Assessment of Corporate Governance and Ethics in SMRT Corporation

This essay explores the critical role of business ethics and corporate governance within SMRT Corporation, a leading public transport operator in Singapore. It examines instances of misconduct and ethical lapses within the organization, such as the tunnel flooding incident and graffiti on trains, attributing these issues to a lack of ethical leadership, poor communication, and a rigid work culture influenced by a military background. The essay emphasizes the importance of ethical leadership in fostering a positive work environment, promoting teamwork, and ensuring accountability. Furthermore, it discusses the significance of a hierarchical moral atmosphere and highlights steps SMRT Corporation has taken to address its ethical shortcomings, including improvements to administration, the establishment of a joint availability assessment group, and the engagement of third-party experts. The essay concludes that adhering to business ethics is essential for organizational excellence and maintaining a positive public image in an increasingly globalized world. Desklib provides this paper as a resource for students.

Running head: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
Corporate governance and Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
Ethics is referred to those set of factors that are used to determine the right and wrong
in a process (Christen et al. 2016). Business and corporate ethics are those codes, which are
used to understand the working process of an organization or a business (Yeshu 2016). The
conduct or behavior of an organization or an individual towards an organization in which the
person is employed is evaluated with the help of ethics. The correct behavior of an individual
in an organizational and professional setting is understood and guided by the use of business
ethics or the corporate ethics (Andriof and McIntosh 2017). The human conduct is evaluated
with the help of ethics in the corporate world, it is reflective of the moral values that make or
break an organization and lead it to collaborative success. Corporate governance is the set of
rules that are implemented in order to make sure that the organization works in accordance to
the interest of the company and ensures that the employees abide by certain set of rules in the
company (Tricker and Tricker 2015). The thesis statement for the essay is that the use of
business ethics is mandatory in order to achieve excellence on part of an organization.
SMRT Corporation is one of the leading public transport operators in the country of
Singapore (Pang 2013). They are a company that ensures people reach places by availing
their services in amidst the huge transport network that they have (Menon and Sinha 2013).
In recent past there has been issues in the company and its employees have shown a laid back
attitude to the service they are supposed to provide. The entire situation arose due to the
misconduct of certain business ethics in the company. The business ethics are set of such
rules which if tampered with can lead to disastrous results for the organization and its overall
performance as well as the public image (Hoffman, Frederick and Schwartz 2014). A
company can only perform to the best of its capacity when the workforce is united under a
strong leadership that ensures a sense of equality in the organization (Kaur 2013). The failure
on the part of SMRT have been majorly due issues that left the workers with a reluctant
attitude towards the work at hand. The issue where a certain tunnel was filled with water and

2CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
the system was disrupted was something that took place due to the laid-back attitude of the
maintenance and inspection department of the company. The work culture of the company is
something that leads to such ignorance and reluctance among the employees. A positive work
culture that incorporates all the needed elements of a bonded teamwork is essential to gain
the optimum performance (Fullan 2014). The work culture at various organizations is
different from one another but it is to be kept in mind that when an individual shifts from an
organization to a different one, the work culture of the past company does come in the
performance regime of the person in the current company of employment. If studied closely,
it can be evaluated that such has been the case with SMRT and the people have become
reluctant in performing because the work culture that is prevalent in the company. The
company has people from military background and hence the entire work culture is more or
less aligned to their style of work. This paves way for a problem that all those who come
from other backgrounds face. The lack of flexibility in the work culture makes it tough for
the new employees to get used to the work pattern. Such attitude in the work culture raises
concerns and leads to miscommunication among the employees and the management. The
miscommunication can lead to serious defects on the performance part and add to the woes of
the company (Kegeyan 2016). The inefficiency in communication lead to the tunnel watering
issue for the SMRT, the management and the employees in charge of the inspection and
maintenance could not communicate with each other and cope up with each other’s working
pattern and culture. It was a cultural failure and hence added to the list of negatives of the
organization’s work culture.
Leadership is an essential quality when it comes to deciding that an organization
performs good or not. A leader is the one who takes the onus on the shoulder and makes sure
that the every involved personality should perform to the best of their capacity and the entire
work environment is stimulating and healthy (Pruzan et al. 2017). The practice of ethical

3CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
leadership in the domain of business is essential in order to abide by the principles of
corporate governance. An ethical leader is someone who associates the self with the team and
works with them rather than ordering them to get a task done. The ethical leader is someone
who makes sure the communication between the employee and the management is well
maintained and that there are no issues that the employees are facing in their work or the
prevalent work culture (Yidong and Xinxin 2013). The essentiality of such a practice is that
the entire work environment remains healthy and employees are much focused due to the
constant motivation, which they get from the leader. The ethical leader does push the
employee to an extent so that they can produce the best work. However, such push can never
be equated with pressure because the leader does not impose but rather motivates the
employees in a way that they come up with the best of their performances for the
organization (Yidong and Xinxin 2013). The failure that occurred in SMRT in the workforce
is related to the concept ethical leadership and the situations that may arise when such
practices are not followed. The various issues such as the lack of collaborative effort on the
part of the workers lead to the faults in the system and the image of the company is Singapore
went down. The majority of the population on a daily basis uses the public transport; such a
service can face extreme criticism if it fails to deliver what it is meant to. The consumer will
not be compromising on the quality of the service that is provided to them and any lapse will
invite retaliation and negativity about the company openly in the market (Oliver 2014). The
problem of graffiti painting on the trains of SMRT reflected the reluctance of the staffs that
were in the security department. The staffs of the company shy away from taking the
responsibility of the entire scenario and this leads to loss on the part of the organization.
Ethical leadership will make sure that the staffs do not treat things so casually and that the
leader works in tandem with them so that they feel the urgency and need to work harder and
maintain the dignity of the company. Once such feelings are injected in the workforce, a

4CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
company like SMRT can feel safer that non such forced invasion into their property and
damaging them will not take place. The differences that are within a company needs to used
up to strengthen the skill set that the workers have rather than taking it as a reason to create
chaos (Cascio 2018). The leader and the various ethical practices can ensure this thing and
turn the negatives into positives for the company.
Hierarchical moral atmosphere alludes to the ethical climate of the workplace and the
level of morals honed inside an organization. Instrumental, mindful, lawfulness, principles,
and freedom are the five sorts of atmospheres that can exist in an association. Incivility,
badgering, aggression, and separation would all be able to deliver an exploitative and
unfriendly workplace, which can make disappointed representatives, while a positive moral
condition can make employees productive and significantly more joyful (Demirtas and
Akdogan 2015). Moral failings and administrators' freak practices, prompting money related
outrages, are at the core of an emergency of trust in organizations. Advancing an atmosphere
of trust in the authoritative condition appears to be increasingly dependent upon adherence to
an arrangement of guidelines and standards of lead, which advocates moral esteems shared by
the individuals from the organization. The problem in the SMRT was that the maintenance
team adulterated records to influence it to appear as they played out the support. They
evidently closed down upkeep and submitted support records despite the fact that they did not
motivate endorsement to get to the tracks to keep up the sump pumps. The pump records
demonstrate that the pumps were not enacted on the expressed support dates. In the event that
the pumps were surely kept up, the pumps would have been initiated on the upkeep dates.
That was another bit of proof that proposed that the support group didn't keep up the pumps.
In view of these discoveries from the preparatory examinations, the director and staff in
charge of the upkeep of the Bishan gateway, sump pump, and framework have been
suspended. Such situations arose due to the negative climate and deep seated differences

5CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
based on culture within the organization. The work environment has to be motivating and in a
way boost the performance of all those who are working for the organization (Deci and Ryan
2014). For uplifting the climate of the workplace, SMRT did incorporate certain steps and
they will enable the company to gather the momentum back in the market. Some the steps
taken and their advantages are mentioned below-
 Rolling out suitable improvements to the administration and upkeep group, where
justified. This allows for getting new fresh member onboard for the organization
and the new people can evict the entire negativity and reluctant attitude that was
prevakent in the company. New brains will mean that there will be zero cultural
differentiation and the employees will work in unison.
 Setting up a joint availability assessment group that will supplement answer to
SMRT's own review framework. It will autonomously answer to a SMRT Board's
review and hazard council. Also, this joint availability investigation group will
together with The Land Transport Authority (LTA), answer to the LTA/SMRT
Joint Board Technical Committee. This will make sure that every person in the
organization is answerable to someone and hence everyone will be working in a
much organized way and the work pattern will enable a positivity in the
workplace for everyone leading to better results in the due course of time (Huang
et al. 2017). This will guarantee that maintenance and resource reestablishment
are freely inspected and checked in an efficient way.
 Drawing in outsider topic specialists to venture up quality control observation of
all preventive support exercises and lead a framework wide examination of basic
frameworks. This will guarantee that upkeep works are done as per our predefined
gauges.

6CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
Such steps taken will reduce the cultural disturbance within the organization and
improve the image of the company that has been lost due the mishaps caused by the reluctant
attitude of the people attached to the organization.
To conclude, the use of business ethics is mandatory and it can be seen from the case
if SMRT that not adhering to such rules can lead to various problems and negatively affect
the organization in its working style and service. In this age of globalization, the workplaces
are growing in their variety and hence it is necessary for all organizations to work in
accordance to the set of business ethics so that they are not faced with any crisis in their
working and the overall image of the company is not hampered. The corporate world needs to
follow the set of rules and this will enable them in reaping the maximum profits in the market
they operate.

7CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS
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