Critically Analysis Apple Company - Case Study Example

Critically Analysis Apple Company Contents Introduction 2 Background 3 Defying Economic Principles 4 App Store & Drastic Price Reductions 5 Media Practices 6 Labor Practices 7 Customer Service Issues 8 Environmental Concerns 8 Kantian Ethical Concerns & Suggestions for Improvement 9 Bibliography 11 Introduction Corporate Social Responsibility incorporates various self-regulation mechanisms into the company`s business model to attain certain objectives (to satisfy the stakeholders). In other words, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a policy mechanism whereby a business model regulates its activities and its execution mechanisms ensuring that compliance to law, ethics and norms is affectively incorporated into all policies of the company. This implies, in pragmatic terms that not only a company must comply by international and national legal codes but also ensure that the company is not infiltrating any ill-effects in terms of social, cultural, economic, environmental, political or even ethical pretexts (Ferrel & Friedrich 2015: 11). This is especially true if the company holds a significant position on the market, since other companies and individuals will follow the precedent set by these big corporations that others look up to. To prove the point, a case study may be taken to see how these corporations tend to take up the corporate social responsibility and whether or not they show seriousness in their commitment to ethical principles. Since Apple Inc is one of such brands/companies which has a huge presence all over the globe, to such an extent that loyal customers are direly obsessed with the brand and refuse to replace the brand at any cost. Therefore, on principle, such a company must comply by most if not all ethical principles. Therefore, the paper will aim at exploring how Apple Inc tend to fulfill its ethical commitment to causes like society, culture, economy, environment, workplace ethics, intellectual morality and other similar causes. Thus, all such policies would be discussed one by one to draw a uniform pattern to make a conclusion. Background Prior to making any conclusions, it is imperative to look into the background of the company and analyze the significance and scope of its products and services. Apple Inc is a huge multinational corporation which conceives and sells various electronics, computer devices, mobile phone and also other offers various online services. The company owns more than 363 stores worldwide and its global sales surpass the value of $16 billion USD (Kane 2014: 13). The competitive edge of the company lies in its products like Macintosh line of laptops, iPhone, iPad and other similar products which have an exceptionally high brand awareness level. Furthermore, Apple also deals in other products branded as Mac Os X, Aperture, Safari, Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio and most importantly the iTunes; most of which are compatible with the other iPod products which only support Apple built-in products and reject software conceived by other companies and brands (O`Grady 2009: 31). In context to strategic marketing and brand awareness, the company doesn’t lag behind anywhere since the selling rate and returns of investments are high enough to include the company in the top brands globally. However, while analyzing the production methods and the supply line, the company has often been critiques for unethical and highly unjust practices which may also come under the umbrella of labor exploitation. Therefore, the sweatshop labor controversy has often been inflated to highlight the issue. However, the ethical concerns doesn’t just end here, and other issues like environmental degradation alongside other unethical practices attached with production and selling of products have also been immense. Not only this, Apple has also often upset its customers by setting up marketing strategies in such a way that the customers end up standing in long queues to purchase the product, which the company then uses as a marketing stunt to market the obsession of customers with their products. These practices are a direct violation of the stakeholder`s right to sustain and be safe from any corrupt practices of the corporations, an aspect which would be studies in detail in the paper. Defying Economic Principles Apple has often been reported to incorporate economic behavior which is anti-competitive in nature, an aspect which defies the right to competitive behavior of other firms. For instance, the critique over the portable devices being sold by Apple is far-fetched. The iOS supported devices i.e. the iPod Touch, iPad and even the iPhone along with those devices which are non-iOS (iPod Nano or Shuffle) can only be accessed via iTunes and not otherwise (Linzmayer 1999:19). This directly implies that Apple is thereby creating a monopoly for the iTunes Store. Due to this controversy, Steve Jobs also had to go through court hearings on charges for antitrust violations. In addition, it is also a known fact how Apple doesn’t license DRM or any other codec formats thereby preventing the iTunes from being accessed via other software or devices. Since April 2009, the entire content on Itunes Store is free of DRM which implies how Apple defies fair economic practices. Also, another similar issue was identified where the sale of online music in Europe were distorted by Apple and iTunes Stores had restricted the music buyers to purchase content off the iTunes sites to the country from where the payments details were tracked to. Therefore, music buyers in a few states ended up paying a higher price due to which iTunes store was accused of violating EU free trade mechanism. Therefore, considering these