Tackling Ethical Challenges: Responsibility and Sustainability

This essay delves into the critical nature of ethics, exploring its application in personal and professional contexts, with a focus on business ethics. It examines the utilitarian theory and its relevance to ethical practices, responsibility, and sustainability, particularly in the context of corporate social respon...Read More

TACKLING GLOBAL-LOCAL CHALLENGES IN
ETHICS, RESPONSIBILITY AND
SUSTAINABILITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Critical view of the nature of ethics.............................................................................................1
Application of range of relevant approaches to ethical practices................................................2
Critical analysis of situations of importance in your personal ethics learning experience..........2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
This assignment is based on gaining insights about ethics and business ethics to know
about its implementation in daily lives. It is important to understand the negative and positive
impact on the challenges regarding the personal ethics in a corporate setup (Blok, 2018). Here,
Utilitarian theory is used to reflect upon the situations and differentiate between ethics,
responsibility and sustainability.
MAIN BODY
Critical view of the nature of ethics
Ethics is defined as the branch of knowledge that contains code of conduct, moral values
and principles to regulate and monitor the activities to be performed by individuals. This is
significant at both personal and professional levels. It is mostly connected with the person's
behavioural approaches while dealing with both positive and negative situation. Here the focus is
on understanding the aesthetics to complete tasks and measured concerns that is practised on
daily basis or on performance basis (Mildenberger, 2019). Nevertheless, it focused on the
virtuous and non virtuous characteristics traits to know the strengths and weaknesses in terms of
adopting and applying the moral code of values.
Business ethics is the study of comprehending the practices, instructions and guidelines
of companies to know the pressures of the marketplaces and examine the ethical principles to
employ sustainability with responsible behaviour. There is a need to gain knowledge about the
corporate social responsibility and the interrelationship with the adoption of ethical approaches
(Viens and Fortier, 2018). In this regard, there are several types of business ethics and including
technical morality, legal responsibility, organizational loyalties, personal responsibility and
more. This helps in maintaining the credibility and brand name in the marketplaces at both local
and global levels. It also helps in gaining competitive advantages.
These ethics are crucial in understanding the business environment and implementation
of ethics at professional levels. These help in reaching the permissible limits of self interested
pursuits to mark the presence in the organization and attaining a secured position. Mostly, the
corporate works under the capitalist order and leads toward reaching the objectives and goals
with maximum gains in terms of economic (Khan, 2016). Here the sustainability factor gets
overlapped and must be executed using the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
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Application of range of relevant approaches to ethical practices
According to Cho and et.al. (2015), utilitarian theory is one of the normative ethical
theories which brought equal attention towards the right and wrong results. This is useful at both
individual and organisational levels to reach the interests and requirements to move ahead. Its
major benefits are when the organisations are expanding in new geographical regions and
targeting a demographic group. This is also related to understand the knowledge while doing
operations and requires and integrated perspectives to acquire the supply chain considerations or
marketing tactics. For instance, Unilever company is focusing on the internal environment to
measure the pollution levels and use some sustainable approaches to regulate the environmental
influences. The management is changing the company's products and bringing substantial ideas
to reduce the carbon emission and generating awareness among public involving the employees.
Thus, it is demonstrated that with some steps, the modifications can be marked and record its
progression under this theory to differentiate between right and wrong.
On the other hand, Pouryousefi and Frooman (2017) critiqued that this theory has
highlighted the different concepts available in the management to exercise their powers in
supervising. There must be an understanding regarding the achievement of the carbon footprint
which require wide scale level and is only achievable when each employee or individual is
implementing it. There are also issues that allow the companies to realise their taskforce about
CSR and solving the issues by being customer centric and environmental driven under the ethical
code of conduct. For instance, packaging was an issue due to the use of materials like water,
carbon etc. This led to formation of distasteful and unethical relations with the suppliers and
thus, the management is trying to focus on using proper waste management techniques and tools.
Henceforth, this theory has clearly outlined that the focus is on fulfilling the expectations
of others at all the levels and bring permanent changes in the society (Viens and Fortier, 2018)
. Along with, it is dependent on the morality to make the lifestyle better by knowing the negative
and positive results.
Critical analysis of situations of importance in your personal ethics learning experience
I have understood the real meaning behind the personal ethics to be used at the workplace
to maintain the relationships and business connections. It helps in surviving the uncertainties and
ambiguities associated with the daily duties and responsibilities given at the organization. The
focus is to incorporate own's principles in accordance to the existing policies and procedures of
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the companies to execute the CSR and related ethical standards to bring profitability and
productivity as well. Moreover, the focus here is to know that these experiences have shaped my
perspectives and enhanced my knowledge in dealing with different styles of leadership and
management. Moreover, it helped me to understand the variety of solutions that people provide
while solving any particular issue. The positive aspects are more in my case since I also follow
the components of the utilitarian theory. However, there are also few disadvantages that lost my
confidence and showed me the impatience levels.
In regard to the above illustration, I would like to draw attention towards joining of new
company as Executive assistant at one of the leading IT firms. The first event is focusing on my
training and induction program where I met new people who joined the same department. I was
excited and took all the instructions with diligence and commitment. However, the only
drawback I encountered was my lack of confidence while interacting with those new people.
Gradually, I understood my role and as an engineer gave my inputs and ideas to make the
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Illustration 1: Planner of entire joining and continuation in an
organisation

recycling process more adaptable. When my probation got over and I was shifted to team A as
the technical executive assistant. This made me responsible to use the sustainability technique
more seriously.
Moreover, I have been always a sincere, dedicated and trustworthy individual who
always believed in gaining knowledge from all the relevant sources and trying to bring some
innovation. When I started working in team, I found that sometimes I lost my temper and
become inpatient. However, it affected the quality of my work and brought an imbalance in my
work life balance.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that ethical theories are significant in understanding the ethical
standards to perform tasks. This has shed light on the implementation of personal experiences to
bring clarity between right and wrong. It is mainly done in terms of adopting social responsibility
at corporate levels and maintaining the sustainability factor.
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REFERENCES
Blok, V., 2018. Innovation as Ethos: Moving Beyond CSR and Practical Wisdom in Innovation
Ethics. Handbook of Philosophy of Management, pp.1-14.
Khan, M.R., 2016. Climate change, adaptation and international relations
theory. Environment, Climate Change and International Relations.14.
Cho, C.H., Laine, M., Roberts, R.W. and Rodrigue, M., 2015. Organized hypocrisy,
organizational façades, and sustainability reporting. Accounting, Organizations and
Society.40. pp.78-94.
Mildenberger, M., 2019. Support for climate unilateralism. Nature Climate Change, 9(3), p.187.
Pouryousefi, S. and Frooman, J., 2017. The problem of unilateralism in agency theory: towards a
bilateral formulation. Business Ethics Quarterly.27(2). pp.163-182.
Viens, N. and Fortier, D., 2018. Sustainable Policymaking: Balancing Profitability & Sustainable
Development in Businesses. European Journal of Sustainable Development. 7(4). pp.33-
42.
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