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Ethical Issues and Social Responsibility

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Ethical Issues and Social Responsibility
Ethical Issues and Social Responsibility
Case Analysis: BP (Beyond Petroleum)

Beyond Petroleum (BP), one of the world’s largest energy companies has seen many highs and lows over its 100 history. Throughout BP’s 100 year history there have been numerous questions about the company’s ethical conduct. These ethical misconducts include fraud, environmental crimes, regulatory negligence, and the endangering of habitats (Thorne, D.M., Ferrell, O.C., & Ferrell, L., 2011). With the multiple misconducts BP has been forced to pay large fines as well as invest in large recovery and cleanup efforts which have cost the company billions of dollars. With the large amount of questionable actions made by the company, BP has been working persistently to improve their image to their consumers, stakeholders, and the oil industry as a whole by investing in alternative energy sources, improving sustainability, and implementing a new code of conduct for their employees (Thorne et al., 2011). The focus on sustainability case analysis for BP provides an opportunity to observe the efforts by the company to improve not only improve their image, but to manage decisions related to ethics and social responsibility (Thorne et al., 2011).
Stakeholders and the positive relationships with those stakeholders are essential to the success and future sustainability of BP. BP has a large number of both primary and secondary stakeholders which it as a company is responsible to. Primary stakeholders, those whose continued association is necessary for the company’s survival, include their employees, customers, shareholders and analysts, local communities, and the governments and regulatory agencies where BP is present. In addition, the Secondary stakeholders, those that have an impact on the company but are not necessary for their survival, include the media, special environmental interest groups, and non-governmental organizations (BP, 2011).
BP has been in the news a great deal in recent

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