1)I am convinced that the best organization´s best strategy to operate is, like everything else in life, to consider the consequences of the actions and think in a long-term way. I am a student and I wouldn’t be here if I was not interested in a long term “profit”. Like I did during the last years, there are places where I could get back to not bad paid job. Although, those jobs won't help me on a long term. I think this basic strategy has to be adopted on large scale by organizations in order to assure wealth to many of its stakeholders and to the organization itself. Bp has not been able to consider its own primary interest also by disregarding the sustainability of the value created. From my point of view, if you act irresponsible, sooner or later you´ll receive the bill to pay. Bp received a heavy one and with them all other organizations and individuals directly and indirectly related to its activities in the Golf of Mexico. The fact that 85% of the chiefs financial officers see that in a different way, worries me quite much.
2) I don´t think Margaret Blair is against profit. As she stated in the beginning, she is not a communist and there is no successful society without a business sector. It improves our lives and contributes to the society. What she also did say is that we need more laws in order to regulate in a more effective way those businesses (otherwise everything would be dictated by the strongest and biggest one) . As I understood it, she says that it is in all our interest (company itself included) to operate not in what she calls “shareholder value thinking”. I think she strongly believes in our definition of “azienda” and to in the conditions of survival and development of the organization.
In recent years , public opinion has embraced the concept that corporations have civic and social responsibilities . Corporations ignore these sentiments at some peril , as BP company did , putting their shareholders on 1st place, and causing like this a disaster . BP was accused of gross negligence and reckless indifference , and had to pay a good merited penalty . I firmly believe that Margaret Blair, is not against profit, but she want remind to the organizations that these also have responsibilities.
The video is pretty clear: BP made a terrible mistake. Not only from an environmental point of view, which is the most important for sure, but also from a business point of view. In order to save 1 million dollars a day, they have lost 100 billion dollars (as she says at 2:59) not respecting the safety rules that would have saved, first of all the Mexican gulf, and then BP. So from this video and this experience it is possible to underline how important stakeholders are, and how taking into account their interests is fundamental not only for them, but for the company as well. She is not against profit, she is just showing how to make good profit, and how considering exclusively shareholders interests, can damage not only the environment ( in this case also others businesses and above all families), but even the organization itself. In fact, as she says, after this disaster BP firstly had to pay to solve the problems its negligence caused, secondly it had its share halved.
I believe that the British Petroleum case caused many problems to BP because the accident made the public opinion focus on the responsibility every multinational has towards the environment and towards safety in general. After the oil spill, obviously the company’s safety record has been questioned. I think that, not only the stakeholders suffered a huge economic loss, but also the accident had an effect on their customers' opinion.
In my opinion Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit. In fact, at the beginning she makes it clear that a successful society cannot exist without a business sector. She explains how wrong decisions made by the stakeholders can eventually hurt the shareholders, too. Furthermore, she says that those who follow strictly the monotonist view are exclusively interested in short-time profit, and sometimes they do not reflect on the consequences of their actions.
1) British Petroleum has not considered Ethics, long time consequences and the environment. These things caused a big problem to the BP at the first situation, so Stakeholders lost many shareholders because of this consequences. Also the shareholders has to be blamed because they helped the growth of a not ethic business.
2) She considers that the profit is like a thing needed to survive so she considers the real value of the azienda. She considers also the real entity of a pure profit with ethics. So she really understand the real value of profit, the possibilty to offer a service in this case.
1)I found this video particularly enlightening, and I’ll explain why. Of course, I’ve always considered the BP case as a dreadful circumstance. It is absurd that a company can risk the life of its employees cutting on safety in order to save more money in the short term. Moreover, the environmental damage was unspeakable and it will affect the Gulf ecosystem maybe forever. Nevertheless, before watching this video, I never thought about the economical harm the BP submitted itself to. Its strategy for the profit's sake only, not only damaged secondary stakeholders (the environment, the social context), but also primary ones (shareholders) and the company itself, which had than to finance the cleaning of the area. Without mentioning the reputation damage.
I believe that the BP case is a pragmatic example of the risks of undertaking a short term profit strategy, especially in those areas of business where sustainability is in doubt.
2) I don’t think Magaret Blair is against the logic of profit, but against the logic of profit at any cost. At the beginning of her speech, she says that the aim of business is “to make our lives better”, but it doesn’t mean that one can’t achieve profit this way. Profit is an important part of business, but if in order to obtain it one has to go against the business first objective (make lives better), clearly something is wrong.
1)The BP oil spill was a disaster for the environment, for people’s health, for all the people involved in the golf and last but least for BP itself. As the oil spill commission said, there was not a culture of safety on that rig. I think BP acted so neglectfully cutting safety corners in order to save money and it caused another damage for shareholders.
