Unethical practices by organizations are frequently increasing as the pressure to compete and succeed compels them to ignore the ethical and moral aspects of their practices and decision-making. In order to maximize value for its shareholders and gain profitability, Shell ended up bribing the Nigerian officials to make it easier to import their goods and equipment, in order to avoid customs duties, extend contracts and lower tax etc. Therefore this report investigates and scrutinizes Shell’s unethical practices in context to it’s the moral code of ethics and recommends Shell to be more ethical in their practice.

Introduction

As globalization increases many organizations indulge in unethical practices to achieve growth and profit maximization. Consequently, the examples of such companies include L’Oreal, Nike, Wal-Mart, Shell etc. Shell, is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. They have their headquarters situated in Hague, the Netherlands. The parent company of the Shell group is Royal Dutch Shell plc, which is incorporated in England and Wales. Shell’s operated in more than 90 countries and has an approximate of 93000 employees. Their production mainly consists of forty eight percent of natural gas and around 3.3million barrels of gas and oil is produced per day. Shell has established forty three service stations worldwide. According to a survey conducted in 2010, they’ve sold an estimated 145 billion litres of fuel. The Company has two main streams, upstream – which explores for and extracts crude oil and natural gas and Downstream – which refines supplies, trades and ships crude worldwide, manufactures and markets a range of products, and produces petrochemicals for industrial customers. According to their financial report of 2010, with the capital invested of $30.6 billion and $1 billion in Investment in research and development, they had an income of $20.5billion with revenue of $368.1 billion (Shell, 2010).

Historical Background

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