Is it Ethical for an Agricultural Business to Knowingly Employ Illegal Aliens
Many agricultural business communities are engaging in increasingly unethical behavior and whatever the reality different agricultural corporations should choose between integrating ethical considerations into their corporate guidelines or accept more consumer lawsuits, interference from government and more public ill will. If they choose the former course, agricultural business integration cannot be merely surface gloss or tokenism since agricultural corporations can contribute to developing more awareness of ethics by making changes in the curricula required of future managers according toconsequence-based ethics like utilitarianism, rule- based ethics/deontological approach, natural law moral theory and divine command theory. Many issues have been raised whether illegal immigrants should be employed in business corporations, for instance whether it will be considered morally right to employ illegal immigrants in agricultural corporations just like any other citizen. To attack this issue it requires that we put it considerations the basics of ethical reasoning. Ethical or moral reasoning in this case will form a critical basis of decision making. One of the modes of reasoning is consequence-based ethics such utilitarianism which requires that the moral nature of an action should be judged on the basis of the amount of happiness it brings to the majority.
An action or decision that brings happiness is considered right and one that does the contrary is considered morally wrong. Another approach is rule- based ethics or deontological approach which takes three forms that is, natural law moral theory, divine command theory and libertarian ethics. Deontological approach is a rule-based ethics in which the rightfulness of an action is based on the degree to which it conforms to the established laws without taking into consideration the consequences that may come from that action or decision. Natural law moral theory takes into account human nature when determining whether an action is morally right or wrong. An action that fulfils human nature is considered ethical.
Divine Command theory can also used in determining what is ethical and what is not. In this theory human integrity takes the center stage and an action is considered ethical if it conforms to the commandments of God, promotes and upholds human integrity. Therefore the moral nature of an action is relative and is based the mode of ethical reasoning because each mode uses different premises to derive a conclusion. My research paper will study ethics in employing illegal immigrants by the management team of agricultural company. It is going to examine the management changes introduced by management team so as to have a future success and explore the behavioural and cultural obstacles faces by the company’s team in employing these immigrants. It should be noted that these agricultural companies develop new and more convenient ways for their customers so as to purchase goods.
The simulation is based on a company that requires assistance to provide conceptual information about the organization structure. It provides specific recommendation to be successful in the coming years. The organization structure is a planned system that consists of arrangement of work and carries the roles, relationships, responsibilities, authorities and communications of individuals in the same department and to employ illegal immigrants. To employ the illegal immigrants, an agricultural corporation must follow up the corporation’s cultures. This is an important tool important tool that determines the organizational success. It helps in developing a strong organizational culture that is essential for successful running of the agricultural corporation.
In this regard, the company has different ethical structures that link organizational culture and the effectiveness in an organization. The ethical components of the corporation always drive individual behaviors in an organization and thereby becoming effective. This ethical culture discusses what leaders perceive of the organization and the level of influence in the utilization of transactions and transformations of their leadership skills in relation to the behavior of the employees. Ethical culture recognizes personality as an individual moderator, a variable that is necessary in the relationship between managers and the interpretations of organizations’ context and perceived requirements and roles and therefore whether an employee is illegal immigrant or not will not be an issue since corporations does not have restrictions. In studying the need to employ illegal mmigrants one will realize that the more a leader (an administrator) interprets a ethical culture in terms of transactions, the more likely the leader will understand the transactional leadership role requirements and this helps the leader to interpret transformation in leadership as a role relation requirement and thus they will be following rule- based ethics. Rule- based ethics is defined as a division of labor as well as a pattern of coordination, communication, workflow and formal power that helps in directing an organizational activity.
The current rules in any agricultural corporation resemble a functional structure. All the above are in line with the following theories: Utilitarianism is the allegation that the outcome of an action should strictly be determined by its ability to provide happiness or pleasure than what anything else would. Act utilitarianism as one of its levels in the moral theory holds that when we are faced with a choice, we should consider doing an action that we believe is morally right and that which we have the moral duty to perform and the action chosen will probably generate a maximum utility. To employ illegal immigrants will therefore be seen as the right thing because they are offering help to individuals who don’t have money at the moment. This will help reduce the number of crimes and thus it is the best thing for agricultural corporations to do. In this moral theory, everyone’s happiness counts equally (Kaczor 67).
In a looser sense utilitarian argument alleges that we should do something because of its good outcomes or to stop doing something because of its bad consequences. The good and bad consequences should be limited to what reduces or increases pleasure or happiness. An example is a case when John an illegal immigrant has committed a crime because he had no job, he is either supposed to be deported or given a chance to work in the agricultural firm. When john is deported, we will never be happy because he will still continue his criminal activities in his country and may be killed one day but when he is allowed to work, we will be happy because there is a higher possibility that he will work hard and manage his lifestyle.In Kantian Ethics which is based upon the ideologies of Immanuel Kent, the concept of “the motive of an action” is the most important factor in knowing what is ethical in an action (Kaczor 70). He adds that a moral action should be performed out of the sense of duty and should not be based upon feelings or the possibility of rewards.