2)I think that Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit. She thinks that both market and business cannot exist without law. when business is structured properly it can improve our lives. As she said shareholders possess most of the business world today and they encourage directors to try to get shares’ price up in a very short time. it’s important not just to focus on profit or shareholders but also to the other stakeholders. In my opinion, her thoughts look very closed to what we discussed at today’s class.
I firmly believe that the British Petroleum acted with gross negligence, as Margaret Blair said, in order to save money they put off the proper safety measures but it ended up in setting off one of the biggest offshore oil spill, I think, in history. Then the U.S. government decided that the energy company have had to pay billions of dollar for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster; this affected not only the company itself but also the entire stakeholders, even the environment and clearly the community. The accident that led to the loss of the Deepwater Horizon rig hit also the corporations that work in the tourism industry and in the fishing industry and the eco-system of the Gulf itself. I don’t think that Margaret Blair is against the logic of profit. In fact in the first part of the video she affirms that she adores business, she is deeply attached to it and she doesn’t believe that successful societies could exist without it. But according to Margaret Blair idea “business is about improving our lives” and it’s brilliant when it is structured properly.
My opinion about this video is that British Petroleum operated awfully. I think that economic entities like this one have a huge social responsibility. The disaster caused in 2010 by BP is not repairable; the worldwide ecosystem is damaged irreparably and it will remain so for a long time. Margaret Blair wants to make us understand that profits are very important, but the organization cannot put shareholders' interests ahead of those of the stakeholders. With the maximizations of the profits every business entity is going to fail. Margaret Blair obviously is not against the logic of profit, she is only saying that the primary interest of a business entity must be the satisfaction of stakeholders interest, only in this way will be set to continue to survive.
It is appalling that a company would not only put the eco system in danger but mainly its workers (who to me are the main factors of production in any organization) just to save on costs. I believe this incident should be studied worldwide under "The Risks of Shareholder Profit Maximization". BP failed as business entity in whole in its responsibilities, Economic, Legal and Ethical. You obviously cant be Philanthropic if your firm is in the red. Blair is not against profit but is worried about how companies are going about making it. Unethically. Of course she points out BP and how greed (for lack of a better word) drives firms to cut corners and try and make abnormal profits before the sun sets, in the process actually injuring if not completely diminishing shareholders' values. Not to mention loss of life and damage to the eco system and in turn hurting other and non related business across the area. I cosign her view that profit must be obtained in an ethical, social and environmental point of view which leans stakeholders side on the long term rather than the shareholders on the short term.
To be honest I am complitely agree with what Margaret Blair said, but the analysis should be more depth. Basically she made a critique on what the BP did to maximize profit without caring about its stakeholders, in order to save as much money as possible for the shareholders. She said that the BP to save around one million of dollar per day was cutting the safety corners in the platform; while doing that after the collapse they lost around one hundred billion of dollars. It is clear that the disaster did not damage the company on itself but also all the stakeholders envolved in the environment. Miss Blair started her speech saying "market and business can not exist without law" and following her words I will say that is part of responsibility of the law ensure that a huge oil platform, placed eighty kilometres away from the land, should operate first of all in safety to prevent such as disaster. The government should check constantly this activity and make often plans to prevent those consequences. The unethical thinking of GP in order to maximize profit for shareholders it is very far from the concept of long-term profit, that is based on sustainability for stakeholders and environment. The only thing that I really want to point out is the government behave that left GP, which was owning large oil platform in the sea, operate in safety by itself without control those environmental and commercial catastrophic consequences.
Margaret Blair is not absolutely against profit as she said at the beginning "she loves business" and therefore someone that loves business can not be against the logic of profit, she just realized how companies should operate to make a no-term sustainable profit.
