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Awb Scandal - Bad Apples or Bad Barrels?

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Executive Summary

Organisational factors or ‘bad barrels’ are said to have instigated many occurrences of corporate corruption and deviant behaviour (Wharton 2002, p 2), involving large numbers of active or passive participants; these are ‘rarely the result of a few bad apples’ (Murphy 2007, p 7). The AWB case is a clear example of corporate culture and other systemic failures influencing and defining an organisation’s decision making and its ethical posture.

This report addresses the underlying organisational causes of the AWB scandal, whereby AWB paid kickbacks to Iraq in defiance of the rules of the Oil-for-Food programme, instituted by the United Nations (Cole 2006) In so doing, it will consider the evidence and conclusions …show more content…

To bribe or not to bribe? That was the AWB’s $300 million ethical question.

4. Framing the AWB case
4.1 Utilitarianism
This report examines the overwhelming impact of organisational and systemic failures on the ethical behaviour of those agents involved in the AWB scandal. As business ethics concerns how business agents ‘ought’ to act (Micewski & Troy 2007, p. 18), it is useful to have an ethical frame of reference when analysing the actions and outcomes in the AWB case. Utilitarian ethics is used as this reference point in the report, as it is recognised as underpinning much economic literature and government decision-making (Pickens 2005, pp.16-17).
Utilitarianism is an ethical approach that in its simplest form promotes the greatest good for the greatest number, or seeks to maximise the benefits over the costs. It is consequential in its focus, concentrating on what is considered a good outcome of an action relative to the group’s notion of good and bad - the outcome determines the ethical appropriateness of an activity. Within this framework, a business should seek to maximise its profitability, market power or other benefit to the least detriment of others. Self-interest is dominant, with something being done for a personal or collective benefit, not because it is ‘the right

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