Ethics and Business Essay Example for Free

Ethics and Business Essay The chief executive officers of any existing company are liable to meet the expected objectives as layed down by the shareholders of the company. The most significant of all factors of production is manpower basing the fact on the potential manipulation of this factor. All the other factors of production tend to assume a stable status of manipulative capabilities. The ultimate goal of any company is to maximize profits, which is only achievable through a coherent ethical considerations of personnel issues in the company. The employees of any existing company are hardly the consumers of goods and services of that respective company but rather beneficiaries in terms of wages and benefits. In a situation where the company in located in specific area where the living standard of surrounding community is high, it faces dire danger of satisfying the living requirements of the potential employee. In contrast, the right policy as regards the location of such a company should be towards the less developed area yet laying marketing strategies that would yield successful and profitable disposal of the goods and services, the outcome of products of that company. Factors that may cause the rise in the cost of production: The appropriate remunerations packages and benefits of the employees is a matter of crucial concern in any company. There exists a direct relationship between the required remuneration packages and benefits for employees and the level of development of the area from which the employees reside. If the company cannot meet the expected standard of living of the employees as dictated by the living level, the morale and motivation of the employees is unachieved. This may result to poor levels of production and strikes to the extreme negative side (Cory 2004 p 45-49) The nature of the area may also require some stringent measures of safety regulations. These measures may be costly both in terms of time and money. The safety measures, which are internal to a company, raises the production cost of the company. The extra margin is of crucial significance towards uplifting the company’s profits for the benefit for the shareholders (Cory 2004 p57-59) Environmental regulations have a similar trend of a direct relationship between the location of an enterprise and the environment. An expensive system of waste disposal is required of the company because the environment requires special expensive disposal facilities (Cory 2004 p 67-69) A positive moral decision in relocating the company or retaining the company to the current location is necessary. Moral decision-making Several factors should be considered in the decision making process to come up with a moral and ethical solution. Finding facts is very crucial which should be followed by an appeal to values. Dealing with moral issues have different approaches. According to Utilitarian Approach, ethical actions qualifies to be moral only when they strike a balance of good over evil (Cory 2004 p 101-104) The greatest good for the greatest number of people is the qualification of an ethical action. The choice of the action is determined by the greatest benefits and the least harm. The effect of each action benefits and harm should be the guide to choice among the various courses of actions available (Cory 2004 p 98-99) According to the Rights Approach ethical actions are based on the ability of a person to choose what actions are beneficial for their lives while respecting the moral rights of others (Cory 2004 p 102-103) The fairness of justice approach is based on Aristotle’s teachings that â€Å"equals should be treated equally and unequals treated unequally† (Cory 2004 p 115-117) Issues of favoritism on one side and discrimination on the other are of crucial importance in the course of action. The Common Good approach explains an ethical action of an individual is being of good and beneficial to the community. The action should achieve healthcare, public safety, peace, legal justice and clean environment (Cory 2004 p 83-85) For the full development of our humanity we should strive towards certain ideals. This is the ethical framework of the Virtual Approach. Character traits or attitudes inherent in individuals aid the highest potential development. Example of these virtues that help us to pursue our ideals includes honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control and prudence (Cory 2004 p 77-78) They become the characteristics of a person once acquired which is crucial to individual action that are consistent with moral principles (Cory 2004 p 64-67) Through the use of the five approaches of dealing with moral problems, the most important ethical considerations are highlighted as a basis for deliberations. Possible relocation areas Mexico: Labour, health, safety and environment factors are favourable in a number of border cities in Mexico. The wages are extremely low, and $ 3 per day compared to $15 per hour in America and this is a cause of employees’ resignations. However, labour turnover is high. There is also a high toxic chemical exposure tolerance and less strict environmental laws. However, due to high instances of birth defects that raise protest from health groups the plant relocation may be subject to adverse publicity. Cory 2004 p 104-105) Philippines: to the advantage of the company labor costs in Philippines is $1 per day while safety, health and environment regulation are similar to those in Mexico. Opposition against the effects of safety, health and environment hazards such as cancer and birth defects are silent. South Africa: there are positive conditions but less favourable economic terms. South Africa as compared to Mexico and Philippines. Labour cost is $10 per day and a possible future pressure to increase the package due to the existence of a strong labour union movement. Health and safety measures and exposure to toxic chemicals are fields that have not been ignored. Cory 2004 p 106-107) These are the actual facts concerning the possible relocation sites for Electrocop Company in the US. The facts will require some ethics or morality to come up with a final decision. This involves analysis of any conflict of negative effect to people, animals and environment, institutions and society. The outcome of the decision to people and the community and any possible stakeholders should also be explored while making consultations to the relevant persons. The final decision should be the one the most good effects to the people and least harm. The rights and dignity of stakeholders should be withheld. Common goodness should be promoted and a full participation community. Society Company or family uplifted. The option of choice should enhance the character development of valued individual, professional or societal traits. All these perspectives are significant in taking the most appropriate option. Conclusion The chief executive officer of Elecrocorp is exposed to options of relocation in Mexico, Philippines and South Africa from the United States. The current site of operations is a threat to perpetual progress of the plant and faces a close down in the near future. Although it is a major employer, the risk of closure is of no benefit to its employees. In consideration of balance between continued business operations and ethical moral effects of its relocation, South Africa offers the best alternative site to its current site in the US.