1) I think that it is a difficult question at which answer...just because we are watching a video in which we can observe something which can be considered properly a disaster with hundred of thousand gallons of crude gushed out from the heart, damaging irreparably the eco-system of the Gulf of Mexico. In hindsight i can just say it is foolish thinking to save some money if the price to pay will be one of the greatest disaster of the last decades, but i think would have been interested listening the BP's managers to know what they thought and why they acted like that. I can understand that in an eclectic and hectic word as our own, where people don't like to wait long to see the outcome the managers have to deal with it and dealing with it soon or later there could be some imminent disaster. In my opinion the blame is not utterly to attribute to managers and directors but to that huge part of people that don't want to wait for the long term outcome but just for the short term. Watching the video i was impressed when Margaret Blair show us the survey in which 85% of CEO would rather to work for the short term instead of working for the long term. But i don't think 85% of CEOs are foolish or with scarce morality, i think probably a great part of the word is. How many time have we seen CEOs fired for poor results in the short term? CEOs have great responsibility but first of all they are men so they want job security. Likely in their mind they could think 'Do you want short term profits? ok, i'll give you'. I don't want justify anyone but i think if we want a better word safer and with more morality we have to change our way of thinking. 2) About Margaret Blair i think it is obvious she is not against the logic of profits. Probably she is against the logic of short term profit and the theory of shareholder profit maximization. She would like to see more morality in the business word because business is just a mean to improve our lives
I have to admit it, Margaret Blair's speech was so astonishing! Actually, I had never thought that such a disaster had caused so many costs for a firm, but I instantly realised the damage on the enviroment of the Gulf of Mexico. As the video shows, many species of fish died because of the great quantity of oil in the ocean, as a consequence also every economic activity around like tourism and fishing industries had a very net loss. So, I would stop this image of the situation as a warn for every economic entities which are created with the solely aim of making profit in short term. This image let us understand that, in order to maximize products, BP company chose to cut many expenses among stakeholders and so satisfy shareholders interest (shareholder theory). But in this way instead of having a net profit, there was an incredible loss for the shareholders themselves. So the BP disaster can be an example for us of a totally wrong business strategy that must be a lesson: do not make profit for a month, two weeks or tomorrow, but for months, five years, ten years.
I think Margaret Blair isn't against the logic of profit. On the contrary, as she said, she believes that business is the basis of the actual society, of course! But the difference is on HOW to produce. Obviously, she is against short term activity, she is also attached to enviromental issues. We can say that she is for sustainable value creation. But this is my opinion about her just listening to her brilliant speech.
1- I think that Margaret Blaire has focused the attention in a good question: what should be a good investiment? In fact we have seen that without safety there is not revenue, but just high probably of disasters. The BP case is the most important example of that: in order to maximaze the profit, the interpreneurs of gulf' petrolium cut the costs, creating a dunger situation that, literary, exploded. For save money, they caused a disaster for all the stakeholders, for the enviroment and for all the people of the gulf, but, expecially, for themselves: the shareholders lose more than a half of their money. You can say: how did they provide it? Actually, they didn't thought to cause such a disaster; but they did, and this is the greatest problem of the current idea of business: maximize profit, don't care about the rest. I think that this is not business.
For what concerned Margaret Blaire idea of business, I think that she is absolutely not against the log of profit: she is totally against the logic of bad and not ethic profit, but she belives on a good business based on ethic responsability, that colud make a safe and permanent-on-time profit. Nicola Iezza
I believe that the BP is definitely terrible project for the environment,also in my opinion blaire is not against the logic of profit,but against a bad logic of damaging and risky profit for the entire world
1. The BP case is a tragic example of a mistake due to shareholder value thinking. In fact the disaster was caused by the failure of the safety system, which was underestimated by the BP: the multinational company wanted to save money. Unfortunately we still suffer the consequences of this mistake. 2. In my opinion Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit, since she stated that she is not a communist. Later, in the video, she also criticizes the BP's logic of making/saving money: instead of doing that, they sacrificed billions of dollars.
1) This video shows clearly how the monotonist view can damage all the system of stakeholders and shareholders, too. British Petroleum company focused only on the shareholders' theory, the one formulated by Milton Friedman. According to that, the unique social responsibilities of the Azienda was the profit maximization, creating value for the owners. Putting attention to short- term future, they hurt all the organization: they subtracted money to the founds bound to the safety sector and they obtained as result one of the biggest environmental disaster of our times. In addition, they lost money, because of the loss of thousands gallons of petroleum and to the devaluation of their shares in the market. They harmed all their stakeholders' interest : the eleven employees that died in the accident, the people who live near the Gulf of Mexico, the people who live making business on the natural resources of that environment ( such as fishermen, for example), the people who are involved in the organization ( such as employees, managers, suppliers, the government, and the firm itself, too ) and especially the natural environment itself and all the flora and fauna that live in this eco-system.
2)I don't think so : at the beginning of the video Margaret Blair says directly thet she loves business, and especially that bussiness which is run out according to the laws and not only to the profit logic. This statement allows us to say that she isn't a communist and she believes in the sustainable value creation.
1) I truly remember this tragic event because it influenced directly my relatives and friends in the US, especially the ones living in Florida. 2) We have to be more specific in this sense: it depends on what we mean when we say “logic of profit”. If this consists only in the intent to perceive an income, without taking into account the wealth of the stakeholders, she is undoubtedly againts these ways of leading economy. On the other hand, she is obviously interested in maintaining an economic entity alive through the revenues generated as a result of the production process.
