We can see from the reading material that companies have a social responsibility

Question

We can see from the reading material that companies have a social responsibility when they are conducting business, and that they should act ethically in their business decisions. Please read and respond to the following case.There is an enormous forest in the state of Washington where logging operations take place. In the forest, there is a rare bird that exists only in that forest. If the logging operations continue in the forest, the rare bird will become extinct. However, if the logging operations were required to stop, millions of dollars in revenue would be lost, and hundreds of people would be out of a job. Moving the bird is too dangerous and can risk the extinction of the species, so the only two options are to continue operations and eliminate the bird or to cease operations and save the bird.What would you do if this was solely your decision? Why? How did you arrive at your decision?

Explanation / Answer

I would decide to continue the operations along with necessary steps to ensure the protection of the forest like planting new ones when each tree is cut for logging operations. A decision is considered ethical when the chances of harm to others are reduced significantly and social responsibility does not encourage protecting the environment keeping the employees in trouble. I should take a decision that would reduce the bad effects on both the parties. I need to take care of ethics in both sides because if I choose to continue the operations it would be unethical to the environment and rare bird species and if I choose to cease the operations, many employees would lose their jobs and the company would be in trouble after losing large revenue. Hence I would decide to continue the operations, but after implementing ways to ensure the protection of the forest by planting new one when each tree is cut. I have arrived at this decision after considering the after effects the decision would have made to both the parties and the ways to reduce the negative side effects. We can reduce the damage if we can reproduce the same to a certain limit. The decision would help to ensure that a new forest is planted over time protecting the rare species of bird and the company operations also will be unaffected.

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