Facts Underlying the Merck and Cure for River Blindness Case
1. Merck company deals with the research and also the development efforts. It a has a pharmaceutical company which is located in the Whitehouse. In 1994 the company gained a huge profits amounting to $2 billion and therefore it decided to use 100 million to manufacture a new drug “orphan drug”. The drug was produced to cure a disease known as River Blindness (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014). This disease affected a big number of the people in the world. Most of the people affected were believed to originate from the poor regions whereby neither the people nor the government could afford the drug. The disease was transmitted through the tiny black fly which was believed to stay in rivers and streams .18 million people were affected with the disease. The company had contributed $100 million to fund the disease which later became an issue whereby the shareholders of the company started arguing that the money was large and therefore forcing the company to reduce thus leading to delay on supplying the drug. Also there were other factors affected the cure for the disease such as;
a. Most of the people affected by the diseases tend to commit suicide due to pain experienced from the disease.
b.The disease lacked enough cure and therefore the Central Africa and the Central Asian nations were not in position to find any cure
c. It is difficult to invent new drug that could kill the worms without interfering with the patient’s effects.
d. Many of the patients volunteered themselves to have the drug being tested on them.
e. The drug was tested and found to work on all human beings.
management of the Merck company was ready to provide adequate funds that will enable the testing and the development.
2. The decision maker for the company was the board of directors and the following demands were formulated.
- The board of directors argued that the human test should continue regardless of the challenges faced during the distribution (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014).
- Large number of stuff was employed so as to facilitate easy distribution of the drugs.
c.Dr Campbell decided to test the drug on the mouse and this made many people to reject and therefore he decided to use a genetically modified mouse for the experiment.
d.The board of the directors were to give appropriate choice on what to do. This was either to use the profits gained by the company or to continue supplying the drugs to the patients.
3. The ethical dilemma was;
Should the company proceed to manufacture orphan drug to cure the River blindness or was it supposed to terminate the production of the drug.
Decision-making and Conflicting Demands
The shareholder perceived the whole incidence as a loss that’s why the CEOs were driven form the company. This subjected the shareholders to encourage the patients to boycott the company.
Also the shareholders were in fear to lose the job. This because the company spend a lot of money and therefore the board of the directors were deterred to fund the production of the orphan drug. This also was a dilemma since the patients were to sue the company due to shortages in supply and thus subjecting the CEOs to lose job.
4.1.Approach of the utilitarian
Groups involved were; board of the directors, the CEOs, the investors, the community, the consumers and the government of the Central Africa and the Asia and the U.S
The results using $100 million for the supply of the drug. There were not profits to be anticipated by the company and the shareholders if the $100 million was not used to fund the drugs. This was problematic for the company to categorise the exact amount for the drug not forgetting that the whole process had no profits (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014).
The results of not using the $100 million for the supply of the drug. This revealed that if the company fails to fund the drug then the disease was to spread all over and later on the company will nor manage to control the disease.
2.Kantian approach.
Argues that people ought to do what is right a=without looking on the consequences. The issue of being kind, being committed and homering is the key factor. This is illustrated well by the company. It researched the drug that could help to reduce the disease by producing the drug. This reduced the threats of the disease thus saving lives of the people. Funding the project was also a good thing that management did.
3.The rights approach
States that people should treat each with a lot of dignity and respect. The CEOs were not treated well by the shareholders regardless of their positions in the company. Also the issue of boycott by the shareholders and campaigns to influence customers not to buy the drug was also a loss of the dignity (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014). It was not fair to text the drug on the people who were illiterate since they were not in position to recognise risks that could arise from the text. The government failed to fund the project an issue which illustrates that human dignity was not respected thus leading to deaths.
Initial Ethical Dilemma Faced by Decision-maker
4.Ethics distributive justice
Here the whole community affected by the disease was in a potential worse. This shows that the rights of the patients were not respected suggesting that the justice was limited. This disrespect was of more intense as compared to the violations which were experienced by the shareholders.
The rights of everyone need to be protected. All people were to benefit from the treatment. The management uses the approach by allocating $100 million to fund the project. This was to be advantageous to all people in the Central Africa and Asia whereby they were in position to get appropriate treatment.
5. According to my own perspective I would personally recommend general meeting called by the managerial board in order to meet with the existing firm’s stakeholders. Some external participants for example government agencies and non-profit making organization personnel would be invited to support the view, witness and guide throughout the decision making process. It’s evident that the board of directors should always act and focus on the best interests of the company’s shareholders (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014). The management should take the members present on a quick overview of the River blindness disease experienced in some parts of Africa and Asia so that they can understand the complexity of factors such as poverty and other issues at hand. This approach would convince them on the high need to research and manufacture a drug required to solve the problematic issue by offering treatments to the affected patients.
