Management of Massey Energy Company - Case Study Example

 Massey Energy Company is located in West Virginia. On April 4, about 29 miners in the company died while working underground. Many miners were also injured during the blast. The company is responsible for the deaths of its workers because it adheres to low ethical standards. The company’s management team deserves to be penalized for their selfish acts. According to the case, the management team only makes small safety changes in order to prevent the company from being closed instead of focusing on the safety of workers.

Prior to the incident in the company, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) claimed that the company had violated safety standards more than 50 times (Case 2). This proves that the 29 workers died because of poor safety standards in the mine. Instead of improving the quality of the mine’s safety, the company was always challenging the accusations of the safety agency. Another factor that proves the company should be held responsible is the unethical acts of Don Blankenship.

After receiving complaints about the safety conditions in the company, the CEO ignored the complaints and instead sent a memo to the management team, asking them to focus on the firm’s production rather than improving the safety standards (2). It was a moral responsibility for Don to instruct the management team to shift their focus from the profitability of the company to safety. Such move would have prevented the accident from occurring. Conclusively, the mining firm is morally responsible for the deaths of its employees.

If the company had implemented safety measures as required by MSHA, the accident would not have taken place (Maher 1). The disaster occurred because of the selfish management team that only focused on increasing the output instead of the wellbeing of workers.Works CitedCase. Massey Energy company. N.d. Print. Maher, Kris. “Massey Weighs in on Blast.” The Wall Street Journal 2011. Web. 31 October 2014.