Ethics

This essay reflects upon ethics, which can be defined as the capacity to reflect on values in the corporate decision-making process, to determine how these values and decisions affect various stakeholders groups. Moreover, the main or central idea of this essay is to discuss corporate social responsibility in detail as well. Corporate social responsibility is the managerial obligation to take action that protects and improves both the welfare of the society as a whole and the interests of the organization.  Therefore, this entire essay discusses CSR and ethics in great depth from the beginning till the end. Unethical decisions usually occur when organizations get too profit oriented and they do not see the social costs and benefits of the environment and they just see their own private costs and benefits. This biased behavior of the organization leads to problems for not only the organization later on but also for the society over all. Therefore, an organization should never become too profit oriented or self centered, it is the organizations responsibility to make sure that it protects the rights and social benefits of the citizens.

Understanding the importance of this introduction, is extremely important to understand the situation that Unilever had to face due to its unethical decision making process.

Evaluation of the Situation
Unethical decisions and situations usually take place because there are not much corporate social responsibility policies and no proper code of ethics in organizations but also because many societies and organization in the world today, do not have a clear understanding of the importance of CSR due to which social responsibility and ethics are not given a distinctive and proper place to occupy. The same as above happened in our context, Uni lever a multinational company ended up with a serious ethical dilemma because it did not have proper codes of ethics and CSR policies. The company was seeing its own personal benefit only at the cost of the social environment. The ethical dilemma was raised when Uni lever was caught dumping chemical wastes in the sea. This behavior was extremely unethical and the government had to intervene in between to stop this highly unethical behavior of the company. Unilever had to face the ethical dilemma later on by paying a high price to the government and moreover, the reputation and image of the company significantly fell in the eyes of its loyal customers.
           
Therefore, to completely eliminate unethical actions and decisions from organizations and societies as a whole, the importance of corporate social responsibility has to be carefully understood by every individual so that every one starts following CSR strictly and the world becomes a better place to live in.
             
The aspect of following an ethical and right decision-making process is extremely essential for avoiding ethical dilemmas. Basically, CSR involves evaluating how the organization will achieve its social responsibility principles and policies, and get where it wants to go in the area of social responsibility.
             
In todays highly competitive environment, people are so busy with fulfilling their own interests and needs that they do not notice that their actions are adversely and negatively affecting the rights and interests of others in the society. This behavior leads to ethical conflicts in societies and organizations. Therefore, organizations and societies can never operate happily and successfully, unless and until, the workers and citizens do not realize that ethical conflicts have an extremely negative impact and that they can seriously reduce the productivity and reputation levels of an organization.

Ethical theories and professional codes
Research into the matter of business ethics shows that Unilever should have adopted these ethical theories and codes to prevent itself from facing such a critical ethical dilemma of chemical waste dumping. It is extremely important to understand that when corporate social responsibility is being put into effect, it is necessary that the codes of ethics, mandatory codes, Aspirational ethics, personal orientation and ethical decision-making be also put in to effect at the same time.
           
A Code of Ethics is a formal statement that acts as a guide for the ethics of how people within a particular organization should act and make decisions. Codes of ethics commonly address issues such as conflict of interest, competitors, privacy of information, gift giving and giving and receiving political contributions or business.
         
Mandatory Ethics are the core and major ethics behind the code of ethics. They make up the code of ethics and are basically legal or administrative policies for the benefit of the society and organizations. Legal action can be taken if mandatory ethics are violated in any way.
           
The ethics, which are based upon a moderate or optimum level of behavior, are called Aspirational ethics. These ethics are in no way similar to the code of ethics or mandatory ethics. They are a different category because they portray the perceptions of people, their cultural values and their conscience in the society. For example, if there is a severe thunderstorm going and I see a lady dangerously stuck in the rain with her tire punctured. Then, my Aspirational ethics would force me to go help her, whereas no law states that we risk our own life or we go out of the way to help people we do not know.
           
Then comes, the aspect of Personal Orientation, which is very similar to the Aspirational ethics. The only difference is that personal orientation focuses upon individual perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and so on.

Consequences of the ethical dilemma
It has been seen that people are more inclined towards making unethical decisions when they behave in a socially unresponsiveness manner, that is, when they measure their personal costs and benefits only and end up ignoring the social costs and benefits of their decision. A more ethically responsive decision making process would be when an individual would equally and appropriately measure hisher personal costs and benefits against the social costs and benefits.
             
The aspect of making unethical decisions in the short-term brings its negative consequences with itself. For example, if an individual makes unethical and socially unresponsive decisions, in which he only weighs his costs and benefits, then heshe is inclined to get caught in the ethical trap. The ethical trap is a situation when a person who has already made an unethical decision is forced to make another unethical decision to support his previous decision. Therefore, not thinking ethically and not making ethical decisions leads to very critical and complex situations for organizations. Facing and dealing with such critical ethical dilemmas and traps is not only problem some for the organization but also wastes a lot of money of the organization. If an organization is caught making unethical actions, then the governments of certain countries charge money from those organizations in order to compensate for the social problems caused by the organization.
             
The ethical trap forces a person to continue making unethical decision, which in return causes a major ethical dilemma. Thus, trying to correct two unethical decisions becomes much more difficult as compared to correcting one unethical decision. The ethical trap leaves no way out for the person who gets caught in it.
             
Therefore, organizations at all aspects of their lives can implement ethical decisions to avoid the life-long torture of an ethical trap or to face ethical dilemmas.

Recommendation
Unethical decisions and socially unresponsive behavior can be totally eliminated from the society if every organization starts thinking according to the welfare of the society as a whole. Unethical behavior has always arisen due to selfish and personal interest behavior. When people and organizations get obsessed with their own benefits, they turn a blind eye towards the benefits of the society. Another important aspect of making ethical decisions is to have courage and bravery to face any circumstances, which make arise after following the right path.

In the end, this essay concludes on the thought that when an organization would practice ethical decision-making behavior in the society and when it would be able to avoid ethical conflicts, traps and dilemmas. Others in the society will notice this and will follow suit and try to lead their businesses ethically as well. This will spread corporate social responsibility and an ethical code of conduct in the society on a much more extensive scale.

Therefore, if organizations develop social responsibility and ethical policies, they can be much more effective in establishing a code of ethics, which will later on save them from ethical dilemmas.

Unilever should in the future be extremely careful with its decision making processes and should be extra careful with all its operations and actions so that it does not get caught in an ethical dilemma in the future. The company should properly understand the consequences it will have to go through if it gets caught in another ethical dilemma. The costs of dealing with an ethical dilemma is high due to which the company would lose large amounts of its hard earned profits.

Conclusion
In short we conclude that the ethical dilemma that Uni lever had to face as a result of dumping chemical wastes in the sea resulted in many consequences for the company itself and for the environment and for the stakeholders as well. Therefore, in order to bring the situation under control, several ethical theories and codes have been discussed in detail so that in future organizations should prevent themselves from ethical dilemmas and ethical traps.

Moreover, after critical analysis and thinking, several recommendations and solutions have also been presented in this paper so that organizations such as Unilever follow these recommendations and lead the operations according to the proper code of ethics and CSR principles so that they can prevent themselves from facing an ethical dilemma in the future.

Organizations should be more society oriented, that is, they should work hard towards making the society and citizens happy by protecting the environment and nature of the world.

Research also shows that many successful organizations of the world have launched several environment protective programs through which they protect and improve the environment and work towards a social cause. Such actions are not profitable for the organizations in any way, but they improve the reputation and name of the organization extensively. Consumers feel loyal and good about organizations that work towards the benefit of the society and environment.