1) Everybody are able to increase output and maximize their own profit without regard to the rest of the world, destroying it, exausting its sources. Fortunately we are men with ethics and coscience that far from being spiritual is fundamentally social and economic, it's a matter of economics in the social system, any purely selfish action is likely to be short-lived. Unfortunately, in early capitalism it has developed the social custom of choosing the fastest way, but less far-sighted, for the maximization of profit, supported as we have learned by some important economic theories. This is the case of BP case. 2) Margaret Blair says she loves business which is run out according not ONLY to the profit logic, so she isn't against the profit logic, but she sees it as a condition of existance and developement of business and not as its objective.
1. As far as I am concerned, British Petroleum clearly made a serious mistake. It affects the environment dramatically, and reduces customers' trust for the company. In order to save 1 million dollars a day, BP have lost 100 billion dollars not respecting the safety rules in business. 2. I do not think Margaret Blair is against the logic of profit. She pointed out that the proper business perspective, and remind stakeholders about their actions. Profit is important but profit must be based on reasonable grounds, safe and accurate.
We would have the same positive opinions about the video took into consideration. It is very helpful, enlightening, astonishing, and so on. It clearly teaches us to be more responsible with our moves. It lets us realize how important to create a sustainable value is. It is very important to create value for each and every stakeholder (for all involved), quantitatively, and highly qualitatively. In BP case not all the stakeholders are taken into consideration. The objective was not, of course, for the well-being of the society which is very important. I believe that Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit as she said that business is deeply connected to the society, to our lives. Without the business economic activities would not exist, and without the profit economic activities would not survive and operate in order to satisfy human needs and wants.
1. My opinion this BP case is one real life business mistake that not only damaged environment and had catastrophic effects on the nature, but also cost the company millions of dollars. I have read many case studies and articles about businesses which make this major mistake: for the short-term benefits they don't take in consideration side effects and risks of certain things. On the example of BP we can say that its share holders refused to spend extra money for the security and ended up giving billions after the explosion, further more with bad reputation among the customers and killing some of the workers. In my opinion BP case should be example for other businesses who try to minimize the costs on behalf of the security. 2. I do not think that Margaret Blair is against topic of profit, she states that businesses should earn profit. However they should consider long term effects as well as short term.
I think that BP case is one of the examples which dramatically best fits our "azienda"'s consequences due to an unethical behaviour and an exclusive profit maximization's logic. The company, as the United States Government stated, cutted safety corners in order to save money and lead shares to a higher value. By the way, as we saw in our Fundamentals of Business's study, behaving in a non-sustainable way and following just a profit's logic causes many risks : after the BP disaster, 11 workers were killed and costs to remedy the tragedy became huge ( in order to save one million dollars a day, the company ended up sacrificing a hundred billion dollars in shareholders' wealth).
I don't think that Margaret Blair is against profit's logic because as she said at the beginning of her speech, she doesn't believe that successful society can't exist without a driving business sector. Nevertheless, I want to underline her purpose to show and demonstrate how business sector can be seriously damaged when it is not run in a sustainable way.
BP gambled and they lost. They wanted to safe 1 million a day by risking the health of their employees and the environment. Their only goal was to obtain the highest profit possible, but eventually it costed them over 100 billion Dollar and a bad reputation. Margaret Blair is not against profit, but she wants companies to obtain profit on a responsible manner.
Blair is not against profit and is not communist but she just is pro-safety conduct of doing business. The BP case has demonstrated that a company has to take care of the environment and more in general of all its stakeholders otherwise the damages could be very high and dangerous. The directors of the BP company were probably cruel people because they have destroyed part of the world value in order to save money but no money will repair the catastrophe that they have done.
Blair is not against profit but the BP case has demonstrated that a company has to take care of the environment and more in general of all its stakeholders otherwise the damages could be very high and dangerous.
There are many companies who prefer to take risks in order to obtain a higher profit. Often these companies are in economic crisis already, and they attempt to recover the stability assuming a higher risk. For instance, as the company airlines paying less for aircraft maintenance ... we can imagine how much higher is the risk for the customer.
Margaret Blair said that she loves business and that she's deeply attached to it and that the market and the business can not exist without the law. She doesn't believe society can exist without successful thriving business sector. She's concerned about business that must contribute to social welfare but instead many company do not care about it.
1)I am convinced that the best organization´s best strategy to operate is, like everything else in life, to consider the consequences of the actions and think in a long-term way.