Previously, its shareholders have felt that the financial resources are not effectively utilized to increase the profitability of Merck. Now that the cure for River blindness is now possible, the board has no obligation but to make a decision that avoid much public scrutiny and act on its set standards by actively participating in transforming the lives of the patients in the society and also focusing on the shareholder’s interest in making profits. The board of directors has to be aware of the ethical dilemma facing them for example shareholder’s critic on developing a $50 million on an orphan drug and critic from environmentalists. On the other hand, if Merck does not fund the distribution of the orphan drugs, consumers might boycott the other products of the company leading to a decline of sales volume and eventually collapse of the company.
6 Corporate social responsibility refers to an organizations initiative to ensure successful evaluations and focuses on the accountability of the effects that an organization has regarding social and environment. It involves efforts that company makes to meet the guidelines set by the environmental protection groups. Both Milton Friedman and Edward Freeman have described two distinct opinions about the duties and responsibilities of a firm. The researchers have put forward various interpretations of CSR in the current world. Freemans perspective support the stakeholder theory stating clearly that a person a prior claim in the company has rights to get fair treatment as an active participant acting as the main determining factor. He believes that companies are free of various forms of responsibilities. According to Milton Friedman perspective, the shareholders of the organization are the economic propellers thus making it socially responsible to this group. The purpose of an organization is to acquire maximum profits in order to share equitably with the shareholders who have invested vastly through providence of capital resources. Friedman argues that shareholders should take up the social initiatives and that the organization has no social responsibility towards the community. He argues that the sole aim of an organization is to utilize the available resources in order to optimize on profitability. Freidman proposed theory of Stockholders has been put under so much controversy and confusions (Post & Preston,2012).
Utilitarian Approach to Ethical Decision-making
Corporate social responsibility enables the employees to develop the culture and sense of care making them work hard to complete their delegated duties and routines in an efficient manner. Due to this, the firm builds its brand image of goodwill and accountability for the workers and public thus proper achievement of important business activities sustainability. Employee remuneration is the most significant moral minimum perspective that should be taken into account. Customers forms another key moral important perspective. They are full time shareholders and the only entity where revenue of the company generates and increases firm’s total earnings. The firm can ensure that the customers receive better and guarantees for longer warranty period for the available goods and services. Thus consumer base will grow a sense of reliability and durability of the goods. The organizational brand will increase the customer’s loyalty (Filatotchev & Nakajima,2014).
7. Generally keeping the appropriate information about the personal life will definitely be described as the privacy. As a result, there are different information’s with the different meanings regarding a certain person (Post & Preston,2012). In general, privacy exist between the Employer and Employees whereby ethical issues concerning the two parties can arise. In a workplace, the Employer has authority to access the information regarding any employing regardless how sensitive it is.
In most of the companies or organization, the concept of the privacy between the employer and the employee has been a vital factor which has been monitored in different dimensions.
Basically, it is prohibited and illegal to access all electronic information regarding an employee within the organization. For instance, the issue of checking the phones and the computer information without the permission of the employee within the working environment is an illegal (Post & Preston,2012).
In most cases, the employee can start to operate on the unlawful activities irrelevant to the working rules and regulation thus leading to the dilemma. If one is found conducting the unlawful information within the working sphere, then serious measures need to be taken like taking the person involved to the jail. Cases of drug dealing or violent act will force the employer to inform the matter to the police.
When an employee views the information of the workers without the appropriate permission, then it means the degree of the work morale between the employee and the employer has to reduce. Accessing the emails, messages and the footages and any other related private information for the workers without the necessary permission then the relationship between the employer and the employee will go down (Post & Preston,2012).
For the successes of business in the workplace employers and employees need to make benefit for the organization. Therefore, the two groups need to work together and keep ethical and legal measures thus improving the performance of the business. Therefore, for the employer to enhance cordial relationship then it means there must be utmost supervision so as to monitor what the work is doing apart from the business activities.
Through the idea of the technology then it means that the business has to use the appropriate networks so as to monitor any information regarding the employees within the business. All the sites which are used by everyone should be easily accessed other ways personal information should have privacy (Post & Preston,2012). Procedures need to be designed by the company so as to deter the access of the private information within the workplace. The policies should be categorical each defining the consequences that one will experience when violating them. Also, legal policies on the extent which employer can access employee’s information’s within the business need to be made.
Reference
Filatotchev, I., & Nakajima, C. (2014). Corporate governance, responsible managerial behaviour, and corporate social responsibility: Organizational efficiency versus organizational legitimacy? The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(3), 289-306.
Post, J., & Preston, L. E. (2012). Private management and public policy: The principle of public responsibility. Stanford University Press.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
