business introduction

One of the legal obligations of business management to their employees is to ensure that meetings are held. Holding daily meetings is important because it means that people are kept up to date with the latest trends in the sector. Ensuring the employees' welfare is often important because it means that they are professional enough to carry out their duties (Arnold, 2004).
The general public is likely to have a negative view of the organization as a result of the breach. It is the company's duty to protect the environment and follow regulations that prevent environmental harm. A supporting example of what might happen after the leakage of the oil is having public organizations filing lawsuits against the company. Such trials have a negative impact on the business for it would lose the credibility and even will be forced to pay fines, as happened to a quarry company in China that was accused of dumping waste materials (Chun, 2015).

Question 3

If the company decides to take up an obstructive stance, then it will affect the company’s reputation. Maintaining silence would mean that the company either does not want to comment on because it is guilty and wants to avoid punishment. An example is the Shell-BP case where the company spilled oil into the Mediterranean ocean but initially refused to admit it (Kolk, 2015). As a result, the incident had a damaging impact on the company

Question 4

If the company decides to take a defensive stance, then it means that it would deny information given in media reports. The most effective response to offer is that it did not know that there was a leakage off the ship and that it would work efficiently to fix the various components of the ship that led to the spill. However, it proves useful to apologize for the spillage and offer a statement indicating that the mistake would not happen again. An example of defensive strategy is British American Tobacco’s tactics that seeks to protect the production of cigarettes despite worldwide criticism (LeGresley, 2008).

Question 5

If the company decided to take an accommodative stance, then it would take responsibility for the spillage without offering any excuses. However, taking responsibility for the actions would prove that company respects public opinion. Nike is an example of a company that made an accommodative stance owing to allegations on poor labor conditions in the supply chain. The company admitted these facts and changed the conditions (Locke, 2007).

Question 6

If the company had been proactive the situation would have been different because it would have engage in discussing the event and searching for solutions. An example of a company that did is Burberry that in response to allegations that the company had started providing substandard clothes cooperated with various subject to deal with a problem (Brun, 2008).

Part B

An example of where a company may take the stance of establishing market share as compared to profit one is when a firm may decide to set lower prices for their commodities to prompt people to purchase their products. An example of such a company is Tecno that sets the costs of its tablets and phones at lower price than other brands. Another example is Puma, which over the past decade has reduced the price of their products due to increased competition (Li, 2011).

















References

Arnold, D. G. (Eds.). (2004). Ethical theory and business. New York: Pearson.

Chun, Z. (2015, November 14). NGOs Win China's First Public Interest Environmental Lawsuit. Retrieved November 28, 2017, from https://thediplomat.com/2015/11/ngos-win-chinas-first-public-interest-environmental-lawsuit/

Kolk, A. (2015). Winds of Change: Corporate Strategy, Climate change and Oil Multinationals. European Management Journal, 19(5), 501-509.

LeGresley, E. (2008). British American Tobacco and the “insidious impact of illicit trade” in cigarettes across Africa. Tobacco Control, 17(5), 339-346.

Locke, R. M. (2007). Does monitoring improve labor standards? Lessons from Nike. ILR Review, 61(1), 3-31.

Brun, A. (2008). Supply chain strategy in the fashion industry: Developing a portfolio model depending on product, retail channel and brand. International Journal of Production Economics, 116(2), 169-181.

Li, T. (2011). Implementation of the Integrated Operation of Supply Chain Logistics in Low-Carbon Economy. In ICTE 2011(pp. 2449-2454).