There Is A Big Difference Between What We Have The Right To Do And What Is Right.
As we all know, DWI operates in a wide range of industries, ranging from oil and energy to leisure and recreation, manufacturing, to telecommunications. In each of the industries, there are many activities of the organization that are perfectly legal, but might not be acceptable from ethical perspective. We will identify some of these activities in various industries that are ethically wrong, even though are legally correct.
Let us start an example from the Casino industry. Casino business is legal in many countries around the world and is a great source of income for companies like DWI. However, from ethical perspective, Casino industry might not be the best businesses to be in, primarily due to the fact that it ruins many households and provide opportunities for people to lose their hard earned money. Further, operating a casino business can lead to other crimes in the vicinity, such as prostitution, drug trafficking, etc. which may be beyond the control of the organization operating the casino, such as DWI in this case. Although there are arguments in favor of running a casino such as creation of more jobs, development of ancillary businesses such as restaurants, promotion of tourism in the region, etc, it does lead to many ethical issues, such as it can lead to compulsive gambling, attract crime, drags and prostitution, create traffic congestion problems and erode the work ethic. As mentioned earlier, some of these “social costs” can be quantified such as social service costs associated with addicted gamblers and lost job productivity.
Reference: http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/653985-1.html
DWI also faces potential ethical issues in hotel industry. For instance, the high calorie or high fat food served in hotels might be perfectly legal, but ethically, it might not be correct. Often, to save costs or to enhance the taste of foods, hotel operators like DWI compromise on healthy side of the meals and provide unhealthy food to the guests at the hotel. Companies like DWI should not compromise on the health side of their food preparations and should spend extra money to ensure that the ingredients, preparation of various cuisines in the hotel are of the highest quality and healthy for the customer.
As understand, DWI is into oil exploration in various countries around the world. In many nations around the world, the labor laws and environmental standards are not as stringent and strictly implemented as in developed nations like US. A major ethical concern for companies like DWI is adherence to stringent ethical principles in terms of treatment of labor and environment. Although it might be perfectly legal in many countries to observe relaxed practices in terms of environmental production and provide less than optimal working conditions for employees, it might not be correct from ethical perspective. Companies like DWI should try to standardize their labor practices as well as environmental practices, irrespective of the local laws and regulations in multiple countries around the world. For example, If DWI is operating in India where labor laws and environmental laws and not strictly implemented, DWI should not try to take undue advantage of such relaxed laws and should keep the quality of its operations in terms of protecting the environment and providing healthy working atmosphere to employees totally intact and on similar lines with US operations.
Operating a cruise line is also full of ethical issues that need to be kept in mind. Although it is not mandatory from legal perspective, but it is certainly important from environmental perspective that a cruise line operator like DWI should take extra care or make extra efforts to protect sea life and carefully dispose of waste. Cruise operators should realize that operating a cruise line can be detrimental to the ecological balance of tourist attractions and thus should ensure that they operate in the most ethical manner. Cruise companies must meet environmental standards that exceed regulatory requirements. For instance, they’re adding advanced systems to treat wastewater to the point that “it’s practically drinking water” and then discharge it far offshore.
Reference: http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/10/08/10158728.html
To conclude, there are host of activities that appear perfectly legal for DWI in all the industries where it operates, however, the activities do not adhere to the highest ethical standards. DWI should make an extra effort to ensure that it ethical standards surpass the regulatory standards and should set a platform for making DWI a truly ethical organization from all perspectives.
