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Ethical Challenges in Business: a Historical Event Worth Examination

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Ethical Challenges in Business: a Historical Event Worth Examination
Ethical Challenges in Business: A Historical Event worth Examination

The movie Erin Brockovich is based on actual events involving corporate business knowingly endangering the health of local residents and the environment. This factual event is a great example of capitalism on steroids with no empathy for who are what is destroyed on their path for wealth. The events that unfold show the degenerative break down of ethical values through the business format of Pacific Gas and Electric. PG&E lacked ethical and practical management qualities and took sweeping the dirt under the rug to the extreme.
The dramatization primary focus surrounds the deception PG&E has cast over the inhabits of Hinkley, California. For years, the company had been polluting the environment with a known deadly toxin, Chromium six. The toxin eventually seeps into natural underground water reservoirs then onto the unsuspecting town folk. The effects on the human body were devastating. In which the worst being various types of cancer to an untimely death for many of the residents. What lead to the outcome of the Hinkley disaster can be categorized into good and debauched decisions made by PG&E and a zealous attorney’s clerk.
Many of the decision made on behalf of PG&E originated from greed. Bluntly, the company was infected with corruption. Their process of decision making was downward spirals which lead to covering lies and bribery. Key example, PG&E realized to keep their operation from getting unsavory attention, management began to cover medical expenses for some of the residents. The doctors’ hands were in the pockets of the company assisting to cover up the realization of what had been happing for some time. This cohort action between two businesses proves that greed and wealth more often than not supersedes ethical decision making on the corporate level.
On the other hand, Brockovich displays practical ethical attributes in her decisions. She empowers people who surround her to

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