Ethical consideration refers to the accumulation of beliefs and values that govern the question of what is right or wrong behavior regarding human interaction when reaching a decision to act upon or refrain from acting upon certain issues and incidents.
Whilst conducting a business, the core objectives according to best practice, that a business must adhere to are, survival; the urge and tendency to prolong the longevity within the market to gain both monetary and non-monetary rewards, growth; which is the need to expand and diversify into new endeavourers as a result of saturated markets or organic Roth, increased market-share; which is a knock-on-affect of satisfying the first two objectives, once a company has managed to overcome their competitors and external factors to survive and grow, it can work on gaining more and more customers, in turn becoming a dominant market figure through quality control and environmental targets to generate a social persona, which, when all completed leads to bigger and better profits for the company, whether that be financial or non-financial.
For example, Primary outsourced the manufacturing of some of their products abroad to Bangladesh; however, their subcontractors employed children and less fortunate people and worked them to the bone in very poor working condition with no job security. On one hand you could say they were providing many jobs, equally, it COUld be stated that, to cut costs they exploited a third-world country. Depending upon the perspective used to view this situation opinions can change. Based on perception, Primary’s objective to increase their market share could be affected negatively, as people may view it as contributing to child labor; which is unethical.
Another example of ethics in the workplace can be observed through the many supermarket stores round the world such as, Tests, Sad, Morrison, M, Sunburst’s etc and their environmental stance on reducing pollutants. The introduction of “bags for life” and their bio-degradable carry bags express their environmental corporate social responsibilities towards their stakeholders. This would benefit their sales and capacity to grow as a business because their corporate image is positively reinforced through their corporate social responsibilities. The above, convey two situations on opposite ends regarding ethics and their impact and influence upon business objectives. Although there is costs involve with operating ethically, there are also costs involve with not; it depends on what a business regards as a worthwhile cost to incur in the long run. AS] Acting in an ethical manner for a business and their stakeholders has a number of implications. These implications can either be positive or negative. To illustrate my point thoroughly, imagine two companies i. E. “A” and “B”, both manufacturing the same product. Company “A” follows a strict and ethical managerial ethos, whereas, company B is not that ethical and is only concerned with making profit. Company “A” set-up a factory in England and employed 100 staff, providing quality working conditions and have ordered quality machines as well as providing workers with health insurance. The company also pioneers in various charity and humanitarian missions and environmental conservation schemes. They also use recycled materials.
The positive implications that this company experiences are that it has a strong social image and loyal customers. Another positive implication is that it attracts better recruits as well as avoiding any embarrassing PR disasters. The company also has highly motivated and proud employees. Lastly, the company will have a better relationship with suppliers, customers and stakeholders. The negative aspects that impacts this company is that it will incur high running costs due to the quality and legal adherence followed by this company as well as the costs of executing their corporate social responsibilities. There will be conflicts between stakeholders regarding returns and narrow margins.
Now, company “B” decided to open their factory in the Philippines, employing 400 employees aged anywhere between 8 to 80, providing no job security and poor working conditions, all entered round manual labor and inefficient machines. The positive effect of this is that their products are sold at a lower price, giving them a competitive edge as well as huge cuts in running costs and wages due to exchange rates and excess supply of labor. Finally, they can have large margins between production costs and prices to maximize profits. The negative implications are that they may not be following fair trade guidelines as well as regular stakeholder conflicts. Another implication would be the unethical public image resulting from their contribution to child labor.
This company will be prone to PR disasters and regular accusations about how the business is ran and embarrassed staff. Outcome 3 – understanding ethics in the workplace relationship [UP] In the following I would like to assess the role of Carapace Warehouse acting as a moral agent. The phrase “moral agent” refers to a company’s efforts of fulfilling certain responsibilities to their stakeholders. These responsibilities/issues undertaken by a company, presents the ethical culture nurtured within the organizations and their stance on protecting the environment and other issues such as hearty, poverty, fair trade etc which are diversified through their corporate social responsibilities (CARS).
The roles Carapace warehouse segments into whilst fulfilling their CARS are a protector for the (1) environment, a company that gives to (2) charity, as well as a company that takes care of both (3) the community and (4) their employees. (Carapace warehouse, 2013) This company has specified within their CARS that these 4 areas will be tackled the best they can and their contributions towards theses areas do speak for themselves. For the environment, the company has reduced their carbon footprint throughout their tortes and factories as well as provided a safe and environmentally friendly way to dispose for phones and batteries to ensure the environment does not pay for it.
The company has set-up their own foundation as well as following certain schemes to donate vast sums to charity and natural and global disasters that occur. This stance depicts an ethical sternness and care for not only customers but the rest of the world too. For the community, the company has undertaking a governmental backed scheme called ‘tablets for schools” to generate a strong bond between them and the community by increasing the resources ND accessibility to education to a number of students. (Carapace warehouse, 2007-13) For the people i. E. Their employees, Carapace warehouse has a number of training and development programmer for staff to progress their career as well as the level of experience.
This company has become the UK largest phone shop in a short span and has done so by following their principles and ethical stance, although their ethical approach has had some effect on their finances in the sense of donation, energy saving equipment, offering technology at subsidized rates etc, the company in the long run has benefited. This company is living proof that acting ethically is realistic and although they set aside some of their profits for humanitarian purposes, the remaining amount is still more than enough to meet their organizational needs. [P 7] The development of mechanisms to involve and empower employees has been a long and bumpy ride throughout time. During the instigation of companies and factors during the past, when labor was cheap and in abundances, recent concepts such as minimum wage, equal opportunities etc were unheard of.
In recent times, companies have become aware of the need to get the best staff and retain hem for the interests of the company as a whole, therefore companies have availed and developed different management structures from the autocratic management style from the early years to a democratic style and furthermore to a Laissez-fairer approach, which is most popular during recent years to make employees feel more comfortable and welcomed. The transformation of the management styles used depicts the journey and growing value of staff, because happy staffs have been proven to increase their game and work better than unhappy staff, which enables staff to have a two-way communication with upper management. The increase in empowerment of the staff can be best expressed through the development of unions. Staff unions have been development to ensure equal treatment of employees so that they are well involved and informed about changes and issues.
Unions act as a bridge between staff and higher management, the power for example can be observed in the “Transport for London”, employee strikes, when they are unhappy. Other mechanisms that have development are employment tribunal, these governing bodies act as independent agents to judge employees/employers when incidents occur guarding unfair dismissal, discrimination etc which can be approached by either the employer or employee regarding issues. These developments have been guidelines to involve staff more frequently within the organization and ensure a clear line of communication is maintained within organization. To involve staff within the organization techniques that have been developed to achieve this is through regular meetings, circulars, feedback sessions and surveys.