The Computer :: Technology Internet Electronics Essays

The Computer Even though J. David Bolter wrote Turing’s Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age in 1984, at least a century ago in computer years, his observations and concerns about the electronic age are in no way obsolete. Bolter examines from a historical perspective how the computer will reshape our understanding of the human mind and our relationship with nature. By comparing the computer with defining technologies of previous ages, Bolter anticipates the many qualities and values of people in the digital age, his so-called â€Å"Turing’s men†. In doing so, he encourages those in the humanities to take an active role in shaping some of the perceptions of the emerging era. Humankind has created, used, and replaced innumerable technologies over the past 10,000 years of written record. Turing’s Man concentrates on only four of these technologies: the spindle and potter’s wheel of ancient Greece, the mechanical clock of Renaissance Western Europe, the steam engine of Industrial Europe, and finally the computer of the electronic age. According to Bolter, each of these inventions â€Å"defines or redefines man’s role in relation to nature†(13). Although Bolter considers the influences of these technologies on many facets of culture and society, his main efforts are devoted to understanding their implications for a culture’s view of time, space, thought, and creation. The spindle and the potter’s wheel of Ancient Greece suggest an intimate relationship between man and nature. The tools are seen more as an extension of the human hand than a barrier between craftsman and material. Bolter argues that the image of the potter, fashioning his finely crafted, but still imperfect vessel on the rotating wheel, made a great impression on the thinkers of that time. The rotating nature of these tools, mimicking the great circular paths followed by celestial bodies, led Aristotle to claim that â€Å"circular motion . . . was natural, whereas motion in a straight line required further explanation†(116). As a consequence, the Greeks adopted a cyclical view of time. The world did not progress forward in linear motion but repeated over and over. Rather than progressing, ideas and institutions would remain static or decay. The potter and his clay also served as a metaphor for divine creation. The world and its human inhabitants were fashioned out of imperfect materials by divine force. This material makes up the entirety of the world.

Why are some parts of China so rich while other parts are so poor?

In China there are so many places where most people are sleeping in poverty, living on streets and begging for money everyday. But so many people were rich as well, the extremes from rich to poor are in the same country. The main reason for the different economy in China is that the country is communist, under the control of Jiang Zemin. Communist means that the country runs by paying each person the same wages even if they are a more authority over people and are higher up the hierarchy. Some families were also very poor because they would have a lot of children, which they could not afford to bring up. There is a lot of poverty in rural areas, whilst many people in cities are getting richer. In China there are around 1. 28 billion people, there are about 14 million unemployed people in urban areas and there are about 120 million in rural areas. This means that something must be wrong about China and why so many people can not get jobs. It is wrong to say that the main cause of the situation of people being so much rich in some areas than in others go back only to 1976. Things like the incident at Tiananmen Square in 1989 where thousands of innocent people died and got mowed down by machine guns. Through this many people were on a hunger strike where many people starved and so people got ill and couldn't afford medicine and poverty was the inevitable which was the cause of Deng. In China when Mao was emperor he had many ideas and most of them failed or did not help him get out any competition. Some of his ideas were ‘The great leap forward' and ‘100 hundred flowers campaign. ‘ In ‘the great leap forward' Mao told the peasants to make steel to make their industry more successful. But this failed because the steel was weak and the crops had been forgotten about and the dry weather made the country have a famine. The ‘100 hundred flowers campaign' in 1957 was meant to let the peasants have a say in the government and new ideas, Mao said ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom' which was meant to let new ideas bloom. But this didn't happen, all that happen was that Mao new who his rivals were put in jail and the campaign ended. After this people where even more afraid of speaking out against Mao, which meant they could not improve their lives. When China was under control of the Emperors there were people called the Mandarins who were the Emperor's local officers that taxed and tortured people. At this time 80% of people were peasants and they worked very hard and tried to grow rice or millet. Population growth was a problem because in 1750 there were 100 million people and at the end of the 19th century there were 400 million people. This obviously made families poor and not enough food for everyone, which means that poverty and famine became a problem. By 1962, however, Mao began an offensive to purify the party, having grown increasingly uneasy about what he believed were the creeping â€Å"capitalist† and antisocialist tendencies in the country. As a hardened veteran revolutionary who had overcome the severest adversities, Mao continued to believe that the material incentives that had been restored to the peasants and others were corrupting the masses and were counter