Business Ethics Changes in U.S. Business Ethics Practices

Changes in U.S. Business Ethics Practices Since Sep 11, 2001

The incident of 9/11 made the world pass though many sad and undesirable changes. One of such changes is declining rate of ethical considerations in U.S. based commercial organization. The subject is important to explore as it is likely to affect the image of U.S. business organizations. Furthermore, it is also expected that U.S. literature upon management and business administration may fail to appeal the world as the practices are not aligned with it.

The paper explains the changes in lieu of unfortunate incident of 9/11 in USA and casts light upon the implication of ethical consideration presently enforced in U.S. based organizations.

Changes in U.S. Business Ethics Practices Since Sep 11, 2001

The incident of 9/11 was an unfortunate event for many nations of the worlds including Americans. The incident changed the political situation of the whole world and shattered the old established relationships among the nations. The U.S. economy was badly affected by the event which spread its unfavorable impact to many other economics of the world as well.

The changes occurred at political and economic platforms were evident by all the nations of the world. However, these are not the only changes to ponder upon. There were many other changes which were not noticed by any nation other than Americans themselves. To be more precise, these changes were experienced by the people living in USA. The communities associated with the groups considered responsible for 9/11attack were seriously affected by these changes. It will be no prejudice to mention that after 9/11, the image of USA at international platform was seriously damaged. It may still be considered as the most powerful country of the world, governing the international system of politics and economics, yet it is also true that behind the official representatives, the masses and citizens of many countries do not like USA and its policies. It is also a fact that many Americans are not happy with the policies of USA. They may not raise the voice and it may turn in no good favor for the affected people and nations, yet the feelings of contempt are there and bound to increase with every new policy and initiative.

The paper will cast light upon the changes which took place in business ethics practices of U.S. particularly after the incident of 9/11. The changes will be highlighted using various models. The analysis of the issue from the perspective of many researchers will help the reader understand the dimensions and aspects of the changes. The objective of the paper is to present a summed version of changes in ethical practices and their likely impact upon their stakeholders.

Literature Review

The incident of 9/11 is considered as one of the most historic incidents that took place in the beginning of new millennium. On September 11, 2001, two aircraft hit the World Trade Center (WTC) of USA located in New York. An aircraft also damaged Pentagon in Washington. The incident resulted in massive destruction in these two cities and thousands of people lost their lives.

There are many views about this sad incident. The most prevailing view is that the Muslim extremist group, Al Qaeda hijacked American Aircraft for this brutal attack. The activity was carefully planned and the main objective was to hit U.S. And its economy. Soon after collapse of WTC, the value of American Dollar decreased dramatically in the currency market. U.S. considered it as a terrorist attack and took serious initiatives to combat it. Serious counterattacks were planned against Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda. The revenge of U.S. was not over till the complete wipe out action of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The situation there is still upset even after 12 years of the incident (Bergen, 2011).

There is another view about this attack which negates the mentioned view altogether. After the event, every TV channel of the world casted the breaking news and many opinions came forward. One of the views was; the event of 9/11 was planned by Americans themselves (Denzin, 2009). The objective was to penetrate in Afghanistan. The supporters of this view find the evidence in the fact that at 9/11; only Muslims were present at World Trade Center. All non-Muslims belonging to any religion, Christianity, Jewish or other were on leave. The analysts do not consider it a blessing in disguise that U.S. citizens were saved. They rather focus that the leave applications from all the non-Muslims for that particular day was a planned activity to kill Muslims. There were more than 3000 casualties, including the fire fighters, the security guards and people in nearby buildings...

Many people were of the view that Osama Bin Laden belonged to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Hendrie, 2010) and he was angry upon USA's assistance to Israel. Since Muslims are sensitive about Masjid e Aqsa and regard it as a symbol of Islam, the attack of Christians and Jews are not tolerated by them. Israel came into being as a result to continuous attacks about Palestine where Masjid e Aqsa is located. Many Muslim countries have not accepted Israel as a country and have serious reservations upon any type of contact with it. Since Christian and Jews lobby supported Israel in every possible manner, the true Muslims hate Americans as well.
In order to take the revenge from USA, Osama Bin Laden planned this activity. People also believe that Osama Bin Laden considered USA responsible for political instability and wars in Middle East. As Muslim leaders are silent upon the disturbing political conditions, Osama, with handful of his supports, successfully hit the World Trade Center to express the power and hatred of Muslims. The researchers believe that the supporters were also from Saudi Arabia (Ridgeway, 2005).

Having faced the hostile attack from Muslims, American policies became stricter for them. Many Muslim employees were fired from the jobs. The immigration applications and visas were cancelled. Strict security measures were taken against the Muslims residing there and serving the U.S. based firms. Any religious activity performed by Muslims was considered as extremism and Muslims were explicitly forbidden from performing their religious duties.

From ethical point-of-view, in a country like USA, where the concept of right and wrong is considered the base of any action or decision, violation of right of freedom of speech and action is a serious issue. They define ethics as standard discriminating right from wrong (Angle, 2008) and plead for its universal acceptance, yet they became too crude for Muslims that the policies were changed to prevent them from progressing and moving ahead.

Moulton's Continuum

If the issue of declining ethical practices in USA-based firms is marked on Moulton's Continuum, it is evident that the policies are implemented using legitimate power of the organizations. The organizations have authority to hire or fire a person, establish or end relations with any client or supplier or introduce a new policy that is enforced. On ethical grounds, it calls for serious consideration that the declining rate of ethical standards is not a good sign and the international regulatory bodies should take initiative to combat these practice. The organizations should be forced to obey to the enforceable policies and actions. Since the law making agencies have more power than the organizational, the ethical conduct can be embedded in the organizations if it is made a legal requirement.

The example of corporate social responsibility can support the above mentioned argument. Commercial organizations do not like the extra expense of corporate social responsibility (Bacher, 2007) but when it was made a regulation, its enforcement was easy.

Stakeholder Analysis

There are many stakeholders for a business firm and in the modern culture of globalization; many governments and nations are also included in the list. There was a time when economic performance of an organization was linked to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. The changes in global trends and preferences have paved way for increased needs and demands by stakeholders which cannot be fulfilled by the traditional economic theory (Key, 1999).

The stakeholders of modern business organizations focus on value addition by the organization and are not contended with the economic performance only. A wine manufacturing organization may announce high dividends yet governments and other legal agencies have posed the requirement of corporate social responsibility to spread awareness about the harmful effects of alcohol.

Preston and Post Model

The concept of value maximization for stakeholders has been supported by various researchers. Preston and Post model identifies primary and secondary stakeholders to make the organizations realize the extent of influences each stakeholder has. The primary stakeholders are the ones who are directly related to the organization and are affected more with any change in any policy. It includes employees, customers, suppliers and partners. Society can be secondary but important stakeholders as the impact placed by business organization on society is long lasting. It is quite possible…