
and management. New York: Springer.
Strickland, J. C., and Stoops, W. W. (2015). Perceptions of research risk and undue influence:
Implications for ethics of research conducted with cocaine users. Drug and Alcohol
Dependence, 156, 304-310.
Tavani, H. T. (2016). Ethics and technology. Wiley.
Van Cauwenberghe, C., Van Broeckhoven, C., and Sleegers, K. (2016). The genetic landscape of
Alzheimer disease: clinical implications and perspectives. Genetics in Medicine, 18(5), 421-430.
Wexler, A. (2016). The practices of do-it-yourself brain stimulation: implications for ethical
considerations and regulatory proposals. Journal of medical ethics, 42(4), 211-215.
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