Contemporary Management

Contemporary Management

Cork Case Study



Module Name: Contemporary Management
Module Code: BLB10042-3
Module Leader: P. Masters/D. Garcia
University: ESERP Business School Barcelona
Student Number: B12/11-12
Date: 16. May 2012
Word count: 2400 words















Table of Content


1) Key Words

2) Introduction

3) Questions

Consider
ReflectUpon

4) Conclusion

5) Bibliography

6) Appendixes



1) Key Words

Cork; sustainable development; cork cultivation; cork industry Portugal; metal screw tops; consequentialism; ethics of virtue


2) Introduction

The website www.portugaltravelguide.org (2008) states in their online article, that Portugal is one of the world’s major cork growers; as much as one third of the totalcork oak area is situated in Portugal, which accounts for about half of the cork harvested annually in the world.

Furthermore they argue that the cork oak fits perfect to the western mediterranean climate, which means the Algarve is the region where the best quality cork is obtained. […] Cork is a light, flexible, elastic material, impervious to moisture, to liquid and gaseous substances. Itsqualities led to the industrial utilization of the material. With the invention of glass bottles, cork became important for the stopper industry.
Further information is provided by the website www.uwec.edu (2009), they state that nearly one-third of the total cork oak area, estimated at 2,150,000 hectares (5.3 million acres) is in Portugal, which produces approximately half the cork harvestedannually in the world (about 310,000 tons).


1 Cork is the most important of Portuguese exports and alone represents about 16 percent of the total foreign income derived from trade. Portuguese cork exports are directed to three main consumer markets - the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Germany, which absorb approximately 70 percent of the total. (see appendix 1 to obtain moreinformation).


Cork is a sustainable resource which can be used for bottles as well as for floor tiles and another positive factor is that it´s easy to recycle. But there are also negative factors which should be taken into consideration. First it is more expensive than plastic or metal screw tops and second, natural cork has the habit that after a long time the wine begins to taste a bit likethe cork, as some wine experts argue. But the following sections will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of cork and metal tops more accurate and detailed.

This facts which are given above lead to the ethical discussion if the cork industry has a future or if the cheaper metal screw top bottles will slowly displace the cork cultivation. Portugal with its weak economy strongly dependson this business area and the on the exports of cork to other international markets. But how to solve this ethical dilemma? This leads to the next part of this case study, the sight from a consequentialistic point of view.


3) Questions

3.1 Consider

A) How the consequentialist ethic may be used by wine producers in their support of the use of metal screw tops instead of the traditionalcork.

Consequentialism

Sinnott-Armstrong (2003) argues that consequentialism, as its name suggests, is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds thatwhether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same kind.

Another definition is provided by the website www.academic.csuohio.edu (2008) they are suggesting that the consequentialists claim that the moral rightness of an action is determined by its...