ReplyDeleteI am a student and I wouldn’t be here if I was not interested in a long term “profit”. Like I did during the last years, there are places where I could get back to not bad paid job. Although, those jobs won't help me on a long term. I think this basic strategy has to be adopted on large scale by organizations in order to assure wealth to many of its stakeholders and to the organization itself. Bp has not been able to consider its own primary interest also by disregarding the sustainability of the value created. From my point of view, if you act irresponsible, sooner or later you´ll receive the bill to pay. Bp received a heavy one and with them all other organizations and individuals directly and indirectly related to its activities in the Golf of Mexico. The fact that 85% of the chiefs financial officers see that in a different way, worries me quite much.
2) I don´t think Margaret Blair is against profit. As she stated in the beginning, she is not a communist and there is no successful society without a business sector. It improves our lives and contributes to the society. What she also did say is that we need more laws in order to regulate in a more effective way those businesses (otherwise everything would be dictated by the strongest and biggest one) . As I understood it, she says that it is in all our interest (company itself included) to operate not in what she calls “shareholder value thinking”. I think she strongly believes in our definition of “azienda” and to in the conditions of survival and development of the organization.
In recent years , public opinion has embraced the concept that corporations have civic and social responsibilities . Corporations ignore these sentiments at some peril , as BP company did , putting their shareholders on 1st place, and causing like this a disaster . BP was accused of gross negligence and reckless indifference , and had to pay a good merited penalty .
ReplyDeleteI firmly believe that Margaret Blair, is not against profit, but she want remind to the organizations that these also have responsibilities.
The video is pretty clear: BP made a terrible mistake. Not only from an environmental point of view, which is the most important for sure, but also from a business point of view. In order to save 1 million dollars a day, they have lost 100 billion dollars (as she says at 2:59) not respecting the safety rules that would have saved, first of all the Mexican gulf, and then BP. So from this video and this experience it is possible to underline how important stakeholders are, and how taking into account their interests is fundamental not only for them, but for the company as well.
ReplyDeleteShe is not against profit, she is just showing how to make good profit, and how considering exclusively shareholders interests, can damage not only the environment ( in this case also others businesses and above all families), but even the organization itself. In fact, as she says, after this disaster BP firstly had to pay to solve the problems its negligence caused, secondly it had its share halved.
I believe that the British Petroleum case caused many problems to BP because the accident made the public opinion focus on the responsibility every multinational has towards the environment and towards safety in general. After the oil spill, obviously the company’s safety record has been questioned. I think that, not only the stakeholders suffered a huge economic loss, but also the accident had an effect on their customers' opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit. In fact, at the beginning she makes it clear that a successful society cannot exist without a business sector. She explains how wrong decisions made by the stakeholders can eventually hurt the shareholders, too. Furthermore, she says that those who follow strictly the monotonist view are exclusively interested in short-time profit, and sometimes they do not reflect on the consequences of their actions.
1) British Petroleum has not considered Ethics, long time consequences and the environment. These things caused a big problem to the BP at the first situation, so Stakeholders lost many shareholders because of this consequences. Also the shareholders has to be blamed because they helped the growth of a not ethic business.
ReplyDelete2) She considers that the profit is like a thing needed to survive so she considers the real value of the azienda. She considers also the real entity of a pure profit with ethics. So she really understand the real value of profit, the possibilty to offer a service in this case.
1)I found this video particularly enlightening, and I’ll explain why. Of course, I’ve always considered the BP case as a dreadful circumstance. It is absurd that a company can risk the life of its employees cutting on safety in order to save more money in the short term. Moreover, the environmental damage was unspeakable and it will affect the Gulf ecosystem maybe forever. Nevertheless, before watching this video, I never thought about the economical harm the BP submitted itself to. Its strategy for the profit's sake only, not only damaged secondary stakeholders (the environment, the social context), but also primary ones (shareholders) and the company itself, which had than to finance the cleaning of the area. Without mentioning the reputation damage.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the BP case is a pragmatic example of the risks of undertaking a short term profit strategy, especially in those areas of business where sustainability is in doubt.
2) I don’t think Magaret Blair is against the logic of profit, but against the logic of profit at any cost. At the beginning of her speech, she says that the aim of business is “to make our lives better”, but it doesn’t mean that one can’t achieve profit this way. Profit is an important part of business, but if in order to obtain it one has to go against the business first objective (make lives better), clearly something is wrong.
1)The BP oil spill was a disaster for the environment, for people’s health, for all the people involved in the golf and last but least for BP itself. As the oil spill commission said, there was not a culture of safety on that rig. I think BP acted so neglectfully cutting safety corners in order to save money and it caused another damage for shareholders.