revolutionary. To arrest the so-called capitalist trend, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, in which the primary emphasis was on restoring ideological purity, rein fusing revolutionary further into the party and government bureaucracies, and intensifying class struggle. The Cultural Revolution saw rapid industrial growth mainly because unlike the rural sector after the Great Leap Forward, the urban sector still concentrated upon heavy industries. The Cultural Revolution did have an adverse impact on China's foreign trade however, as trade was attacked as humiliating to China and as worshipping things foreign. Throughout the period of the Cultural Revolution, China in effect cut off from the rest of the world. However, it still conducted trade relations with other countries it did not recognise, but only on a limited scale and with very little growth. Until 1976, three key elements were central to Mao's economic policy, these were the collectivisation of land, centralised control over the accumulation and reinvestment of capital, and state ownership of major industries and banks and entailing strict limitations on foreign capital and external economic factors. Land reform was the first step in the collectivisation of rural areas. However, the redistribution of land away from the landlords and rich peasants to smaller private holdings was not as successful as Mao initially hoped. Private farms were not a part of Socialist policy, and new divisions, exploitation and uneven land ownership showed signs of re-emerging. During the 1950s, therefore, collectives were established that enabled Mao to control the means of production even further, and were given quotas to supply the state with a portion of their output at pre-determined prices and also acted as pools of labour that could construct irrigation networks, roads and railway tracks. Collectives also enabled the generation of a gross operating surplus that paid for education and health services. Mao felt that industrialisation was still too slow and in a bid to quicken its pace, collectives were further organised into ‘people's communes' under the guise of the ‘great leap forward' in 1958. Peasants were directed to build roads, dams and other projects relating to improving China's infrastructure. Millions of ‘backyard furnaces' appeared, producing mainly low quality pig iron and steel of little use for anything. Cotton was also planted throughout China – at the expense of staple crops – but had little success because of wide climatic variations. This futility came at the expense of agriculture, and resulted in widespread famines and illness. As for the industrial sector, large-scale industrial enterprises were allowed to operate independently from the state for a short period of time after liberation. But from the early 1950s on, the nationalisation of industries commenced China made a rule that every couple could only have one child and this helped the amount of people and helped families with money. One of the short term problems with Deng's one child policy is the lack of girls. Due to population growth in China, Deng thought up a one child policy, this meant that couples are only allowed to have one child between them. Deng made a graph of the population growth for each family if they had 1, 2 3 or four children. The graph concluded that for China to have plenty of food and wealth families were only allowed to have one child. Families then chose to have baby boys and not girls, reason for this is mainly long term. Boys have been favoured over girls for most of China's history, so when only one child was allowed per family boys were an obvious choice. But people can't choose what the sex of their child will be, so why are there so many boys? Is there a drug that stops women from having girls, no the reason is much more sinister. If a baby girl is born they are thrown in with the rubbish or left somewhere to die! This is very brutal but it happens all over China. If a women has two children then there is great punishment, even when she is pregnant, they are forced to have an abortion, then they are sterilized and imprisoned. The harsh punishments given is enough to put anyone off having a second child. In 1974 the article in the ‘People's Daily' it tries to encourage modern attitudes â€Å"There is still the attitude that ‘women go home to cook meals, feed the pigs and shut up chickens, while men go home to smoke their pipes and wait for food and drink. ‘ Some even laugh at those males comrades who help their wives with the housework. † When the Chinese people had more than one child it would usually cause money problems because people didn't have enough money, so this made families poor and so they could not help themselves. With the population getting greater and greater more and more people with no money which made the divide between rich and poor bigger. I think the reason for China being so different in economy is that the country had been so communist for many years that some people did not have good enough paid jobs and with so many children it was hard to pay for everything. The way that so many people did not have work and that China as a country did badly in exporting and importing, this made people have bad pay and long hours. This situation did not just go back from 1976 because of events like in Tiananmen Square. Deng Xioping is not to blame for the problem of poverty because he tried to help the workers by motivating them, but was just discredited by Mao. I think that that the most important person that helped create this problem was Mao because of his ideas and plans that went wrong and that when people tried to speak out and make a point across to him he just put them in jail and murdered them, so the Chinese people could not help themselves from him.

