Case #3, Ethics After an oil Spill
Question 1: Motivation of the Company Decision to offer the community $5,000 to hire its own expert? Why community was insulted and recommendations as a company local manager
As an ethical best practice, organisations operating in different sectors must appreciate wrong doing and own up to their mistakes. To support this, Yang (2017) which had focused on a similar phenomenon of China oil spills core findings were obtained. The report found that there is a need for developing a domestic liability and compensation mechanism while ensuring they are extending pollution caused offshore oil spills. It is in this background that the company was motivated to offer the community $5,000 for hiring their own expert. Also, by the community hiring their own expert, the issue of bias would be mitigated. According to Quinn et al. (2009), the rationale of avoiding conflict of interest is ensuring there are no biased decision with vested interest of the organisation and general public. It is in this light that the company decided to compensate the community with $5,000.
The community was insulted by being compensated with $5000. This is informed by the fact that the oil spills had significantly impacted the community wildlands and its sustainability. Further, the community wildlife, water sources, health, recreation and other aspects of public lands had already been severely destroyed. As it could have possibly been evidenced in their report, the oil spills would elicit long-term and devastating implications on animals in terms of direct contract, inhalation and ingestion of toxic chemicals. As supported by Helle et al. (2020) which evidence the habitat losses by disrupting life cycles of animals and erosion of shorelines. This is with immense issues on boating and hunting strategies. Hence, with all the identified issues and consequences, offering a compensation of $5,000 is an insult to the local community and unethical. There was a room for offering an appropriate support and compensation to the community. This is by embrace of a sustainable and a long-lasting initiative which would also mitigate further environmental degradation.
As a local manager, owing to the scope of the organisation in terms of their size, I would ensure I proceed with a contingency plan established through a holistic consultation with the entire community. The rationale of this would entail an assessment of the phenomenon, monitoring progress of the mitigation process to the point of holistic cleaning.
Question 2: Options Available to Enbridge, decision, factors relevant to the decision, rational decision
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