【正确答案】Kohlberg’s levels of ethical development Kohlberg’s three levels of human moral development are the preconventional, the conventional and the postconventional.Each level is characterised by certain beliefs about what an ethical act is and the extent to which conventional rules and regulations should be observed. At the conventional level, morality is understood in terms of compliance with either or both of peer pressure/social expectations or regulations, laws and guidelines. A high degree of compliance is assumed to be a highly moral position. A person who is ethically engaged at the conventional level will consider it important to learn the rules and expectations which apply to them and then comply in detail. These can concern legal rules, social norms and accepted standards of behaviour. At the postconventional level, morality is understood in terms of conformance with ‘higher’ or ‘universal’ ethical principles as perceived by the person being considered. Postconventional assumptions often challenge existing regulatory regimes and social norms, and so postconventional behaviour is often costly in personal terms. The nature of the ‘higher’ ethical principles is subjective and specific to the person. Mary Wong’s behaviour Mary Wong would have been considered conventional if she had considered it an ethical ‘good’ to comply with her instruction to maintain the confidentiality of the data. The case, however, describes a situation in which Mary Wong acted according to a postconventional motive. Several aspects of her behaviour can be cited in support of this. She did not comply with the terms and conditions of her employment, which would have prevented her from making any information public. The company’s preference to keep internal information confidential to itself was presumably intended to prevent too much external scrutiny from local communities whilst maintaining a good performance against environmental targets. A conventional ethical response would have been to have maintained this confidentiality in the belief that compliance with existing rules, regulations and constraints was the ethical good. But Mary Wong believed that some things were more important than obeying rules, however well-intentioned those rules may be. Having taken her concerns to the highest authority in the company and receiving no satisfaction, she judged it a greater good to disregard the constraints of her contractual terms and conditions, and expose what she saw as an injustice to the wider community. Her belief was likely to be concerned with their right to know about how the emissions might affect them, and as someone who had a strong internal motivation for environmental matters, her outrage outweighed her concern for her job. Mary Wong paid a high personal price for her actions by being dismissed from her job. Those acting from a postconventional motivation often manifest this by disobeying or exceeding existing regulatory constraints (such as by organised disobedience,whistleblowing, etc). It is therefore common for such people to be sanctioned, either by the state, by an employer or by whichever organisation or group is affected by their actions. They assume for themselves an ethical position higher or more important than those of others and, accordingly, often bear the disapproval of the majority.

【正确答案】The case for Pulpo to publish an environmental report Given the recent problems which Pulpo has been having, there is a strong case for increased environmental disclosure directly relating to Pulpo. The first point to make is that the company already gathers data on environmental matters to supply to the parent company for its own group environmental report. This means that the systems must therefore be in place to produce environmental data and so the marginal costs will be relatively modest, and mainly concerned with drafting information pages and having them published on the website. It will increase the appearance of transparency at Pulpo, and help to repair the damaged relationships with the residents’association and the newspaper. Mary Wong’s disclosures clearly angered these groups and so a lack of trust is likely to exist towards Pulpo as a result. Measures capable of restoring trust and legitimacy include increased disclosure and efforts to increase the transparency of the company, especially to those who have been historically critical of it. An environmental report framed in terms of explaining the inputs, processes and outputs, including waste, would help Pulpo to explain its business model and possibly provide information to address the environmental challenges. These might include helping to offset criticisms about the smell and the water pollution which are perceived to be a problem by local residents.If, for example, the company provides a full explanation of why fumes are generated and what those fumes are, whilst perhaps not fully satisfying residents, they may at last understand why they are necessary. The publication of environmental information may help to improve the local reputation of Pulpo, which appears to have had some recent reputation problems. If it wishes to continue to enjoy the support of the local community, from which it presumably draws a lot of its labour, its reputation locally will be important. If a company such as Pulpo begins to lose the implicit or explicit support of the local community, it may suffer in terms of being able to recruit employees and in terms of local support when, for example, building planning permission is needed or similar developments which may have an impact on the local environment.

【正确答案】Explanation of internal control At its simplest, an internal control is any action or system put in place by management which will increase the likelihood that organisational objectives will be met and assets safeguarded. Internal control measures are put in place to control the internal activities in an organisation so that they achieve the purposes intended. By having internal activities co-ordinated and configured appropriately, with means of measuring and reporting on compliance levels, waste (i.e. non value-adding activity)is minimised and efficiencies are gained which increase the effectiveness of the organisation in meeting its strategic purposes. Internal controls and environmental footprint Internal controls are important in controlling all internal activities, including the systems and procedures which underpin Pulpo’s environmental footprint. One of the most obvious ways in which internal controls are necessary for controlling environmental footprints is in the operational controls which measure and determine the input consumption and the production of emissions. It is only by the accumulation of accurate environmental consumption and emissions data that the footprint can be identified and therefore monitored, scrutinised and improved. Internal controls capable of making these measurements (say in terms of energy, water and raw material consumption, and waste emissions) are therefore essential in measuring and therefore controlling the environmental footprint. Internal controls can also be used in the management of the plant and equipment which is used in the production of pulp and paper. The case says that the ageing equipment in the factory is a source of increased emissions, and this implies that the maintenance and replacement cycles of machinery is a major factor in Pulpo’s environmental footprint. Internal controls which measure the efficiency of the factory equipment, how much material it consumes and how much waste it produces can be measured. This data, in turn, can be used to adjust maintenance and replacement times to help control the environmental footprint. Sound internal controls are a key part of the normal efficient management of operations. They are also necessary for producing accurate information upon which regular reporting is based. These make internal controls able to act as an ‘early warning system’ for any inefficiency in environmental systems which help to control the environmental footprint. By having an effective continuous monitoring of internal systems, there will be an automatic awareness of targets and early signs of any internal threats to the meeting of those targets.