Essay on New Media and Public Relations Practice

Introduction New media has caused and continues to send ripples and shock waves throughout the realm of public relations (PR) practice. Increased public and stakeholder access to the internet has in particular set the demand for information from PR practioners at an unprecedented level (Galloway, 2005). Whilst past research findings indicated that PR practioners were ready to accept and use new media in the performance of their functions (Porter Sallot, 2003), current signs show that many are still grappling with the impact of new media on their practice. The term new media is normally used in reference to an array of media practices that utilize digital and computer technologies in one way or another. More notable is the fact that some definitions of new media integrate aspects related to the culture and/or contexts within which the new media is used (Dewdney Ride, 2006). New media technologies share the characteristics of having wide reach, being portable and in effect, enhanced mobility (Galloway, 2005). New media continues to pose significant challenges for PR practitioners especially because it forces them to look for means and ways to marry their traditional PR practice and roles with new and emerging technologies as well as adapt their delivery of information to the usage patterns of these technologies amongst their key publics and stakeholders. In essence therefore, effective application of PR theoretical frameworks to new media, redefinition of the scope of PR practice to cater for the increased demand for information by various stakeholders which is prompted by these technological developments and the aspect of having to acquire technical knowledge and skills without additional remuneration or support are amongst the major challenges PR practitioners face in their use of new media to communicate with key publics and stakeholders. Body Effective application of PR theoretical frameworks to new media is one of the formidable challenges faced by PR practioners in their quest to utilize new media (James, 2008, p.139). For instance, the application of theoretical frameworks to new technologies for the purposes of establishing and maintaining symmetrical two-way communication between organizations, their publics and stakeholders has been identified in various studies as one of the challenges faced by PR practitioners. Findings from these studies further concur that despite the fact that new media have and continue to offer the means for PR practitioners to potentially enhance two-way communication by employing PR theoretical frameworks for instance the model for two-way symmetrical communication by Grunig and Hunt (1984), the goal remains a mirage for many organizations. The McAllister and Taylor (2007) study of community college websites which had aimed to determine whether the said websites fostered two-way communication relationships is just but one examples of these studies. The study concluded that majority of the websites lacked the interactive features necessary for PR practitioners to solicit for opinions, information or inputs from key stakeholders. A study on online investor relations by Hessink, Boggen and Steggink (2007) echoed similar sentiments pointing out that the provision available on most corporate websites for investors to make enquiries via email did not fulfill the criteria for two-way symmetrical communication. Quality and timely company responses to email inquiries were the indicators of effective two-way communication in this particular study. In essence therefore, the inability to effectively apply various PR theoretical frameworks to new media with an aim of enhancing the capacity of PR practitioners to collect vital inform ation as well as monitor the opinions of key stakeholders remains a major challenge for PR practitioners. PR practitioners are also faced with the challenge of keeping abreast with already available technologies as well as technologies whose releases are planned for the future. This is due to the fluid and dynamic nature of technology with new technologies being developed and updated every day (James, 2008, p.140) The latter is compounded by the fact that the aforementioned changes in technology continue to prompt changes in the usage of these technologies among the various organizational stakeholders.   For example, many stakeholders currently expect that content delivery during any event should be done via digital projectors and power-point presentations. Others on the other hand expect the afore mentioned technologies to be coupled with internet access so as to allow presenters during such events to integrate content that is available online with their presentation when they deem it necessary. In this regard, PR practitioners especially those planning for large scale PR projects with a half-life of several years like major international events face the daunting task of having to plan and revisit their plans so as to ensure they accommodate any changes in technology and its usage among their key stakeholders. Moreover, PR practitioners need to be more technologically savvy in areas like software operations, web analytics and publishing amongst others (Nowland, 2006). Recent trends also indicate that PR agencies are broadening their requirements during recruitment exercises so as to ensure that they also hire staff with other areas of expertise for instance in technology besides PR. In short therefore, PR practioners need to acquire skills and knowledge in the use of new media or face extinction. Dynamism in the usage of new media amongst various organizational publics and stakeholders has put PR practitioners under significant pressure to ensure that they provide instant access to content.   