Business Ethics Discussion Board 3 Unit 4

Business Ethics Discussion Board 3 Unit 4

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is remembered as the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States of America. It occurred on 20^th April 2010 when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. The incident killed 11 rig workers. It is estimated that over 4.2 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and spewed from an uncapped wellhead, one mile underneath the surface of the ocean for almost 87 days. The federal government estimated 4.2 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Several concerns emerged from the incident, as depicted below.

The investigation conducted showed that the incident occurred because BP management failed to respect the safety and protection of the general public by compromising the state of the rig’s safe practices devices. BP engineers also depicted negligence of duty, they should have informed the authority about compromised safety, but they feared to lose their jobs. Also, the response during the crisis was not impressive to the general public. These behaviors contradict the company’s code of ethics, which states that “at BP our goals are – no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment. We are committed to the protection of the natural environment, to the safety of the communities in which we operate, and to the health, safety, and security of our people.” Therefore, I suggest BP management should have responded to the disaster with sufficient speed and attention. Incorporation of ethical guidelines and crisis preparedness into organizational culture should have as well helped.

Generally, BP’s code of ethics should be amalgamated with accountability, responsibility, and humanistic care before and during the crisis. This is to avoid incidence situations where the management does not know who to blame, as evidenced during the BP oil spill crisis. Meaning, companies should assign duties that are attached to liability.

Liability.

References