3.1.1. Irresponsible Management
Its irresponsible management caused Mitsubishi Motor's unethical behaviour. There are mainly two unethical behaviours, which Mitsubishi Motors had in this case.
3.1.2. Concealment of Customer's Complaint 127
The concealment happened because the leader from the quality control department tried to cover the unfavourable information to the top management. They tried to leave problems behind because they might scare of losing their reputation, or getting penalty. It happens when people think their company business only in a short-term period. However they need to think about things in a long-term period. If they did something wrong, and disclosed to the public soon after it happened, the public would agree with their attitude and eventually come back. Companies also need to know it leads more profit at the end. As one of Mitsubishi employees said, "We have lost our credibility as maker of safety vehicles" (cited in Takayanagi, 2000), a scandal causes a company to lose its reputation.
3.1.3. Cutting the numbers of employees who dealt with the concealment 84
After the concealment was disclosed, Mitsubishi Motors cut the numbers of employees who dealt with the concealment. The Company might mean to show it now has no connection with people, who have concerned. However, was the concealment due to individuals who were in Mitsubishi Motors coincidentally? It must be due to the existence of the organisation, Mitsubishi Motors. Motsubishi Motors has to realize that cutting its employees does not solve anything. It even made the further investigation hard and many problems left unsolved.
3.2. Enron Case
The Enron case is available on another illustration of irresponsible management. It is important not to over-react to an event like the Enron case, or to draw exaggerated conclusions from it. The pipeline company Enron was staying in business 'thanks to astonishingly aggressive accounting tactics, which also brought about the ruin of Arthur Andersen, the once-esteemed auditing firm that approved Enron's financial reports' (Dizikes 2003).
In particular, in examining the Enron affair and similar failures of ethical behaviors in corporate contexts, it is not entirely reasonable to argue that students graduating from business schools may not be fully aware of their social responsibilities. This is an important point because this argument could well be used to give ethics a higher profile than it would normally have, possibly at the expense of other aspects of management, and possibly in a way that might make young executives feel burdened with sets of principles that they are obliged to observe at all costs. The point is not that ethics should be ignored in the management curriculum, but that its place in the curriculum should not be determined by one or more unethical events involving unethical behaviors. The point has been made that in thinking about the ethical aspects of behaviour of Enron and auditing company Andersen, it is reasonable to consider a broader approach which would look into the institutional and organizational arrangements under which unethical behaviour took place (Verschoor 2002).
It is worth observing that various kinds of unethical behaviour may go on for years until some event takes place that leads those in authority to give higher priority to ethics. The view publicly circulated may then be that this is relates to an erosion of community confidence in corporate behaviour. However another interpretation could be that statements about ethical requirements for companies are proactively designed to reassure the public. This is particularly important in relation to the Stock Exchange. There is the issue of very large executive payouts despite poor performance. New ASX Corporate Governance Council guidelines recommend a code of conduct for decision-making and a policy on share trading by company insiders (Pheasant, B. 2003).
3.3. HIH and One Tel
Investor attention has turned to appropriate conduct after the collapse of HIH and OneTel. The HIH Royal Commission Report was delivered to the Government on 4 April. The legal team assisting the commission in relation to the $5.3 billion insurance collapse identified over a thousand instances where the civil or criminal law might have been broken (Elias 2003). In the case of OneTel, the Telecommunications Company which collapsed in May 2001, the watchdog Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) alleges chairman Greaves breached his duty to exercise the standards of care and diligence required by the law of a company chairman. ASIC is seeking banning orders against the four defendants and compensation of $93 million (AAP 2003). In both these cases legal proceedings are involved. Obviously ethical standards are involved also, but the implications of each case has gone far beyond ethics.
Executives are not usually expected to divulge all the information involved in a decision.
Much information is proprietary, gives competitors an unfair advantage, and is legally confidential. A policy of openness does not require executives to tell all. It is perfectly ethical and appropriate to withhold some types of information (Messick & Bazerman 1996).
It can be argued that unethical behaviour in organisations relates to psychological tendencies to undesirable behaviour from rational as well as ethical perspectives, rather than 'an explicit trade-off between ethics and profits' (Messick & Bazerman 1996). Ethics relates to judgements concerned with moral right and wrong. Ethical behaviour is behaviour judged to be good, just and right; it is based on principles from ethical theory. However, ethical theories may vary. Ethical realism for example accepts that although morality does not apply internationally, the ethical values of a trading partner should be respected (Oxford University Press 1996). Moral and legal questions may be involved in ethical issues, but ethical issues need to be considered on the grounds of professional ethics.