ReplyDelete2)I think that Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit. She thinks that both market and business cannot exist without law.
when business is structured properly it can improve our lives. As she said shareholders possess most of the business world today and they encourage directors to try to get shares’ price up in a very short time.
it’s important not just to focus on profit or shareholders but also to the other stakeholders. In my opinion, her thoughts look very closed to what we discussed at today’s class.
I firmly believe that the British Petroleum acted with gross negligence, as Margaret Blair said, in order to save money they put off the proper safety measures but it ended up in setting off one of the biggest offshore oil spill, I think, in history. Then the U.S. government decided that the energy company have had to pay billions of dollar for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster; this affected not only the company itself but also the entire stakeholders, even the environment and clearly the community. The accident that led to the loss of the Deepwater Horizon rig hit also the corporations that work in the tourism industry and in the fishing industry and the eco-system of the Gulf itself.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that Margaret Blair is against the logic of profit. In fact in the first part of the video she affirms that she adores business, she is deeply attached to it and she doesn’t believe that successful societies could exist without it. But according to Margaret Blair idea “business is about improving our lives” and it’s brilliant when it is structured properly.
My opinion about this video is that British Petroleum operated awfully. I think that economic entities like this one have a huge social responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThe disaster caused in 2010 by BP is not repairable; the worldwide ecosystem is damaged irreparably and it will remain so for a long time.
Margaret Blair wants to make us understand that profits are very important, but the organization cannot put shareholders' interests ahead of those of the stakeholders. With the maximizations of the profits every business entity is going to fail. Margaret Blair obviously is not against the logic of profit, she is only saying that the primary interest of a business entity must be the satisfaction of stakeholders interest, only in this way will be set to continue to survive.
It is appalling that a company would not only put the eco system in danger but mainly its workers (who to me are the main factors of production in any organization) just to save on costs. I believe this incident should be studied worldwide under "The Risks of Shareholder Profit Maximization".
ReplyDeleteBP failed as business entity in whole in its responsibilities, Economic, Legal and Ethical. You obviously cant be Philanthropic if your firm is in the red.
Blair is not against profit but is worried about how companies are going about making it. Unethically. Of course she points out BP and how greed (for lack of a better word) drives firms to cut corners and try and make abnormal profits before the sun sets, in the process actually injuring if not completely diminishing shareholders' values. Not to mention loss of life and damage to the eco system and in turn hurting other and non related business across the area.
I cosign her view that profit must be obtained in an ethical, social and environmental point of view which leans stakeholders side on the long term rather than the shareholders on the short term.
To be honest I am complitely agree with what Margaret Blair said, but the analysis should be more depth.
ReplyDeleteBasically she made a critique on what the BP did to maximize profit without caring about its stakeholders, in order to save as much money as possible for the shareholders. She said that the BP to save around one million of dollar per day was cutting the safety corners in the platform; while doing that after the collapse they lost around one hundred billion of dollars. It is clear that the disaster did not damage the company on itself but also all the stakeholders envolved in the environment.
Miss Blair started her speech saying "market and business can not exist without law" and following her words I will say that is part of responsibility of the law ensure that a huge oil platform, placed eighty kilometres away from the land, should operate first of all in safety to prevent such as disaster. The government should check constantly this activity and make often plans to prevent those consequences. The unethical thinking of GP in order to maximize profit for shareholders it is very far from the concept of long-term profit, that is based on sustainability for stakeholders and environment. The only thing that I really want to point out is the government behave that left GP, which was owning large oil platform in the sea, operate in safety by itself without control those environmental and commercial catastrophic consequences.
Margaret Blair is not absolutely against profit as she said at the beginning "she loves business" and therefore someone that loves business can not be against the logic of profit, she just realized how companies should operate to make a no-term sustainable profit.
1) I think that it is a difficult question at which answer...just because we are watching a video in which we can observe something which can be considered properly a disaster with hundred of thousand gallons of crude gushed out from the heart, damaging irreparably the eco-system of the Gulf of Mexico. In hindsight i can just say it is foolish thinking to save some money if the price to pay will be one of the greatest disaster of the last decades, but i think would have been interested listening the BP's managers to know what they thought and why they acted like that. I can understand that in an eclectic and hectic word as our own, where people don't like to wait long to see the outcome the managers have to deal with it and dealing with it soon or later there could be some imminent disaster. In my opinion the blame is not utterly to attribute to managers and directors but to that huge part of people that don't want to wait for the long term outcome but just for the short term. Watching the video i was impressed when Margaret Blair show us the survey in which 85% of CEO would rather to work for the short term instead of working for the long term. But i don't think 85% of CEOs are foolish or with scarce morality, i think probably a great part of the word is. How many time have we seen CEOs fired for poor results in the short term? CEOs have great responsibility but first of all they are men so they want job security. Likely in their mind they could think 'Do you want short term profits? ok, i'll give you'. I don't want justify anyone but i think if we want a better word safer and with more morality we have to change our way of thinking.
