Applied Business Ethics

Human beings have for a long time been faced with the plague of making the right decision. In each and every day, the business world lives around making decisions and for most of them, making the right one needs one to be thoughtful and considerations while others have no conscious in thinking through a decision. Hospitality, an industry I would really like to join as a future profession is like any other business that is profit driven. In Singapore, in the efforts to increase the profits in the industry and to increase the revenues, the government was at one time seen to settle on decisions that came with a lot of ethical issues in societies. Ethical issues in the hospitality industry have been experienced mostly in the cruise ships engaging in casinos and gambling where the government of Singapore legitimized the gambling as a business like other businesses. In as much as the cruise ship might be having a beneficial advantage to the country, by generating income to and adding up to the economy in Singapore, it is quite unfortunate that it discharges bilge water, sewerage and other waste to the water a few miles from the coast. Such activities are never regulated and they may be a great danger especially to the fishing industry as the waste and other discharge from the ship may cause a massive death of fish (Lo, 2005). Many stakeholders are naturally concerned that these wastes might cause negative impacts to the environment but then, they might not want to interfere and disturb revenue generating business and a part of the Singapore’s economy. The profit that is enjoyed from the cruise ships does not mean that the directors and other staff should be less ethical. Clearly, a company can be profitable and at the same time reducing the ethical issues through integrity (Balfour, 2006). In the process of using integrity, ethics would be prevailing and the right choices would be made. In the same cruise ships in Singapore, one of the businesses carrying the order of the day is gambling. In as much as casino gaming may seem to be a business like others, it is surrounded with many ethical issues. People engaging in gambling are prone to addiction to the game, might have tribal issues and others may be forced into organized crimes and suicide. While others may find their ways into gaming casinos for business and fun, others might take the opportunity to organized crimes; others may be tempted to commit suicide after losing a lot of money and property as others get addicted to the game. It thus leaves questions as to why the government could just decide to legalize gaming considering it come along with many ethical issues (Grinols & Mustard, 2006).   The aspect of being right or wrong appears to differ from culture to culture although the defending fact is about a person’s behavior. An example is the principle of utilitarianism where it is about the good deeds for many people. Singapore is well recognized as one of the governments that are least corrupts different from many countries where corruption has turned to be a plague in the government (Walker & Jackson, 2007). Many corporate agencies are full of corrupt administrators and governments are full of graft and bribes and as such people might not question a government running a country being ethical. Singapore, after its government announced that they will be legalizing gambling and allowing the construction of mega resorts with gaming facilities, it appeared that the country was thrown in a debating field about the implications that could come along with the decision. Questions are thus rising on how ethical or unethical the governments are becoming and the implication s of the decisions made by these governments to allow building of casinos and the operations of the cruise ship (Lim, 2005). The government of Singapore came out to defend its decision to legitimize the integrated resorts claiming that the gambling and all the games in the casinos can be considered a form of entertainment and a worthy investment. Also, they based their justification on economic situations where they had to import some of the raw materials used in building the casinos and as a result, enhancing business relationships with other countries. Another major reason the government gave for legalizing the gambling was that the revenue of the country was falling and it was because many of their citizens were travelling to other states to gamble. One may look at it that the government of Singapore may have wanted to tap into its revenue to prevent the money from being spent out of the country (Banks, 2002). Tourism was also another reason that saw the government allow the construction of the casinos and the operation of the cruise ship. The decision by the country was seen to be aiming at increasing the demands for and the motivation of the tourists to the island state. The government also based its decision of the fact that Singapore appears to the third least corrupt states making their probability to attract many tourists around the world high. It was also anticipated that the casino would be a great opening of many employment opportunities (Sim, 2010).   One of the ethical issues surrounding the casino and gambling business is the organized crimes taking place in these places. Crime is one of the factors that the anti-casino movements were seen to argue that will increase as a result of the legalization of the business. In other countries, there have been witnessed cases of assassinations around the casinos where the people gambling in these casinos seem not to be satisfied with the fact that they lose their money or property and thus, organize an assassination of their opponents (Garret, 2004). Before the government had legalized the casinos and gambling in Singapore, there were many forces and arguments for and against the case. Different people had different views concerning casino gaming where a group believed in the ethical part of casinos while others defended their opposition on grounds of the unethical parts causing an ethical dilemma in the case (Toneatto, Ferguson & Brennan, 2003). From the beginning, the policy makers in the country had acknowledged the possible negative externalities and gave an assurance that these would be controlled through different measures that were put in place. The government passed the casino control act that issued the license to build the two integrated resorts with casinos in them.   