An example to this theory is that it is a moral act when an agricultural corporation helps an illegal immigrant earn a living because they have a responsibility to do so but not because they are concerned or pity the immigrant. Thus a moral action under Kantian ethics should be based on what a person out to do and thus the agricultural corporations need to employ these illegal immigrants because they have run away from their countries to look for employment elsewhere. But if they refuse to employ these immigrants, they have refused because the law does not permit them but not because they involve any emotion. On the other hand, the concept of natural law argues that the universe is governed by reason and rational principles. Therefore humans are governed by rational principles because they are believed to have reason within them and they are able to know and obey rules (Irwin 203). Humans also have the ability to choose, this free will does not necessarily make them obey rules but if they act with reason they will be following a natural course which allows them to choose what is good and to avoid evil.
Moral actions therefore conforms to the principle that people should sought good and avoid bad. When we are confronted by actions, we immediately by inclination know that there are a number of things that can be counted as good and thus be practiced. I think the concept of natural law gives the best detail of moral actions. This is because there are strong drawbacks and questions that come along with Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism that are not present in Natural theory (Irwin 204). For Utilitarianism we can admit that when John an illegal immigrant as in the example above employed, it creates happiness to others which is a good reason for the execution. But when John is deployed it will violate his right to life this will therefore trump maximizing utility.
On the other hand Kantian Ethics does no take the consequences of actions seriously like in a case when a well-intentioned person causes a number of theft he will be blameless according to this theorry (Kaczor 89). Natural law is therefore the best because it allows human to reason for themselves and come up with the right action with regards to their reason. The conception of natural law is satisfied by the idea that we posses morality which makes us reasonable in our actions. It has been suggested that organic structures is likely to be effective in environments that are unpredictable because the structures allows for rapid growth of an organizational responses to the changing forces from without. On the other hand mechanistic structures are better in a stable environment where there is no requirement for an immediate organizational response.
It is therefore expected that organic structure is more efficient in an organization operating in irregular and even hostile environments and thus it may be reasonable to employ illegal immigrants (Pieter, Drenth & De Wolff, 200). In this culture agricultural corporations management team should sought ways in which they will improve revenue by employing people. This they will accomplish by offering a wide range of manpower mix and believing that they would be able to increase their market capitalization to a stated figure which they see fit. It will be a favorable aspect since it is a conventional knowledge that companies with higher market capitalization always command and set up higher earnings (Schneider 1999). These strategies are largely successful because they increase shareholders value in a short period of time. This would however be curtailed by claims that the corporation compromises its product quality, a claim which interferes with its once strong pool of human resources.
They should therefore choose to diversify their manpower line for the simple reason of improving the shareholder value which is a priority for a publicly traded company.An example of this is when Japanese Americans in the United States were peacefully making a living, largely by agriculture in Santa Clara Valley, which was about to change in 1941 after Pearl Harbor was bombed. After the bombing an executive order was signed which incarcerated the Japanese Americans without indictment or trial. The government then reacted as if the civil rights of some citizens and mostly aliens were less regarded as compared to others. During this time, the Japanese Americans were a hot target in the midst of all the stressful tensions of the war. Japanese immigrants and even Japanese citizens were a center of discrimination in the United States.
They were forced to leave their farmland, as they driven to incarceration, “without indictment or trial, in ten desolate concentration camps in the interior of the United States”. These concentration camps included “camps in Poston, Arizona; Jerome, Arkansas and Heart Mountain, Wyoming” (Muto and Wong, 2007) where 120,000 Japanese immigrants as well as Japanese citizens were held consisting of all age groups from men, women and even children. It was a result of the Executive Order 9066 signed by then President Roosevelt that encouraged racial prejudice not to mention hysteria against the Japanese regardless whether they were American citizens. Such discrimination was evident in a news article by Jessie Mangaliman reporting, “During the race riots of 1880, arsonists, determined to drive the Chinese out of San Jose, torched the old Chinatown on Market Street where the Fairmont Hotel now towers” (2009) whereby, this Chinatown was just next to Japan town where Japanese artifacts were found during an archeological digging (Mangaliman, 2009). The government during this time had taken abrasive actions against the Japanese in the United States that it was a unanimous decision to implement the Executive Order 9066 leading to the incarceration of the Japanese in America–”The American Civil Liberties refused to protest, and Congress passed without a single negative vote a law imposing criminal penalties on anyone refusing to comply with the order” (Daniels, 2002).
Moreover, it was perhaps the most distressing stories of discrimination of all times that these Japanese people were given only a train ticket and 25$ to return to their devasted homes and farmland (mostly being taken away), expecting them to start over again. It was such a grim treatment against the Japanese Americans during that time and when in the present time if agricultural corporations refuse to employ such people the natural law will not have been used because they will be violating the liefe of an innocent human who is looking for a better living condition that was not present in their home country.