VI. Kohlberg's theory
Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning is formulated in terms of stages which must run in order without skipping a stage. Progress through the stages may stop at different points for different people, and some may never proceed to the end. In Kohlberg's theory there are three levels, and each level has two stages; the second stage in each case stands for a more sophisticated moral perspective (Maurice 1996). Level 2, Stage 4--social system and conscience. Here an individual is concerned for order in society and looks to laws or rules for guidance in conflict situations, adhering strictly to the profession's technical standards and rules of conduct as well as being more broadly concerned with society as a whole. Level 3--post conventional--is a stage where the individual no longer simply accepts the values and norms of the group but tries to take everyone's interests into account in an impartial way, questioning and redefining social values in terms of universal moral principles. Stage 5 concerns social contract or utility and individual rights. Stage 6 concerns universal ethical principles. The catalogue of moral values demonstrates how complex the process of moral reasoning is. It is probably true that if everyone worked from a high level of morality then ethical standards might not be necessary. Ethics stands between morality and the law.
VII. The Importance of Education with Ethical Responsibility
The implications for education in ethics at business schools certainly need consideration. But the first fact that will strike one in the face is that there is a very great difference between knowing about morality, or ethics, or the law on the one hand, and acting out moral, ethical or legal principles on the other. Ethics is a field between morality and the law that managers are supposed to hold to. Knowing what is appropriate or inappropriate for practitioners of management means understanding the ethical basis of the profession, just as knowing the requirements of the law is necessary for corporate life. Individual determination to live up to the ethics of the profession relates to deeper moral principles and to the individual's professional skill and judgement. Therefore it can be argued that increased emphasis on ethics in particular need not be a part of management education.
VIII. Conclusion
In conclusion, in contributing to overall business success, it is important to focus on the concerns and issues of challenges and complex ethics. As can be seen from this report, it has the strongly correlation of industry with irresponsible management and failure their business. In other words, the company with ethical and social responsibilities tend to provide its successful business. BHP is the one of good industries with corporate ethical and social responsibility (Wood, 2001, P.27). Stated quite briefly on BHP business conduct and ethics, it tends to strive for excellence in performance in all its activities, including safety and environment management (Wood, 2001, P.5). And also, in terms of ethics for employees, a 24-hour business ethics and conduct helpline for its 6500 employees working across the globe. According to the top 500 company from BRW issued April 24-30, 2003, BHP Billiton is ranked at top out of 500 largest Australasian companies and BHP Steel is ranked at sixteenth out of 500. In this report point of view, the any company should have ethical and social responsibility for their workplace including their employees as well as for their society. Ethics should be classifies with top priority rather than technically competent.
VIIII. Bibliography
AAP. 2003, 'ASIC free to sue OneTel ex-chairman,' The Australian Financial Review 24 February, Australia section.
Dizikes, P. 2003, 'Inside Enron's power failure,' The Australian Financial Review 3 April, Review section.
Elias, D. 2003, 'HIH report expected to recommend criminal prosecutions,' The Age 31 March, Business, p.1.
Messick, D.M., and Bazerman, M.H. 1996, 'Ethical leadership and the psychology of decision making,' Sloan Management Review vol.37 no.2, Winter, pp.9-22.
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, http://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp, accessed by 10 April 2003
Oxford University Press. 1996, Dictionary of Business, Market House Books Ltd.
Pheasant, B. 2003, 'Ethics take priority in new ASX guidelines,' The Australian Financial Review 30 March, Special Report 2, p.12.
Takayanagi M., 2000, "Another scandal", in Nikkei Business Publications, Inc., http://www.nikkeibp.com/business/20000807.html, accessed by 31 March 2003
Verschoor, C.C. 2002, 'Accounting involves ethics, not just technical issues,'
Strategic Finance vol.84 no.3, Sept, pp.28-29.
Wood, Wallace, Zeffane, Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2001, "Historical foundations of organisational behavior" in Organisational behavior - A global perspective, eds. John Wiley & Sons, Queens land, pp707-720