There are also statutory boards that were developed to limit the social impacts of the casino gambling and the state has been very strict in the act by progressively tightening the rules over time. There are exclusion measures and limits of visits to th e casino. The exclusion measures are seen to bar people from entering the casino while the limits of visits puts barriers on the number of visits a person can visit the casino, and that being imposed on registered members (Grinols, 2004). Another measure is on the people operating the casino where they are not allowed to accept credit cards from the local residents and they are as well not permitted to extend credit to the local visitors. In any case the operators appear to breach the regulations; they are to face some disciplinary actions including the imposition of fines, suspension or even termination of their licenses (Werker, 2007). Ever since the casinos in Singapore started working, the regulations governing them have been tightened progressively. The issue of addiction was to be sorted through the enrollment of education programs to through family service centers and community development councils. These bodies were to give gambling addiction information to the public and also trained the staff on the compulsive gambling and how to provide basic counseling to the gamblers (Anderson, 2005).     However, the government should have applied the consequentialism theory with the approach of ethics. The consequential approach emphasizes that an ethical morality is a contingent on the action outcome or its consequence. Therefore, any right ethical actions should produce a positive result (Walker & Jackson, 2007). The positive result should outweigh the negative outcome. The casino ACT mainly focused on the local residence hence benefiting them more than the residents. In conjunction with the shareholder's theory, the responsibility of the casino was to raise profits to the shareholders and benefit the residents positively. According to Banks (2002). Understanding the theories of justice comes from the business ethics. However, it has a political aspect due to the control of businesses by the government involvement. The government of Singapore defends its decision to legitimize the integrated resorts claiming that the gambling and all the games in the casinos can also be considered a form of entertainment. The claim is based on the economic conditions and the claim that purchasing of raw materials from other countries will support their relationships. The theory of justice mainly focuses on the creation of liberties equalization hence creating strong friendships and happiness between the other countries with a mutual benefit.   In each and every day, the business world lives around making decisions and for most of them, making the right one needs one to be thoughtful and considerations while others have no conscious in thinking through a decision. In as much as the cruise ship might be having a beneficial advantage to the country, by generating income to and adding up to the economy in Singapore, it is quite unfortunate that it discharges bilge water, sewerage and other waste to the water a few miles from the coast. Many corporate agencies are full of corrupt administrators and governments are full of graft and bribes and as such people might not question a government running a country being ethical. Singapore, after its government announced that they will be legalizing gambling and allowing the construction of mega resorts with gaming facilities, it appeared that the country was thrown in a debating field about the implications that could come along with the decision. The government passed the casino contr ol act that issued the license to build the two integrated resorts with casinos in them.   There are also statutory boards that were developed to limit the social impacts of the casino gambling and the state has been very strict in the act by progressively tightening the rules over time.   Anderson, J. E., (2005). Casino taxation in the United States. National Tax Journal, 58(2), 303–  Ã‚   324. Retrieved from https://ntj.tax.org/ Balfour, F. (2006). Macau gaming: Shady past, rosy future. BusinessWeek Online, pp. 6. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database. Banks, G. (2002). The Productivity Commission’s gambling inquiry: 3 years on. Presentation to    the 12th Annual Conference of the National Association for Gambling Studies, Melbourne, Productivity Commission, Canberra. Retrieved from    https://www.pc.gov.au/speeches/?a=7804 Garret, T.A. (2004). Casino gaming and employment trends. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 86(1), pp. 9-22. Retrieved from https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/04/01/garrett.pdf Grinols, E.L. (2004). Gambling in America; Costs and benefits. The Press Syndicate of the University of   Cambridge, The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kingdom. Grinols, E.L., & Mustard, D.B. (2006). Casinos, crime, and community costs. The Review of Economics   and Statistics. 88(1), 28-45. Retrieved from https://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/casinos.pdf Lim, H. K. (2005). Comment by Minster for Trade & Industry Lim Hng Kiang.Ministerial    Speeches & Comments. Retrieved from Ministry of Trade and IndustrySingapore website: https://app.mti.gov.sg/default.asp?id=606 Lo, S. H. (2005). Casino politics, organized crime and the post-colonial state in Macau. Journal of Contemporary China, 14(43), 207-224. doi:10.1080/10670560500065454. Sim, A. (2010). Singapore already reaping benefits from IRs: Economist. Retrieved from https://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Story/A1Story20100426-212421.html Toneatto, T., Ferguson, D., & Brennan, J. (2003). Effect of a new casino on problem gambling in treatment-seeking substance abusers. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 48(1), 40.Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database. Walker, D., & Jackson, J. (2007). Do casinos cause economic growth? American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 66(3), 593-607. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.2007.00528.x. Werker, E. (2007). Company town: Fixing corrupt governments. Harvard Business School,   Working Knowledge, Retrieved from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5730.html