Business Ethics - Type of Leadership Power - Case Study Example

Introduction

As a business manager of Paradigm Toys, one of my duties is to create programs and formulate policies that safeguards an organization from unethical activities and ensures that it operates within the legal mandates. This duty involves notifying the employees of the company’s code of ethics, communicating to them about the codes of ethics as well as providing teaching them about the ethical issues. Furthermore, I would ensure that the operational aspects like the information and technology is practiced within the ethical way.

Type of Leadership power

Upon consideration and analysis of the ethical audit that is performed on the company, referent type of power is recommended in establishing the ethical climate of the paradigm Toys. Referent power is the type of power derived from the relationship between individuals in an organization. This power is given to individuals when they are respected and liked. Furthermore, the power arises from charisma that gives the ability to influence others through respect and reliance. Besides, the power could also be result from the interpersonal connections that one has towards important individuals in the organizational rankings. Through the insight of the relationship between people that a leader establishes with the people then she/he establishes the power over them. I believe in order to develop a strong ethical culture I need to develop good relationship with people, and act as an example such that the employees of Paradigm Toys could also develop reference towards me, in terms of being loyal, creating respect, being affectionate and even admiring me. Through this relationship then Paradigm Toys would have developed a strong ethical culture (Okafor, 2014).

Stakeholders

Paradigm Toys experiences the influence of different types of stakeholders who could be either secondary or primary type of stakeholders. The primary stakeholders are those people or groups that are affected directly by the organization’s operations. The effects could be either positive or negative, but sometimes the stakeholders could be affected in both ways like the rent policy that affects the landlords and the tenants. On the other hand, the secondary stakeholders are individuals or groups that are affected indirectly by the operations of an organization or institution. The primary stakeholders for Paradigm Toys involve the employees and the customers, while secondary stakeholders include the government and competitors.

Paradigm Toys Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

There are many ways that the board of directors at Paradigm Toys could meet their CSR requirements to the stakeholders. One way that I propose is the production of environmentally friendly products. These products promote a sound and a sustainable environment through production of regenerated or renewable products as well as those that are biodegradable if not recycled. Furthermore, I would support the going green initiative of the company that would result in reduced use of energy by introducing modern technology into the company that uses less amount of energy. This reduces the costs of production that could be used at increasing the salary of the employees or reducing the prices of the products which affects the customers directly (Gardner, 2014). Nevertheless, currently most of the individuals are aware about the effects of environmental pollution such as global warming and hence the employees prefers to work in a company that is mindful of the environmental pollution, while customers also prefer products that are environmentally green, hence making Paradigm Toys a green company would make it a preferable for customers.

Moreover, I would also encourage charitable outreach, as there are many children in the world who are needy and should be addressed. This could be done through donating free toys to them by targeting poverty areas and children homes. Additionally, I would initiate a donation program whereby the customers would be involved through contributions that would be directly given to those who care for the poor children. This could be achieved by encouraging them when they purchase the company’s products (Champlain, 2013). The employees would also be provided with a paid free time in order to attend any charity outreach program in order to contribute finances or promote the need for supporting the needy children through community-based programs. These activities would create goodwill within the society and the customers, competitors and the employees who are the stakeholders of Paradigm Toys.

I would also promote fair competition, because the government’s regulation does not cater for all unethical issues in which organizations are involved at. Therefore, following rules does not protect all unethical issues. At Paradigm Toys, I would support all lawful activities to the fullest despite that the government has not provided strict laws. Through this act, the company would have achieved the corporate social responsibility to the government and the competitors. This is because the fair competition enhances a healthy relationship between the company and the government as well as the competitors. Goodwill within the customers provides them with the best choices among other similar products from its competitors.

Ethics Audit

Auditing involves gathering and analyzing information to find out the value of an issue of to determine whether the policies and regulation for an entity have been followed. Thus, the ethics audit means gathering and analyzing information that is related to the ethics in culture, policies, and procedures in an organization. It involves, auditing through the review of the prescribed policies and regulations in the books of the employees, accounting books, performance audits and policy and procedural manuals. Ethical audit determines the culture that the employees has shown in the past through surveys and interviews to determine the ethical condition of the company irrespective of the existence policies. If unethical issues are detected, the information gathered from the employees helps in developing the necessary steps that could be used eliminate these issues and ensure that it conforms to the ethical conducts of the organization as well as the goals of the company. I would ensure that Paradigm Toys performs ethical audits. This is because the ethical audits are good business practices since they provide checks and balances on an organization’s policies because they may fall off from their mission and vision. This in turn prohibits the company success like corruption that is detected through financial auditing. Conducting the ethical audit at Paradigm Toys would enable detection of such unethical values. I would ensure that the ethical auditing is carried out regularly in order to provide protection and safety in case of governmental auditing or rise in the lawsuit (Champlain, 2013). Nevertheless, the ethical auditing could assist Paradigm Toys discover the areas of improvement that would assist the company strengthens the company’s performance through changing strategies and policies that suits the improvement. This includes improvement in areas like employee morale and customer loyalty.

