Leadership and Ethics in Business - Essay Example

For example, Coca Cola forced to stop its operations in the southernmost state of India; Kerala because of strong public protests against underwater exploitation by Coke. In 1999, the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited, a subsidiary of the Atlanta based Coca-Cola company, established a plant in Plachimada, in the Palakkad district of Kerala, southern India. The Perumatty Village Council gave a licence to the company to commence production in 2000. Coca Cola drew around 510,000 litres of water each day from boreholes and open wells.

For every 3.75 litres of water used by the plant, it produced one litre of product and a large amount of waste water. In April 2003, the Perumatty Grama Panchayat (Village Council) refused renewal of Coca-Cola’s licence to operate on the grounds that it was not in the public interest to renew the licence stating: “…the excessive exploitation of ground water by the Coca-Cola Company in Plachimada is causing acute drinking water scarcity in Perumatty Panchayat and nearby places…” (Case against Coca-Cola Kerala State: India, n.d.) .

Coke forced to stop its operations in Kerala because of the agitations by the public against underwater exploitation. It should be noted that Kerala public is the most educated people in India. They know the consequences of unsustainable business practices. CEO’s who are reluctant in implementing sustainable business practices should learn from the coke’s experience in Kerala. Even uneducated people are aware of their rights nowadays. Another example from India shows the awareness of uneducated people with respect to unsustainable development.

“Villagers around the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu are intensifying their. In other words, business ethics is not a term which contains contradictory terms. The ethics followed in the business of one part of the world is applicable in other parts of the world as well. In fact business and ethics should go in parallel directions so that sustainable development becomes possible. Since all the decision making are done by the managers, they have the responsibility of taking ethical decisions.

Managers should realize that “The economics should not be paramount to ethics in business; if anything, ethics should be paramount to economics” (Elm & Radin, 2012, p.314). Most of the newly appointed managers do not recognize the needs of ethics in business. One of the traditional beliefs about business is that profit making is the only objective of business. Managers should realize that such traditional beliefs and thoughts have no relevance in the modern business world. According to the modern business principles, ethics and sustainable business practices are the much needed qualities for a business to enjoy success in the current heavily competitive and globalized business world.

Modern customers are more interested in rating the company’s image in terms of sustainable business practices before taking any purchasing decisions. Organizations with bad reputation in keeping ethical business habits may struggle to survive in the market. The Enron example is relevant here.