ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE

Ethics and Governance

Ethics and Governance

Introduction

Ethics not just a philosophical science, but the most important resource of good governance. Ethics can be viewed as a system of socially approved norms, rules of conduct to regulate human relationships, survival and development of society.

Ethics Management

A culture of managing people in an organization that provides the possibility of achieving corporate objectives, based on respect for human dignity and promote the public good; Tech ethical knowledge, objectified in the programs, projects, codes of ethics, standards, benchmarks, standards, expert opinions, ethics committees and other kinds of practical activities based on moral choice decisions and actions.

Ethical principles require management to comply with universal manager behaviors, cultural traditions, as well as corporate and professional codes of honor and ethics rules subordination. Ethics management includes the culture of the relationship between managers and subordinates, based on the principles of honesty, fairness, responsibility, duty, respect, dignity, corporate and human solidarity, loyalty and honesty.

Introduction to BAES and the SFO

It is a British operated multinational defence, security and aerospace company (Degues, 2007, pp.51-52.). Its headquarters is situated in Farnborough, Hampshire, United Kingdom. It runs with approximately 100,000 employees globally. The company offers products and services for land and naval forces, along with advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and support services. It showed sales of £22.4 billion in 2010. The company is designed such that it can meet its customer's needs with the delivery of cost, capability and financial performance. The organization is actively operating in Australia, India, Saudi Arabia, UK and USA. BAE follows a systematic approach towards businesses processes and governance. It executes effective programmes.

Project management is a key area of the organization. From Typhoon to Astute (submarine), diverse projects are delivered. The organizations hold top position in being the largest suppliers of land vehicles to US army. Electronic defence systems are our key contracts in Australia. According to the annual report of 2010, BAE has turnover of about £ 22, 392 millions, with £21,990 million being in the year 2009 and £18,136 million in 2008.

Strengths of BAE include strong growth in revenues and profits, focus on research and development, diversified businesses and industry recognition. Weaknesses include the factors such as low employees' productivity, sluggish performance in key segments and unfunded employee post retirement benefits (Houldsworth, 2006, pp: 113-119). Threats include global recession, high dependency on governmental contracts and intense and heavy competition. Opportunities include growth in the global market of aerospace and defence, rise in the expenditure on global defence and strategic acquisitions. The defence company BAE Systems PLC, headquartered in Britain, bribed Saudi officials to get contracts worth millions of weapons.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO for its acronym in English) also "discovered false representations of the BAE to hide their corrupt dealings, which under British law would constitute conspiracy to commit fraud. In the UK, an investigation was initiated in 2004 by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Mutual aid was requested to Switzerland, because of some payments has been paid by or on bank accounts Switzerland.

Task 1

The case addresses the problems of ethics in corporate governance explaining the meaning of laudable and culpable decisions and offering a case study of business ethics at BAE Systems in ...