Scenario: You are a vice president of a multinational chemical corporation. Your

Question

Scenario: You are a vice president of a multinational chemical corporation. Your company is the sole producer of an insecticide that will effectively combat a recent infestation of West African crops.

The minister of agriculture in a small developing African country has put in a large order for your product. Your insecticide is highly toxic and is banned in the U.S. You inform the minister of the risks of using your product, but he insists on using it since his people might face famine due to the threat of insects. He claims it will be used “intelligently.”

The president of your company believes you should fill the order, but the decision ultimately is yours.

(cited from Bateman, T.S., & Snell, S. (2013). Management: Leading & Collaborating in a competitive world. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.)

Your decision will be to fill the order. You should defend your decision by listing out the ethical issues involved, the related ethics theories, the process and rationale of your decision making, the potential risks you may face, and how to minimize such risks. Cite sources to support any facts you state or points you make in your argument. Make sure you are using sources that are reliable and unbiased, and preferably scholarly.

Explanation / Answer

In this specific condition I would never approve the order as input directly go against my ethical standards. This type of implementation of the specific order approval would directly impact the whole population of west Africa. Is the specific product is incorporated in the crops it would unity effect not only the current population but also the upcoming population as this kind of chemical infestation in crops can be highly dangerous and can create mass disorders. Even if our company's president ask me to fill the order I would never do the same as it is it illegal to do business with such a specific insecticide in United States of America and can lead to cancellation of the licence of operation of our company in the specific working environment.

Putting the whole company in danger for just one is not appropriate as it would also affect the ethical standards of operation of the company if the specific kind of business operation came into light. Competitors have their own monitoring structure for most of the companies operating in such a specific environment where involving in such a specific criminal activities can be highly dangerous for the company including total ban from the business operations.
Putting the whole population in danger should not be done in any circumstance even if there are high profit involved. Using the pesticide which is highly dangerous even if it is used intelligently can we hide dangerous for any population increasing the huge impact of mass diseases as well as Other Side Effects which could be disastrous for any specific country as well as the provider of the pesticides in the specific environment.

By looking at the above factors we can see that disapproving this specific order would be the most appropriate way of aligning with the ethical standards of the organisation and to keep higher standard maintained while doing a business operations.

References - https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/07363760110410263?src=recsys

https://hbr.org/1996/09/values-in-tension-ethics-away-from-home

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