cases, which are only a few ones out of many other similar ones, it can assessed how Apple is defying the ethical code of conduct of business and exploiting the users by virtue of their elated brand image (Yofie 2012: 41). Since Apple is functional in a larger economic system, the responsibility lies on the company to ensure that the competitive market isn`t being distorted. Instead Apple is itself indulged in corrupt a practice which is unacceptable for a brand of its stature. App Store & Drastic Price Reductions Though Apple Inc claims to be the proponent of legal and ethical concerns where only Apple verified software may be used to prevent Malware and property theft, it doesn’t itself practice the principle quite well. One would expect App store to be highly professional in its conduct and therefore, the content sold on the store must also be hold legal value. However, that is not always the case. Research indicates that back in March 2012, App Store was sued by a few Chinese writers since their books were being sold on App Store illegally. App store had already sold around 95 copied of these unlicensed books and therefore, the writers sought a hefty compensation from Apple. However, Steve Jobs himself banned the copies published by Wiley and Sons from App Stores in response to how they had published an unauthorized biography of him which then received immense critique from the masses. Therefore, Apple seems to lie in some kind of an ethical conundrum where little of what it does makes sense to someone who`d be a proponent of the concept of corporate social responsibility. (Vogelstein 2013: 19-21) However, the story doesn’t end here and Apple further goes ahead to exploit the market and the power of its brand by drastically reducing prices of the products right after the launch. This serves as a setback to those enthusiastic customers who are loyal to the brand and tend to purchase the products as soon as they are launched. Not only that, the marketing strategy of Apple is designed in such a way that a hype is created for the launch of the product followed by long queues of the customers who have to wait in line for hours, sometimes even days to acquire access to the products, a practice which in itself defies all principles of ethics (Di Muro, Murray & Goode 2008: 71). As a reward Apple drastically reduces prices for products, especially iPhones only a few months after the launch which leaves the early buyers perplexed. Therefore, the unfair policies of Apple merely to sustain profits must be direly critiqued since it sets a bad precedent. Media Practices Apple is also alleged for misusing the media to attain publicity and create hype for its products. Media is one of the most crucial yet one of the most sensitive stakeholders for any company, and it is a responsibility of the company (from narrow as well as the broad view of Social Corporate Responsibility) to ensure that any misuse of the medium is direly discouraged. However, Apple does quite the opposite. Firstly, it strictly contains all information regarding a product, mostly for the products which are due for launch in a few months. Therefore, by keeping the information from the masses, Apple is again maintaining a monopoly and creating information gap which may also be exploited by other stakeholders. Furthermore, as a media strategy to create hype for a product set to be launched, Apple itself leaks false information which serves the purpose of gauging public opinion, at the same time creating hype for the customers who then seek for ways to access right information regarding the product. Therefore, much of the media space takes up the discussion over the product giving free publicity to their products. Furthermore, Apple`s media policy is such intense that often has it engaged in either media wars with a media conglomerate or has been engaged in clashes over media leaks which weren’t intended. Therefore, Apple had alleged one of the websites ‘Think Secret’ over inappropriate lawsuits to reveal their sources which defied the legal principles and therefore in the end no sources were revealed. Similarly, in 2010, a Reuters reporter was beaten up by the security guards of the manufacturing company for Apple products i.e. Foxconn since the reporter was found taking pictures of the products. Therefore, due to information keeping and misleading the customers and the audience, various controversies emerge, which directly implies that Apple must re-think its media policies and take corrective measures. (Lashinsky 2012: 51-52) Labor Practices The manufacturing plants in China i.e. Foxconn and also Inventex had reportedly been found guilty of keeping the workers in deprived conditions and defying labor laws and rights. One of the factories which manufacture iPods had employed around 200,000 people as laborers who were working for more than 60 hours per week. The labor policies of the company are so corrupt that not only were the laborers being paid quite poorly, i.e. $100 per month, but also were they supposed to live in the premises of the factory and were required to spend around more than half of their salaries as a mandatory living standard. In other words, not only were the labor conditions of the company exploitative but also quite controlling since the labors had little or not freedom to acquire the kind of life they wanted. The issue was further raised by media conglomerates when employees of Foxconn committed suicide in 2010 after being harassed psychologically by the company management. Therefore, the assembly lines of Apple undertake corrupt and unethical practices. Not only that but the safety measures are also close to none, which was indicated when around 49 men and women were poisoned while working in an iPad plan since