BUS020X601A Business Ethics and Responsible Management
Assessment Case Choice 1
Southern Water
Background
Earlier this year Southern Water received a record (£90 Million) fine for polluting coastal areas in parts of Hampshire, Sussex and Kent where they operate. The pollution was a result of literally billions of litres of raw sewage being discharged into the sea. One of the roles of Southern Water should, of course, be to treat this effluent.
You will find some reports linked below, including a press release from the Environmental Agency, which led the investigation – the largest it has done in its 25 year history.
In the linked reports you will find several quotes from the judge who handed the company the massive fine. He said that the company ‘Showed a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for the precious and delicate ecosystems along the north Kent and Solent coastlines, to human health and to the fisheries and other legitimate businesses that depend on the vitality of the coastal waters’ (BBC 2021a). The implication was that the discharges were deliberate actions to avoid treatment works allowing the company to avoid financial penalties and the costs of upkeep and upgrade (BBC 2021a) and so was for its own financial gain (Laville 2021)
The best that the company seemed to be able to argue was that the discharge was due to negligence, a point refuted in court because the scale of the offending implied it had to be more that a small number of employees not doing their job properly (BBC 2021a).
The company was also accused of under-reporting the number of spills it had made and of dragging its feet in co-operating with the inquiry – the judge said that co-operation had been grudging, partial and inadequate’ (Laville 2021)
You will see that one of the impacts highlighted is the devastation of the shellfish industry – the build-up of effluent has caused long-term deterioration in shell fish quality and some areas are now unsuitable for harvesting shellfish for human consumption. In some cases shellfish harvesting businesses have closed (Environmental Agency 2021)
You might also like to look at the article on the CEO of Southern Water receiving £500k bonus after the company was fined £90m (BBC 2021b). It may have relevance to how you think about your report, it may not. It also may help you think through what you think about business ethics.
There are plenty of other reports online, these are just to give you a start.
BBC (2021a) Southern Water fined record £90m for dumping raw sewage Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-57777935 Last accessed 13/09/21
BBC (2021b) Southern Water boss’s £500k bonus criticised by MP Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-57865503 Last accessed 13/09/21
Environment Agency (2021) Record £90m for for Southern Water following EA prosecution Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-90m-fine-for-southern-water-following-ea-prosecution Last accessed 13/09/21
Laville, S. (2021) ‘Southern Water fined record £90m for deliberately pouring sewage into see The Guardian 9th July 2021 Available at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/09/southern-water-fined-90m-for-deliberately-pouring-sewage-into-sea Last accessed 13/09/21
Your assessment into two parts with part 1 being further split into two. Read the requirements below and attempt all three parts:
Part 1
You are now required to write a brief report to senior managers at Southern Water. You should imagine and play the role of an employee who has been asked to write a report for senior managers outlining the ethical issue involved in the case. The reports you have give a good background, now you should present at report outlining the case from the perspective of business ethics.
Why should the company be looking at this issue from the perspective of ethics? What is the issue here do you think? Is it a lack of integrity? Transparency? Has the company been dishonest? Has it exploited someone or something? How would you characterise the ethical transgression? (It could be more than one thing).
How might this issue influence the public image of the company? What will be the result for the company if/when it is/was found out?
What alternatives ways are there to think about a business’ role in society? What does the issue seem to indicate that the business is focussed on? Is it for example shareholder value? Or the interests of a range of stakeholders? (Here the temptation is to say that the impact on shareholders for example is that the share price goes down when the issue is report. BUT – we want you to think about what the company had in mind when it chose this path and must have assumed it would not get caught!)
Who/what are the stakeholders impacted in the scenario you are reporting on and how are they impacted on? Again- think about who gained/lost WHEN the decision was made not when the scandal was exposed.
Where are there examples of business that act responsibly and ones that do not? You should illustrate this by including research you can find, e.g where is there research that shows good choices benefit companies and bad choices have a negative impact? We are looking for academic research first and foremost, examples of companies’ actions are OK but not without research showing – for example – that people want to work for companies that uphold values.
Finally you should conclude with some recommendations for what the company should do -a tip here is to pay particular note to the video guidance where concluding remarks for this section are covered. This part of your assessment should be written as a report, but should be referenced in the normal academic way using Harvard citations and referencing.
For this part you should again use the case study – but this time choose TWO ethical theories (using ones we have looked at in class) and demonstrate that you can apply these to the case to show how your chosen theories lead you to a view on the ethics of the case. For example, if you applied utilitarian thinking to the idea of cutting quality to boost profit what would you need to consider and how might the issue look from that perspective? Or, what if you apply Kant’s thinking here? NOTE – you do NOT have to use ‘opposing’ ideas, we are interested most in how you use theory, if, when you apply two theories they seem to give the same answer that is fine, if they seem to give different outcomes that is fine too. This section is written in a more academic style than the report.
Part 2
Part 2 is NOT related to the case study. This section requires you to discuss what makes an ethical leader and how you would, as an ethical manager, manage your business and/or others to a high ethical standard.
You will need to think about personal ethics, about the conditions that bring about unethical organisations and practices, about organisational values and methods of compliance. This part can be written in a more reflective style, where the first person can be used.
WORD COUNT
The word limit for this assessment is 3,000 words. This does NOT include any title page or bibliography.
You are allowed 10% of the word count (ie submissions can be up to 3,300 words_, submissions exceeding this will be subject to a penalty.
How the word count is used across the submission is up to you. A suggestion would be
Part 1
Approx. 1200 words
Approx. 1000 words
Part 2
Approx. 800 words
The exact proportions will vary and this is part of your challenge to write informatively and concisely across the required tasks.
How will we support you with your assessment?
Assessment briefing videos
Briefing material and guides in addition to the assessment brief (Please make sure that you read these)
Dedicated seminar session on your formative assessment
The chance to submit a formative outline of your ideas for feedback
Prompt feedback session on your formative assessment and tutorial session to support the development of your summative assessment.
Tutorial session to support the completion of your summative assessment in the final week of the semester.
How will your work be assessed?
Your work will be assessed by a subject expert who will use the marking grid provided in this assessment brief. When you access your marked work it is important that you reflect on the feedback so that you can use it to improve future assignments.
Referencing
You MUST use the Harvard System. The Harvard system is very easy to use once you become familiar with it.
Assignment submissions
The Business School requires a digital version of all assignment submissions. These must be submitted via Turnitin on the module’s Moodle site. They must be submitted as a Word file (not as a pdf) and must not include scanned in text or text boxes. They must be submitted by 2pm on the given date. For further general details on coursework preparation refer to the online information via StudentZone http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/howtostudy/index.html.
Mitigating circumstances/what to do if you cannot submit a piece of work or attend your presentation
The University Mitigating Circumstances Policy can be found on the University website – Mitigating Circumstances Policy.
Marking and feedback process
Between you handing in your work and then receiving your feedback and marks within 20 days, there are a number of quality assurance processes that we go through to ensure that students receive marks which reflects their work. A brief summary is provided below.
Step One – The module and marking team meet to agree standards, expectations and how feedback will be provided.
Step Two – A subject expert will mark your work using the criteria provided in the assessment brief.
Step Three – A moderation meeting takes place where all members of the teaching and marking team will review the marking of others to confirm whether they agree with the mark and feedback.
Step Four – Work at Levels 5 and 6 then goes to an external examiner who will review a sample of work to confirm that the marking between different staff is consistent and fair.
Step Five – Your mark and feedback is processed by the Office and made available to you.