The Ethical Dilemma in Virgin Group - Case Study Example

? Ethical Dilemma in Business This paper will focus on ethical dilemma in today’s business world. It will focus more on ethical dilemmas experienced in virgin group, which is an airline company. It will point out what causes these dilemmas, how the stakeholders react, and the effects. The paper will seek to find out the best way for the group and its management to solve the dilemma issues, and plan for future occurrence. This paper will also analyze specific dilemmas in virgin group, the forces behind the dilemma and the group code of conduct. It will further establish the relationship between company ethics and ethical dilemma. The paper concludes that, though the company has its business strategy and goals, it is faced with ethical challenges within the stakeholders and shareholders. Therefore, the group should not only focus on growth, but also put into consideration the ethical impact of its operations on employees, the government, customers, suppliers, and the community. Ethical dilemma Business ethic is vital for any business entity to gain a competitive edge and attain its goals. Ethics ensure observation of morals and code of conduct within an organization as well as its operation with its stakeholders. Business ethics disciplines employees and other stakeholders as it defines what is wrong and what is right. At times, organizations experience conflict of interests with its employees, society, the business environment as well as the government policies. When such differences arise, the management decision-making organ has to decide, harmonize, and reconcile the conflicting interests. For an organization to avoid and solve ethical dilemmas, it should be able to have a sound decision-making body. The body should be able to collect as many information and material facts as the situation permits. It should then identify the relevant and key ethical issue and consider alternative viewpoints. When dealing with ethical issues, it is crucial to identify, measure, and prioritize the effects on different stakeholders. This is because the effect may vary from one stakeholder to another due to their diverse interests and concerns. The decision makers should then consider what effort it has put towards the issue and how committed it is to solve the issue. This will enable the management to understand its failure and evaluate its commitment to the organization. In order to establish a well serving solution to the issue, the management should identify the available options for the issue. A variety of course of action will allow it choose the best action since they will be able in a position to analyze the consequences attached to each option. These consequences may be either long term or short term to the business. Positive results will be of much importance and the option with such results should be emulated while negative results will harm the business therefore, should be avoided. The practicality of benefitting options should be identified and the impacts upon ones character and integrity. The management should then pick most beneficial and practical course of action as it fits the situation better. Causes of ethical dilemma In a perfect business environment, employees and employers would always do the right and perfect thing while conducting business. However, ethical dilemmas are present in every workplace, as people have to make a very difficult choice between moral and immoral (Touchstone, 2008). Employees should handle work related pressure to perform well and facilitate company goals and objectives achievement. At times, employees experience temptations to apply the shortest route possible; to achieve targets or even handle the pressure. The shortcuts may be immoral or against the company policies. Therefore, pressure from management regarding profits and results can push employees to act immoral and witnesses not whistle blow for fear of victimization. Ambitions and discrimination also causes ethical dilemma especially when some employees are under hunger for recognition and financial pressure. When such employees are not able to fulfill their desires and pressure through acceptable means, they choose to do something unethical due to frustration and desperation. For example, a sales person falsifies sales figure to earn promotion or extra commissions. Though diversity is encouraged in business the world, some employees do not regard all people the same especially if they associate a certain community or ethnic group with bad practices. They end up discriminating such people, which is not ethical and legal. When employees face an opportunity to negotiate, they present unreasonable and untrue data to earn the best deals. The business also faces such challenges when dealing with its stakeholders as ethics can put one in a difficult situation. Ethical dilemma in Virgin group Most employees in virgin group spend most of their time in a workplace; they come along challenge of conducting their personal business at work. This practice varies from using employers’ assets to benefit self to avoiding work (Touchstone, 2008). This includes using company internet connection to search another job, use of employers’ telephone line to contact friends or other personal links. Employees face the temptation of faking sickness to attend personal issues like interviews or ceremonies. At a glance, one sees the clarity on the ethical dilemma. What if an employee receives a brief call that the spouse has been involved in an accident? Is it wrong if one uses the employers’ telephone line to get more details about the incident? The best option would be to ask for permission from the supervisor or manager but a few will consider such an action. Virgin group emphasizes on teamwork among workers. More often than not, some team members take credit and advantage for others work (Agnihotri, et al., 2012). This is because team members do not contribute equally from the initial stage to the last stage. Even when some members do not participate as required, the task may be of quality. For example, when the