Environmental Issues, Data Security, and Government Regulations in Business
Question 1
Organizations have a crucial role to play in the protection of the environment. Companies instigate numerous changes to the environment due to their business operations. Specifically, manufacturing companies use resources from the environment and release effluents and waste into the environment. For a mid-size manufacturer, the best approach to the environment and sustainability is to accelerate and innovate.
The accelerate and innovate attitude is mainly dependent on technological advancements. Advances in technology can be adopted to protect nature and the environment. Technology can be exploited to improve the production processes of the manufacturing firm to ensure that environmental protection is enhanced. The manufacturing company should focus on pushing for innovation to address the environmental issues that are existent in the business world. The adoption of discoveries would reduce the current extent of degradation to the environment (Saylor, 2012). The adoption of innovative methods by the manufactures would be ideal in diminishing the emission of pollutants as an integral way of promoting the protection of the environment.
Furthermore, corporate social responsibility can also be used as an approach to the environment and sustainability. The attitude that is steered utilizing this approach is the humanization of company existence. The strategy entails putting the focus on the facilitation of economic and moral responsibility. Sustainability is a product of corporate social responsibility whereby the manufacturer acts towards protecting the environment and the community by which the company operates and serves (Saylor, 2012). For instance, if the manufacturer is reliant on human labor, then the company ought to ensure that the community that provides the workforce stays healthy. The firm could facilitate this by treating effluents from the production site.
The corporate social responsibility relates to the stakeholder theory. Stakeholders are individuals with a particular interest in the activities of the firm. Therefore, the decisions made by the manufacture are meant to represent the interests of the stakeholders without having profits as the immediate matter of concern. The stakeholder theory states that a corporation is bound to fail if it treats its stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, and the community badly. According to the stakeholder theory, if an organization is producing industrial waste, then it has a responsibility to ensure safe disposal. The aspects of CSR are encompassed within the stakeholder theory (Saylor, 2012).
Question 2
The Marriot Starwood hotels experienced one of the biggest data hacks in recent times. Hackers were able to breach into the reservation database of the hotel chain, where they illegally acquired the data regarding the guests (Leskin, 2018). The records of the hotel’s guests, such as phone numbers, email addresses, passport, reservation dates, and credit card details, were copied and stolen during the data breach.
Stakeholder orientation encompasses the pattern of social responsibility values, decision making, or behavior whereby business leaders make decisions and act by considering the interests of the particular groups of stakeholders (Global, 2020). The data breach greatly harmed the customers of the hotel chain since their personal and sensitive information was stolen from the database. Moreover, the data breach could influence their experience making the clients do negative reviews. Furthermore, the shareholders of the hotel chain were significantly harmed. The developed negative perceptions by customers would influence the reputation of the hotel chain, which in turn impacts on the wealth creation of shareholders since revenue earned goes down.
The data breach of Marriot Starwood hotels demonstrates various ethical issues. Confidentiality is one of the ethical issues that arise from the case. Organizations are mandated to keep the information of their clients confidential. The confidentiality issue calls for maintaining the data of customers private and securely handling their information. The data breach at the hotel chain was a violation of the aspect of confidentiality, especially on personal data. The hotel chain is liable to its customers for a failure to ensure adequate cybersecurity on its databases.
Incidence response is also another ethical issue that is relevant in the data breach case. This entails the time and way to inform the clients of the data breaches (IS, 2019). Further, it involves the actions that can be taken in response to the incident and the amount of information that should be shared with the stakeholders. Also, incidence response is an ethical issue that works to establish approaches that can be taken for the prevention of similar breaches in the future.
The level of governance that should be adopted in the industry is corporate governance. Corporate governance encompasses risk management, corporate compliance, and internal controls, which are essential in ensuring that sensitive information of customers is secured and confidentiality enhanced (Price, 2017). Excellent corporate governance is characterized by transparency, accountability and trust, and security. The corporate level of governance prioritizes cybersecurity as an essential component of corporate policy, which is vital in the hospitality industry due to the exchange of critical data and information by the guests.
Question 3
The government plays a significant role in the regulation of businesses and industries. Specifically, safety regulations by governments are meant to ensure the protection of consumers. Boeing Airlines was put under self-regulation. The company was granted the responsibility to assess the safety of its own products, a function that is meant to be facilitated by the Federal Aviation Administration (Naylor, 2019).
The air transport industry is highly sensitive regarding consumer safety. Regulation is an essential component in ensuring that airline manufactures take a keen interest in the safety of their planes and operations. Therefore, the self-regulation of airline operators should not be allowed. The end goal of businesses is often to make profits and create wealth. Therefore, companies might ignore their mandate to ensure the safety of their products if there is a chance that any re-evaluations would negatively impact on their finances.
In the case of Boeing Airlines, the company rushed the process to get the 737 Max plane model to provide competition for the new A320neo by Airbus (Cassidy, 2019). The airline failed to inform airlines and pilots on the operations of its new software installations and upgrades in the new model. The failure of the government to impose regulations on the safety features of the airline contributed to the two airline tragedies involving Boeing 737 Max planes.
Private companies being allowed to lobby against safety regulations sets the business to incur manufacturer liability. Self-regulation presents all the liability to companies on safety issues, which gives the consumers the right to sue the organizations (Saylor, 2012). Moreover, the government is relieved of any of the liabilities concerning safety regulation. Self-regulation is reliant on virtue ethics, whereby companies are expected to do what is good and what is right without the watchful eye of the government. Furthermore, the concept of soft utilitarian supports the self-regulation of companies. Soft utilitarian relies on the outcome whereby so long as the self-regulated firms work to create more happiness, then the act or means to achieve this is justifiable or generally good.
Furthermore, the self-regulation of the rail industry regarding the hazardous transportation of oil and ethanol affirms the retraction of government liability on safety issues (Mikulka, 2019). The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has pushed for the rail industry to make its own rules and regulations that would promote the improvement of safety. Also, the decision to let the industry self-regulate was to prevent the misrepresentation of basic facts regarding the safety of rail transport, which has been a point of concern during the imposition of government regulation (Mikulka, 2019). However, the position of self-regulation by rail companies put profits over safety.