Saving Human Lives: Lessons in Management Ethics

370 Pages·2005·5.53 MB·English

by  Robert Elliott Allinson (auth.)

SAVING HUMAN LIVES
Issues in Business Ethics
VOLUME 21
Series Editors
Henk van Luijk, Emeritus Professor of Business Ethics
Patricia Werhane, University of Virginia, U.S.A.
Editorial Board
Brenda Almond, University of Hull, Hull, U.K.
Antonio Argandoña, IESE, Barcelona, Spain
William C. Frederick, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, U.S.A.
Norman E. Bowie, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.
Brian Harvey, Manchester Business School, U.K.
Horst Steinmann, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Nurnberg, Germany
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Saving Human Lives
Lessons in Management Ethics
by
ROBERT ELLIOTT ALLINSON
Soka University of America
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-10 1-4020-2905-5 (HB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-2980-2 ( e-book)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-2905-9 (HB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-2980-6 (e-book)
Published by Springer,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
www.springeronline.com
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© 2005 Springer
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Printed in the Netherlands.
To my wife, Iréna, whose unfailing support and brilliant suggestions
inform this book and grace my existence. To the braver y of the late
Justice Peter Mahon, Stuart Macfarlane and Captain Gordon Vette
who risked their careers and th eir lives to research and investigate
the events that made up the disaster on Mt. Erebus, whose work may
serve as an inspiration to us all for the courage that humanity needs
to struggle for the cause of justice.
Saving Human Lives is an attempt to demonstrate how ethical
management can save human lives. Its thesis is explored through a
detailed investigation of case studies all of which support the thesis
that greater attention to ethics in management would have saved
human lives. To this author, the saving of human lives is the greatest
possible contribution ethics can make to management and it is to this
end-goal that this book is dedicated.
As one reads through the chapters one readily notice parallels to
numerous global crises and disasters that have occurred since the
preparation of this book. The Columbia space shuttle disaster is an
ominous reminder that the lessons of history were not learned in the
Challenger space shuttle disaster. The terrible events of September
11 in the United States are horrific reminders that the lessons of
management ethics could also have prevented the needless loss of
lives. In both of these recent cases, warnings of the impending
disasters were out there but were neglected or trivialized. The
prioritization of ethics as is strongly argued for throughout this
volume would have not tolerated such a neglect of the advance
warnings of the serious, potential threat to human lives.
To give special thanks to those who have helped in the preparation of
this volume, I wish to thank the contributions of Stuart Macfarlane,
Captain Gordon Vette, Mrs. Justice Mahon, Mrs. Jim Collins and
Peter McErlane all of whom gave valuable information which aided
my investigations into the disaster on Mt. Erebus enormously. All of
these individuals were kind to give of their personal time when I
visited with them in New Zealand and provided both materials and a
focus to my investigation which was immeasurable in its va ule.
Without the opportunity for personal interviews with all of the
aforementioned, there would have been no way of obtaining crucial
information which has remained unpublished. I also wish to thank
Roger Boisjoly for keeping an extensive, personal correspondence
with me that shed invaluable light on m y investi gations of the
Challenger space shuttle disaster. I wish to thank the University of
Canterbury which offered me Erskine Fellowship that enabled me to
come to New Zealand. I was a ble to deepen my investigations of the
disaster on Mt. Erebus that I had originally undertaken over a decade
earlier. Some of the material in this book originally appeared in my
earlier volume, Global Disasters: Inquiries into Management Ethics.
viii
The materials in the chapters on the Challenger disaster and the
disaster on Mt. Erebus are revised and new chapters have been added
including case studies of the Titanic disaster and the Vasa disaster.
The chapters on the Challenger disaster and the disaster on Mt.
Erebus contain key points never before published which cast great
light on these disasters and provide powerful support for the thesis of
the present book that ethical management could have prevented these
disasters.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
ACCIDENTS, TRAGEDIES AND DISASTERS.....................1
THE RULE OF ACCIDENTAL ..........................................3
THE EXPLANATION OF HUMAN ERROR......................3
THE EXPLANATION OF A BREAKDOWN OF A
MATERIAL OR TECHNICAL COMPONENT AND
ITS COROLLARY, “RISKY TECHNOLOGY”..................3
RISKY OR UNRULY TECHNOLOGY? .............................4
THE EXPLANATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL
INERTIA OR BUREAUCRATIC DRIFT............................6
ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN .............................................7
THE WORD ‘ACCIDENT’ ..................................................8
THE BELIEF IN MONOCAUSALITY............................ 12
MULTI-CAUSALITY AND MULTIPLE
RESPONSIBILITY .............................................................14
FAULT FINDING AND THE SCAPEGOAT....................15
WARNINGS AND ETHICS ...............................................17
FREEDOM AND ETHICS..................................................18
NOTES ................................................................................19
CHAPTER 2
THE INTERNAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
ETHICS AND BUSINESS......................................................21
ETHICS AS INVOLVED IN THE GOALS OF A N
ORGANIZATION...............................................................22
ETHICS AND THE CONDUCT OF BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE......................................................................33
ix
x TABLE OF CONTENTS
ETHICS AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF A
BUSINESS ORGANIZATION...........................................33
THE WILL TO COMMUNICATE: FORMAL
AND INFORMAL REPORTING CHANNELS.................34
THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE OF ETHICAL
COMMUNICATION: RESPECT FOR PERSONS............34
ETHICS AND INFORMAL CHANNELS OF
COMMUNICATION ..........................................................36
ETHICS AND FORMAL REPORTING
CHANNELS........................................................................37
THE ARGUMENT FOR THE EQUIVALENCE
IN EFFECT OF COMPETING NORMATIVE ETHICAL
JUSTIFICATIONS..............................................................39
NOTES ................................................................................46
CHAPTER 3
THE BUCK STOPS HERE AND IT STOPS EVERYWHERE
ELSE AS WELL......................................................................48
THE BUCK STOPS HERE.................................................48
THE WILL TO COMMUNICATE.....................................50
THE MANAGER’S TASK .................................................52
THE MANAGER AS EDUCATOR AND FACILITATOR
OF GOOD WILL.................................................................53
NOTES ................................................................................55
CHAPTER 4
CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND DISASTER PREVENTION
MANAGEMENT ....................................................................60
CRISIS MANAGEMENT: THE “BAND-AID”
APPROACH........................................................................60
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
CONCEPTUAL PREPAREDNESS....................................64
THE EXPLICIT PRIORITIZATION
OF A SAFETY ETHOS ......................................................66
THE INDEPENDENTLY FUNDED SAFETY
BOARD WITH FULL VETO POWERS OVER
OPERATIONAL DECISIONS ...........................................67
NOTES ................................................................................68
CHAPTER 5
THE VASA DISASTER ..........................................................71
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE VASA ............................72
THE STABILITY TEST .....................................................73
THE QUESTION OF BALLAST .......................................74
THE WIND PRESSURE ON THE SAILS .........................75
THE VASA’S CENTER OF GRAVITY ..............................76
WHY THE VASA CAPSIZED.............................................76
CONCLUSIONS .................................................................82
NOTES ................................................................................82
CHAPTER 6
THE TITANIC DISASTER......................................................84
METAPHYSICAL BELIEF SYSTEMS .............................84
LOSS OF LIFE....................................................................87
REPORT OF THE COURT (BRITISH REPORT) .............87
THE COLLISION ...............................................................87
CAUSES OF THE DISASTER...........................................88
WARNINGS........................................................................88
WARNINGS TO PASSENGERS .......................................91