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to mitigate the environmental impact of its operations, improve community health, or enhance the lives of factory workers making the companies' products.
Depending on the industrial sector and corporation, industrial hygienists have become part of CSR or sustainability departments with the responsibility of ensuring compliance with their employer's CSR program. Academic researchers estimate that as much as $8 billion a year is spent worldwide on CSR programs designed to improve working conditions and respect workers' legal rights (8).
Despite this CSR spending, working conditions and respect for workers' rights in global supply chains have not significantly improved over the last 25 years (9). Documentation of ongoing unsafe and illegal conditions in global supply chains is generated every week by multiple sources3:
News media reporting, both print and electronic;
Reports from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with environmental degradation, labor issues, and women's and human rights;
Reports from “multi‐stakeholder” organizations involving corporations, government agencies, and NGOs;
Reports from corporate CSR or sustainability departments on their own company's operations; and
Analysis from academic researchers, including from business school faculty.
The reason for the lack of progress is that the underlying causes of unsafe and illegal working conditions have not been addressed by CSR programs. These causes include sourcing practices and a business model that prioritizes the lowest possible cost, fastest delivery time, and highest possible quality; ineffective and corrupted audits or monitoring of supply chain factories; and the lack of any meaningful participation by workers in the CSR programs; and a dearth of trained health and safety personnel available to be employed by supply chain manufacturers. A recent study of a 10 000‐worker garment factory complex in Vietnam which had been audited 26 times by CSR monitors in 2015, and yet was found to have substantial violations of labor law and serious health and safety hazards in 2016, is a prime example of the inability of CSR programs to improve supply chain conditions (10).
2.1 Worker‐Driven Social Responsibility
The failure of CSR programs to impact supply chain working conditions in a meaningful and sustained fashion has led to the development of an alternative approach, called “Worker‐Driven Social Responsibility” or WSR.4 Proponents of WSR point to three ongoing enterprises as evidence that this approach results in significantly improved workplace health and safety and respect for workers' legal rights: The Fair Food Program for migrant tomato harvesters in Florida5; the Alta Gracia brand garment factory in the Dominican Republic (11); and the Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety.6
The ethical challenge for industrial hygienists working in companies with global supply chains is what to do when conditions on the factory floor of their employer's supply chain remain unchanged or register progress in some areas but with continuing substantial violations of corporate codes, and national and international laws and standards overall.
3 FACTORS INFLUENCING ETHICAL MISCONDUCT
General business ethical misconduct can take many forms including lying, falsification of records, alcohol and drug abuse, conflict of interest, stealing, abusive behavior (including sexual harassment and bullying), and violating a company's policy regarding receipt of gifts or entertainment.7 A 2002 study in Great Britain of occupational hygienists observed the following common forms of ethical misconduct: plagiarism, failure to protect confidential data, failure to share credit on a report, fabrication of data, criticizing the ability or integrity of another professional for own gain, withholding or disguising data, using a survey design to favor a specific outcome, destruction of data contradicting a desired outcome, and deliberately not reporting an incident (12).
Factors influencing ethical behavior include personal values, supervisor influences, senior management influences, internal drive to succeed, performance pressures, lack of punishment and pressure from friends and coworkers (12). Knowledge of ethics (awareness) coupled with the motivation to do the right thing (desire to act ethically) can be predictive of good ethically behavior.
The factors influencing ethical behavior can be expressed using the following equation:
Ethical Issue Intensity + Individual Factors + Corporate Culture (including significant others and opportunity) = Ethical or Unethical Behavior (13).
Ethical issue intensity is your perception of the relevance or importance of an ethical issue reflecting individual and work group sensitivity. This is influenced by organizational use of rewards and punishment, codes, and values of corporate culture. Individual factors include personal values of right and wrong, ego strength (convictions), and perceived degree of control over one's life. Corporate culture includes a set of values, beliefs, goals, norms, and ways to solve problems that an organization's members share. Significant others are those individuals who have influence in a work group including peers, managers, coworkers, and subordinates. Opportunity refers to conditions limiting or permitting ethical or unethical behavior. Opportunity to engage in unethical behavior can be limited through formal codes of ethics, policies, and rules that are adequately enforced.
The quality of ethical decision making is influenced by (i) competence in identifying issues and evaluating consequences; (ii) self‐confidence in seeking different opinions and deciding what is right; and (iii) willingness to make decisions when issues have no clear solution. Environmental health and safety professionals with (i) a strong set of professional knowledge and skills; (ii) an acute sense of personal security; and (iii) professional pride and respect for social responsibility entrusted in them by their profession are likely willing to stand up against ethical or legal challenges.
4 APPROACHES TO ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
According to Wachter, in his book Ethics for the Health and Safety Professional: Approaches and Case Studies, ethical decision‐making can be grouped into reason‐based and intuition‐based approaches. While they are not mutually exclusive (intuitive responses to an ethical or moral dilemma may be based on internalized ethical frameworks), they are helpful groupings for discussion (14).
4.1 Reason‐Based Approach
There are three primary reason‐based approaches, according to Jan Wachter: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.
Consequentialism, as the name indicates, focuses on the ethics or morality of the consequence of the decision. Utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number of people) is an example of this approach. The obvious criticism of consequentialism is that the ends do not always justify the means.
A deontological perspective emphasizes how the decision or action fits a set of principles or rules – doing ones duty regardless of the consequences. An example might include making a complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or other enforcement agency against a non‐conforming company, despite a concern that the company might close or lay off employees in dire need of the paycheck. In this instance, the deontological perspective might argue that the employees are owed a safer workplace and if action is not taken against this company, perhaps it would not be taken against any. Wachter points out that the challenge with a deontological approach is that it may leave the health and safety professional to choose between two evils.
Virtue ethics determines the appropriateness of a decision based on the character traits that it demonstrates. The example traits that Wachter provides include “practical wisdom, benevolence, justice, loyalty, truthfulness, generosity, friendliness, courage, kindness, integrity, and respect.” While, likely all, or at least most strive for these characteristics, this approach to ethical decision‐making may not be as helpful as the other reasoned approaches, and, in reality, one can imagine that the aforementioned traits may conflict in a given situation. As Wachter points out,