Union Carbide and Bhopal

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DVR Tutorial Question 2 Case Study : Taking Responsibility – Union Carbide and Bhopal disaster 1) Does the corporation owe its first loyalty and moral responsibility to the financial interests of its owners or the local community and its employees who are affected by its operations ? The corporation does owe a bit of its responsibility to the financial interests of its owners but it owes its first loyalty to the local community and its employees . This was not shown because Union Carbide US didn’t want to take responsibility . In seeking to assign responsibility for the incident ,pressure from the corporate office to stop losses backed Union Carbide India into a corner that led to the cost-cutting proposal to slack off on safety measures that ultimately produced the disaster. As Milton Friedman said, the social responsibility of a business is to increase profits, then Union Carbide Corporation’s decision to approve the cost-cutting plan seems appropriate and acceptable. Friedman’s view, however, is far from universally accepted. Many believe that corporations’ responsibilities to their shareholders, employees, customers and communities extend past fiduciary and enter the realms of ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility. Egoism fully applies to Union Carbide because to them no one else matters except for their happiness and profit . What Union Carbide failed to see was without the employees and the local community , there will not be profit because how can a corporation run without people to help it function or run . When we ignore the rights of people and the laws that regulate acceptable behavior as, indeed, ethical egoism asks us to do when it is profitable, the necessary result is disastorous . 2) Are the differing economic circumstances of an indian worker compared to that of an indian worker compared to that of a US worker sufficient

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