ReplyDelete2) About Margaret Blair i think it is obvious she is not against the logic of profits. Probably she is against the logic of short term profit and the theory of shareholder profit maximization. She would like to see more morality in the business word because business is just a mean to improve our lives
I have to admit it, Margaret Blair's speech was so astonishing! Actually, I had never thought that such a disaster had caused so many costs for a firm, but I instantly realised the damage on the enviroment of the Gulf of Mexico. As the video shows, many species of fish died because of the great quantity of oil in the ocean, as a consequence also every economic activity around like tourism and fishing industries had a very net loss. So, I would stop this image of the situation as a warn for every economic entities which are created with the solely aim of making profit in short term. This image let us understand that, in order to maximize products, BP company chose to cut many expenses among stakeholders and so satisfy shareholders interest (shareholder theory). But in this way instead of having a net profit, there was an incredible loss for the shareholders themselves.
ReplyDeleteSo the BP disaster can be an example for us of a totally wrong business strategy that must be a lesson: do not make profit for a month, two weeks or tomorrow, but for months, five years, ten years.
I think Margaret Blair isn't against the logic of profit. On the contrary, as she said, she believes that business is the basis of the actual society, of course! But the difference is on HOW to produce. Obviously, she is against short term activity, she is also attached to enviromental issues. We can say that she is for sustainable value creation. But this is my opinion about her just listening to her brilliant speech.
1- I think that Margaret Blaire has focused the attention in a good question: what should be a good investiment? In fact we have seen that without safety there is not revenue, but just high probably of disasters. The BP case is the most important example of that: in order to maximaze the profit, the interpreneurs of gulf' petrolium cut the costs, creating a dunger situation that, literary, exploded. For save money, they caused a disaster for all the stakeholders, for the enviroment and for all the people of the gulf, but, expecially, for themselves: the shareholders lose more than a half of their money. You can say: how did they provide it? Actually, they didn't thought to cause such a disaster; but they did, and this is the greatest problem of the current idea of business: maximize profit, don't care about the rest. I think that this is not business.
ReplyDeleteFor what concerned Margaret Blaire idea of business, I think that she is absolutely not against the log of profit: she is totally against the logic of bad and not ethic profit, but she belives on a good business based on ethic responsability, that colud make a safe and permanent-on-time profit.
Nicola Iezza
I believe that the BP is definitely terrible project for the environment,also in my opinion blaire is not against the logic of profit,but against a bad logic of damaging and risky profit for the entire world
ReplyDelete1. The BP case is a tragic example of a mistake due to shareholder value thinking. In fact the disaster was caused by the failure of the safety system, which was underestimated by the BP: the multinational company wanted to save money.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we still suffer the consequences of this mistake.
2. In my opinion Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit, since she stated that she is not a communist. Later, in the video, she also criticizes the BP's logic of making/saving money: instead of doing that, they sacrificed billions of dollars.
1) This video shows clearly how the monotonist view can damage all the system of stakeholders and shareholders, too. British Petroleum company focused only on the shareholders' theory, the one formulated by Milton Friedman. According to that, the unique social responsibilities of the Azienda was the profit maximization, creating value for the owners. Putting attention to short- term future, they hurt all the organization: they subtracted money to the founds bound to the safety sector and they obtained as result one of the biggest environmental disaster of our times. In addition, they lost money, because of the loss of thousands gallons of petroleum and to the devaluation of their shares in the market. They harmed all their stakeholders' interest : the eleven employees that died in the accident, the people who live near the Gulf of Mexico, the people who live making business on the natural resources of that environment ( such as fishermen, for example), the people who are involved in the organization ( such as employees, managers, suppliers, the government, and the firm itself, too ) and especially the natural environment itself and all the flora and fauna that live in this eco-system.
ReplyDelete2)I don't think so : at the beginning of the video Margaret Blair says directly thet she loves business, and especially that bussiness which is run out according to the laws and not only to the profit logic. This statement allows us to say that she isn't a communist and she believes in the sustainable value creation.
1) I truly remember this tragic event because it influenced directly my relatives and friends in the US, especially the ones living in Florida.
