A Look at the Relationship Between Ethics, Organisational Responsibility and Profits

1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
What is organisation sustainability? We take a look at how it affects companies, individuals and their host communities. What drives the board room and top management to take the actions they take.
Planning for the now, the near future and the long term is very important. Without proper planning, ventures will die a natural death.


Source: RawPixel, Pixabay.com
2.0: CRITICAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANISATION RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS AND PROFITABILITY, ALONG WITH A CASE.
Organisation sustainability can be said to be the ability to keep a business going, without compromising on its standards and organisational culture.

Ideally, this should be the case, but a lot of companies shun ethical practices, and try to cut corners in order to maximise profits, while their host communities, the environment, and in some cases staff suffer as well.

In many organisations, there is a direct relationship between ethics and how sustainable the organisation is. It also has a bearing on the quality of talent the organisation attracts, the number of workers they are able to retain, and how these workers develop, while attached to these organisations.

When individuals have opportunities to grow-not just with respect to climbing up the corporate ladder, but also with respect to self-development, these individuals tend to stick along for the long haul.

This will ensure that production/sales skyrockets, seeing the productivity level of staff remains at a high level.

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Oil spills are a major concern in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A few decades ago, there was a case of a major oil spill within the Ogoni community, and the cost of cleaning up the damage was estimated to be $1B, while also needing 30 years to handle!

Many oil exploration companies in these regions are guilty of putting the bottom line ahead of the health of the people, and their host communities.

Continuing this trend will ensure that one day, there will no longer be a host community to drill the black gold from.

Some companies have a form of corporate responsibility because they are compelled, some because of social values, while others just want to follow the trend, or look good.

To many of them, it seems like being responsible will eat too deep into their profits, so in order to reduce the losses as they see it, they tend to look for the shortest way out, which in many cases involves unethical practices.

There is a need to implement a structure where these companies can be brought to book, but unfortunately, as it is in most third world countries-if not all, corruption is a massive problem. How will they fight for the rights of the people, when the government who is supposed to have the interest of the people is compromised?

Ethical practices will ensure that oil companies live in perfect harmony with their host communities, and these communities will feel that they are truly valued, and not just being milked for their natural resources.

If for example, Royal Dutch Shell took immediate action, and started looking at solutions on how best to clean up the pollution as a result of the oil spill, the crisis wouldn’t have escalated, leading to deaths and also tension between the company and its host community, where it had 96 wells. This ultimately affected production and profits in the long run.

Source: Ejaugsburg, Pixabay.com
A lack of corporate responsibility is clearly written all over this case, which directly or indirectly led to the shutting down of some of its facilities-which brings us back to organisation sustainability.

3.0 SUMMARY
Many companies tend to be social responsible to look good to their customers, to ensure that they encourage their continued patronage and remain profitable. On the other hand, some like this, because it’s a short term cost to the organisation.

As much as making profits are important, being accountable and ensuring your host community/nation thrives, is equally important, because once the host is gone, you can kiss your business goodbye.

Most leaders act in an autocratic way, and have a Machiavellian take on issues. The end justifies the means they think, and can’t be bothered about enforcing ethical business practices.
Being upright should filter from the top, all the way throught to the least person in the organisation.

Companies need to be held accountable for their actions by the government of the host nations they function in, and if they can’t do that for their people, then perhaps, NGO’s can step in, to ensure that these organsations play fair.

When actions are regularly scrutinsed, they will sit-up. This also has an effect on how profitable they are.

It also goes beyond the host communities. Taking care of staff is extremely important. Team members need to feel valued and apprecitated, to perform at their best.

Everyone should be able to feel important on one hand and on the other, organisations need to know that actions have consequences.

THE END

All images used are writers own, except where indicated