group has five members, three members are active with the task, should the other two be recognizes when rewarding the group? Should the three members point out the uncooperative members during the recognition? When the three members single out that the other two did not participate as required, it results to conflict and resentment. When the three keep silent about the two, same thing would happen. Therefore, the best thing is to make sure that every employee does the required task to complete the project. These employees face a dilemma when they find an employee or a management member harassing another either physically or mentally. Mostly, these employees fear for the job security and personal welfare and choose not to report the issue to the authorities. They also fear to be referred as troublemakers or traitors by their fellow employees if they report any kind of misconduct. Therefore, it is upon the policy makers to establish a secrecy code when reporting unethical and inappropriate behaviors among co-workers (Touchstone, 2008). This will guarantee the workers job security and assure that no victimization can arise from reporting unwanted and unethical practices. More so, the secrecy involved in the reporting will ensure teamwork since the employee will remain anonymous to the others hence no discrimination or punishment. When the group is choosing suppliers, it encounters challenges on how to deal with different supplier since each has a different price and they are all willing to close the deal. This means that some lower their prices and even offer after sale service to cut the competition. To ensure fairness and uphold company ethics, the company should design supplier selection process that will ensure that they all have an equal opportunity. This will make sure that a suppler will not be recruited simply because offers the lowest price. The group faces ethical dilemmas when serving customers. This likely happens when the company is a monopoly in one region since it has the opportunity to fix high prices, offer substandard service, and products. This is because the customer does not have an option to purchase. Customers also expose the company to an ethical dilemma at high demand season and bookings are hard to get, customers ask for a favor from an employee in return for money. The employee may be in need of money but confused whether to take it or not. Government is part of business stakeholders and stipulates rules that the company should observe when conducting its operations. At times, the policies are at conflict with the company goals and interests. For example, the government controls the number of flights it can handle per day to control movement and in the opposite; a many passengers come for bookings (Leila, 2011). Although the company objective is to increase sales, it is under dilemma whether to offer the bookings or to obey the stipulated policies. If the company obeys the rules, it may not achieve its target and if it delivers the sale, it will be acting against the government rules. The company has a position to take in the society through its participation in social responsibility. While choosing what to involve itself in and for how long, it faces challenges from the community demands. For example, the community sets standards that are taxing the company finances. At times, the community says that for it to associate with the services of the group, the group must establish expensive social facilities like schools or hospitals. This condition places the company on a fix whether to conform and acquire that market or ignore and lose it. During business operations, the business code is likely not to anticipate all possible ethical dilemmas as situations happen whereby it is hard to identify clear guidance on how to respond and behave during those particular moments. Even though the set code of conduct within an organization provides a framework on the right thing to do, sometimes employees and even the management faces tricky moral choice. Therefore, it is wise to encourage all staff to share with their managers or coworkers about the matter before they take action. The company management should understand and accept that ethical dilemmas will happen in the course of business and they therefore have to plan on how to handle such difficult situations. It is of high concern that the management responsible for implementation of ethical standards within a company organizes frequent debates and platforms where employees can air views and feedback on the code of conduct (Leila, 2011). Trainings and Staff meetings are essential to enhance and identify issues regarding ethics within the company. If the company lacks frequent conversation with the employees, disagreements are likely to occur emerging from ethical issues. In conclusion, evident in the paper, companies should establish a standard way of selecting suppliers and come up with fixed price strategy while picking its suppliers. This will make sure that the company picks the right supplier and not necessarily the supplier with the minimum price. Conducting meetings with its suppliers will make sure that they also conform to the standards. The company should make sure that it does not exploit customers hen setting prices or with advertisements. The company should not charge high prices and not overpromise when carrying out advertisements and promotional events. The company should not expose its competitors to unfair competition. This will make sure that every company operates ethically and does not subject the other participants to harsh competition practices that may end up facing them out of the market. Therefore, the company should not interfere with other entities operations. Finally, the company should adhere to government policies ethically. It should operate under the stipulated laws and pay taxes as required. Reference Agnihotri, R., Rapp, A., Kothandaraman, P., & Singh, R. (2012). An Emotion-Based Model of Salesperson Ethical Behaviors. Journal Of Business Ethics, 109(2), pp. 243-257. Leila, N. N. (2011). 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