ReplyDelete2) We have to be more specific in this sense: it depends on what we mean when we say “logic of profit”. If this consists only in the intent to perceive an income, without taking into account the wealth of the stakeholders, she is undoubtedly againts these ways of leading economy. On the other hand, she is obviously interested in maintaining an economic entity alive through the revenues generated as a result of the production process.
1) Everybody are able to increase output and maximize their own profit without regard to the rest of the world, destroying it, exausting its sources. Fortunately we are men with ethics and coscience that far from being spiritual is fundamentally social and economic, it's a matter of economics in the social system, any purely selfish action is likely to be short-lived. Unfortunately, in early capitalism it has developed the social custom of choosing the fastest way, but less far-sighted, for the maximization of profit, supported as we have learned by some important economic theories. This is the case of BP case.
ReplyDelete2) Margaret Blair says she loves business which is run out according not ONLY to the profit logic, so she isn't against the profit logic, but she sees it as a condition of existance and developement of business and not as its objective.
1. As far as I am concerned, British Petroleum clearly made a serious mistake. It affects the environment dramatically, and reduces customers' trust for the company. In order to save 1 million dollars a day, BP have lost 100 billion dollars not respecting the safety rules in business.
ReplyDelete2. I do not think Margaret Blair is against the logic of profit. She pointed out that the proper business perspective, and remind stakeholders about their actions. Profit is important but profit must be based on reasonable grounds, safe and accurate.
We would have the same positive opinions about the video took into consideration. It is very helpful, enlightening, astonishing, and so on. It clearly teaches us to be more responsible with our moves. It lets us realize how important to create a sustainable value is. It is very important to create value for each and every stakeholder (for all involved), quantitatively, and highly qualitatively. In BP case not all the stakeholders are taken into consideration. The objective was not, of course, for the well-being of the society which is very important.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Margaret Blair is not against the logic of profit as she said that business is deeply connected to the society, to our lives. Without the business economic activities would not exist, and without the profit economic activities would not survive and operate in order to satisfy human needs and wants.
1. My opinion this BP case is one real life business mistake that not only damaged environment and had catastrophic effects on the nature, but also cost the company millions of dollars. I have read many case studies and articles about businesses which make this major mistake: for the short-term benefits they don't take in consideration side effects and risks of certain things. On the example of BP we can say that its share holders refused to spend extra money for the security and ended up giving billions after the explosion, further more with bad reputation among the customers and killing some of the workers. In my opinion BP case should be example for other businesses who try to minimize the costs on behalf of the security.
ReplyDelete2. I do not think that Margaret Blair is against topic of profit, she states that businesses should earn profit. However they should consider long term effects as well as short term.
I think that BP case is one of the examples which dramatically best fits our "azienda"'s consequences due to an unethical behaviour and an exclusive profit maximization's logic. The company, as the United States Government stated, cutted safety corners in order to save money and lead shares to a higher value. By the way, as we saw in our Fundamentals of Business's study, behaving in a non-sustainable way and following just a profit's logic causes many risks : after the BP disaster, 11 workers were killed and costs to remedy the tragedy became huge ( in order to save one million dollars a day, the company ended up sacrificing a hundred billion dollars in shareholders' wealth).
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Margaret Blair is against profit's logic because as she said at the beginning of her speech, she doesn't believe that successful society can't exist without a driving business sector. Nevertheless, I want to underline her purpose to show and demonstrate how business sector can be seriously damaged when it is not run in a sustainable way.
BP gambled and they lost. They wanted to safe 1 million a day by risking the health of their employees and the environment. Their only goal was to obtain the highest profit possible, but eventually it costed them over 100 billion Dollar and a bad reputation.
ReplyDeleteMargaret Blair is not against profit, but she wants companies to obtain profit on a responsible manner.
Blair is not against profit and is not communist but she just is pro-safety conduct of doing business. The BP case has demonstrated that a company has to take care of the environment and more in general of all its stakeholders otherwise the damages could be very high and dangerous. The directors of the BP company were probably cruel people because they have destroyed part of the world value in order to save money but no money will repair the catastrophe that they have done.
ReplyDeleteBlair is not against profit but the BP case has demonstrated that a company has to take care of the environment and more in general of all its stakeholders otherwise the damages could be very high and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThere are many companies who prefer to take risks in order to obtain a higher profit. Often these companies are in economic crisis already, and they attempt to recover the stability assuming a higher risk. For instance, as the company airlines paying less for aircraft maintenance ... we can imagine how much higher is the risk for the customer.
ReplyDeleteMargaret Blair said that she loves business and that she's deeply attached to it and that the market and the business can not exist without the law. She doesn't believe society can exist without successful thriving business sector.
She's concerned about business that must contribute to social welfare but instead many company do not care about it.