there were no ventilators or other safety measures in the plant (Kahney 2010: 14). Therefore, apple is the worst example for a company since its brand image portrays it as one of the up-scale company while in reality, it doesn’t even serve the primary ethical responsibility of offering a safe environment to the employees of the manufacturing plants. Customer Service Issues Out of the countless other ethical concerns , the concern over the company where it fails to honor the guarantee of the products is also prevalent. For this reason, Apple has now created a website named AppleDefects.com where the customers can report their defects and Apple addresses these concerns, where warranty can be claimed only in extreme cases. Back in 2008 and 2009, the issue gained momentum where Apple defect stores were giving false reasoning behind their refusal to address customer complaints and honor their warranties (Arthur 2012: 11). Till date, the issues with quality control regarding Apple Products are prevalent where off and on, certain bugs are identified but company doesn’t pay a heed too often. Environmental Concerns Though Apple claims to satisfy all environmental concerns and even has a space committed to its initiatives in this regard over the website, yet there is need for improvement. A group called Greenpeace has vehemently critiqued Apple for being environmentally unfriendly. Apple is allegedly reported to use toxic products like vinyl i.e. PVC and other brominated chemicals. Though the board of governors of Apple have often committed to resolving the issue, yet in reality, Apple has failed in phasing out such chemicals where it justifies its claims by stating that companies like Nokia and Samsung are also engaged in similar activities, but while these companies are phasing out the use of such chemicals, Apple stands on a weaker position in this regard as well. Kantian Ethical Concerns & Suggestions for Improvement Kantian ethical model which is presented by well acclaimed philosopher Immanuel Kant must be applied here to further ass perspective to the issue. He advocated for the view that human actions must be intrinsically driven by active reasoning of social and moral norms to prove that the greater good lies in acting beyond one`s selfish desires and aims. Therefore, Kantian principles tend to strike a balance between the universal law, ensuring that others are being treated merely as ends (and not as means to achieve another end) and also the good will factor. The most significant aspect here is how Kant advocated for morals and ethics to be devoid of any such intentions where they are being used to achieve another objective. In contrast, Apple is reportedly undertaking corporate social responsibility to retain its brand image and avoid legal pressures, and not to spread greater good. This principle negates the Kantian view which implies that using ethical concerns merely on face value and not using them as ends to achieve virtue is the death of rationality. Therefore, a business firm like Apple is ideally supposed to act as a responsible actor functioning in a dynamic society, where it would not only have to incorporate CSR as a legal cover, in fact it would also be highly desirable since the firm would be seeing the society as ends which must be justified by all means. However, in reality, Apple tends to apply these ethical principles by placing content on website and going as far as to avoid legal cases, which shouldn’t be the case. Therefore, Apple must incorporate ethical and moral values into the model and vision of organization where it must take concrete steps to control the situation. Firstly, it must commit to the fact that increasing profits is not the sole spirit of the organization, rather following ethical Kantian model is the true objective. For a start, Apple must moderate its products in such a way that it becomes a dynamic entity in the free market and comply by all principles of competitive market. Similarly, the price must be maintained in such a way that neither do any customers have to wait in long queues not is the price drastically affected free months after the product is launched. Therefore, Apple must strike a balance. In addition, Apple must also incorporate principles of transparency where real information is released in adequate time via official channels and hype is created only by revealing the extra-ordinary features of the product. Also, it must come up with a code of ethics for employees even working in the supply plants off-shore to become a role model on how to strictly follow labor ethics and policies. Lastly, environmental concerns must be addressed where Apple must become a signatory to such deals and conventions where it must be leader of change in perspectives. Therefore, clearly, in context to CSR, Apple needs to take drastic corrective measures and make reasonable changes in the model.   Bibliography ARTHUR, C. (2012). Digital wars Apple, Google, Microsoft and the battle for the Internet. London, Kogan Page. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=838116. DI MURO, F., MURRAY, K., & GOODE, M. (2009). Strategic planning at Apple Inc. London, Ont, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. FERRELL, O. C., FRAEDRICH, J., & FERRELL, L. (2015). Business ethics: ethical decision making and cases. KAHNEY, L. (2010). Inside Steve's Brain Business Lessons from Steve Jobs, the Man Who Saved Apple. New York, Atlantic Books Ltd. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=898455. KANE, Y. I. (2014). Haunted empire: Apple after Steve Jobs. LASHINSKY, A. (2012). Inside Apple: how America's most admired-and secretive-company really works. New York, Business Plus. LINZMAYER, O. W. 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