Ã‚  For example, internet news services are a far cry from what they were in the past because they no longer rely on news wire services as their primary sources of information. In addition, due to increased internet access, organizations are no longer able to monopolize the information about their companies in the public realm because any stakeholder with internet access can place information about the organization on the net (Taylor Kent, 2006, p.146). This implies that PR practitioners are faced with the challenge of continually meeting the needs of public and stakeholder access to content, at their desired level of accuracy failure to which they will solicit for the information from other more readily available sources (Stephens, 2007, p.35). Enhancement of public and stakeholder access to content on the other hand poses significant ramifications on the relationships between PR practitioners and the management of the organizations they represent and their IT departments (James, 2008, p.145). This is so because for the PR practitioners to provide spontaneous consumer access to information, they must have the appropriate authority to release the information, establish or aid in the establishment of processes that foster the timely release of required content and finally, they must be equipped with technology appropriate for the uploading and/or subsequent dissemination of the content. Achievement of these needs comes at a cost because it greatly strains the PR practitioner relationships with other parties in the organization who feel that the PR department is encroaching on what they perceive to be their professional territory. As such, PR practitioners have the task of identifying processes that facilitate instant public a nd stakeholder access to information and at the same time establish a state of balance and harmony between PR functions and those of other departments in the organization (Pavlick Dozier, as cited in Porter and Sallot, 2003). PR practitioners additionally face the challenge of having to undertake additional work in the absence of a corresponding increase in personnel and/or budgetary allocations (Helsby, 2010). As previously discussed, the dynamic nature of new media as well as changes in the patterns of usage of these new technologies has significantly increased the work of PR practitioners. Further, new technologies have redefined and/or increased the management’s, public and stakeholder expectations of public practioners. For example, when planning for media releases, PR practitioners have to ensure that the content they prepare is appropriate for the various multimedia utilized by the key stakeholders they are targeting. This requires ample knowledge in stakeholder technology usage patterns and skills in the different types of new technology. These expectations are despite the fact that PR practitioners are experiencing difficulties in finding the funds, time as well as the support necessary fo r them to upgrade their skills and engage in professional development (James, 2008, p.144). Last but not least, PR practitioners are under pressure to redefine their the scope of their practice so as to accommodate the impacts of new media on their profession while ensuring that they continue to deliver on their traditional PR roles like crisis management, media and stakeholder relations, marketing communications amongst others (Helsby, 2010). For example during crisis management, PR practitioners can advise the management as well as actively participate in the utilization of new media like the organization’s website to communicate with both the organization’s publics and stakeholders. In so doing they will not only be performing their traditional role of crisis management but they will also be incorporating new technology in the performance of this role. This notion is supported by Taylor and Kent (2007, p.146) who points out that some forms of new media like websites provide a one-way means of communication which the organization can exploit them to convey i nformation to its publics and stakeholders and thus dispel any fears especially during times of crisis. Conclusion In conclusion therefore, new technologies have provided innumerable opportunities for PR practitioners to enhance their functions. However, the effective application of PR theoretical frameworks to new media and acquisition of appropriate skills and knowledge in new media to facilitate its effective utilization which must be done in the absence of funding, time and support are merely the tip of the ice-berg when it comes to the challenges PR practitioners are facing in their quest to fully capitalize on new media. Other factors pausing significant challenges to PR practioners include providing both publics and stakeholders with continuous and spontaneous access to information using the media of their choice, the establishing of meaningful functional relationships with the management of organizations as well as IT departments so as to ensure that they have the authority and resources necessary to provide instant content access to stakeholders and finally redefining the scope of PR pra ctice to embrace new media while still delivering on their traditional PR roles. References Dewdney, A. Ride, P. (2006). The New Media Handbook. New York: Routledge. Galloway, C. (2005). Cyber-PR and ‘dynamic touch’, Public Relations Review, 31, 572–577. Helsby, W. (2010).Digital communications and social media: The challenges facing the PR industry. Retrieved from http://www.prca.org.uk/default.asp?sid=8pid=442 Hessink, H., Bollen, L Steggink, M. (2007). Symmetrical versus asymmetrical company-investor communications via the internet. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 12, 145–160. James, M. (2008). A review of the impact of new media on public relations: Challenges for terrain, practice and education. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 8, 137-148. McAllister, S. Taylor, M. (2007). Community college web sites as tools for fostering dialogue. Public Relations Review, 33, 230–232. Nowland, P. (2006). PR Trends: A press release for social media. Entrepreneur. com. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/publicrelations/prcolumnistmarknowlan/article170552.html. Porter, L. Sallot, L. (2003). The Internet and public relations: Investigating practitioners’ roles and World Wide Web use. Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly, 80, 603–622. Stephens, M. (2007). Beyond News. Columbia Journalism Review, 45, 34–39. Taylor, M., Kent, M. (2007). Taxonomy of mediated crisis responses. Public Relations Review, 33, 140–146.