Balanced Scorecard

Balanced scorecard is useful in assessing the performance of the executives of the Paradigm Toys. These scorecards involve many areas that ensure evaluation of the performance of individuals and actions represents the whole picture of an individual. For example, the rewards provided to the management for their skills in order to realize the financial goals of the company have been linked to unethical issues like corruption and failure to pay employees for some works among other issues. The scorecard eliminates the unethical issues by taking into account other areas including the customer satisfaction, improvement of the skills through continued study and positive feedback from the stakeholders of the company. It is important to include the financial and non-financial issues in the scorecard because the non-financial issues affect the finances indirectly. The non-financial issues could also result in unethical issues even to those people who perceive themselves to be ethical. This is because if the only driver for financial management is financial success, without consideration of the method used to achieve it then individuals may use hook and crook to get their hence creating unethical issues in the process that do not involve money. This results in long-term problems for the company like lawsuits and loss of customers.

Purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility

The purpose of CSR to Paradigm Toys includes the retention of customers, employees, and gaining government goodwill (Merchant, 2015). This is because these stakeholders prefer a green-minded company. Moreover, corporate social responsibility may increase the profit of the company by boosting the loyalty of the business, decreasing costs using modern technology if it is implemented very well. Paradigm Toys could practice corporate social responsibility by paying better salaries to its employees, involvement in community work and initiating hotlines for reporting unethical issues.

Cisco’s Systems Code of Ethics and Conduct

The Cisco code of business conduct has the corporate social responsibility. This includes empowering the employees to succeed. The employees are offered opportunities to grow personally and in a professional way without discrimination of all manners, in terms of color, sex, or disability. Furthermore, Cisco’s social responsibility focuses in areas that transform societies, creating an engaging business, protecting the environment, supporting universal declaration of Human Rights among others.

Cisco’s code of ethics complies with legal matters and does not appear to be lacking. These include the antitrust law that enhances competition in the market place and provides customers with more choice. The company is committed to competing fairly and complying with the laws. The cisco’s code of ethics does not lacking but does not provide detailed information on the development of an ethical culture. It indicates that through the knowing the code of ethics there could be build trusting business relationship that are open, honest and fair and thus creating ethical culture.

Proposal for Ethics Training

Proper ethical conduct involves training. Paradigm Toys need to focus on the following areas in order be effective. The first area of focus includes the conflict of interest, in which I would propose the employees be educated on the different situations that they may face and ethical way to approach those situations. Paradigm Toys should also focus on the product quality and safety because many producers of the toy products use materials that are unhealthy to customers. Therefore, customers should be sensitized on the need for purchasing products that are safe and with quality. The company should also focus on Harassment and discrimination and discuss its impact on the employees. This could range from sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and disabilities that end up stigmatizing these individuals resulting at underperformance of the company.

Communication methods are very critical in the success of any training program. For a successful training in Paradigm Toys, I suggest the use several communication channels for training. This involves interacting with individuals and providing them with paper materials with the information, use of the company website and blogs installing screens everywhere in the to remind the employees about the information contained in the training. The primary delivery technique for training would involve personal training of a group of new employees with their single trainer who would train them on a monthly basis. Trainers need to take a four-week course before being allowed to train the employees. The primary delivery method should be accompanied with the interactive online training games that would enhance the employees’ ethical decision-making skills.

Issues of Information Technology (IT)

Every auditing process must involve the IT issues. To start with, the employees must be monitored on the usage of the internet. This can be a challenge because every individuals that uses the internet desires privacy. However, the operation of the internet needs to be monitored because the employees are fond of using the company internet at accessing their personal issues. The personal items could be Facebooking to emailing, which the company needs to prohibit from while at the same time maintain the employee privacy if possible (Meyer, 2011). This could be achieved through ethical training and issuance of policies and regulations regarding the company’s internet use.

Protection of employee or client data is a very critical issue that could make the company terminates the offender that reveals the personal information of the client or employee data. IT department ensures that all data is protected as it is stored or encrypted and only those who are authorized are allowed to access such data.

Sharing of client or employee data has led to refusal of these individuals from providing their personal information. This is because the employees and clients fear for attack by criminals or they may also be stigmatized and other forms of inconvenience. The IT department protects this personal information through great restriction.