Social Responsibity and Mining Activities

AWB negligence in adhering to social responsible behaviours and ethical business decisions harmed the stakeholders at the end. This may have been caused by external and internal pressures by leaders, other companies and stakeholders which will be discussed throughout the essay.

A couple of factors that affected people at AWB who were involved in the saga behaved the way they did mainly based on financial reasons. As stated by Mark Rowland (Botterill 2007 p.11) the main goal of AWB was to make as much return as possible for the company. This culture being instilled in the company as a core affected the behaviour of employees who were involved in the Iraq wheat trade were pressured to get high returns. Furthermore, the people involved felt that if they did not do what was asked of them they would lose the contracts to other foreign companies (Botterill 2007, p.11). These sort of pressures where if they lose a large contract that contributes 10% of AWB income would have been substantial enough to jeopardies people’s jobs. It is a similar issue to a salesman whose job is to sale certain merchandise, if he does not sell he will most likely be fired, similarly, this may be one of the possible reasons for how AWB employees acted. Also the idea that bribery is a norm in the Middle East may have caused employees to adhere to the standards of one of their biggest buyers. It gives a perspective that AWB are willing to step into questionable acts as long as they benefit their stakeholders (Botterill 2007 p.11).

The main stakeholders involved in this situation are the growers, AWB employees and shareholders. The main concern growers might have had is that their wheat would not all be sold or that after the scandal it would take time until business will resume. AWB employees fear that they will get caught and sanctioned based upon their actions. Also shareholders fear that their investments will lose their value (Taylor 2010, cited in Robbins et al. 2014). The growers...