Chapter 14 discussion question - Essay Example

One of the goals of all managers is to maximize shareholder’s wealth. The community that lost those jobs will perceive the CEO to be an immoral and unethical person that has no sense of patriotism. The made in America label has a lot of value in the United States consumer markets. 2. There are hundreds of examples of ethical and unethical behavior in the business world. A case of an unethical act that occurred over a decade ago is the Nike Corporation sweetshop scandal. Nike Corporation is one of the leading apparels and shoe manufacturers in the world.

Back in the 1990s Nike expanded its operation into several developing countries. The reason the firm choose these locations was to save in labor and operating costs. The company lost control and a managerial staff composed of immoral leaders created sweetshops at these locations. A sweetshop is a shop or factory in which employees work long hours for low pay in an unsafe working environment (Merriam-webster, 2011). An example of a company that is using high ethical standards in its operating decisions is Starbucks Cafe.

Starbucks Cafe sources its coffee using a practice known as fair trade coffee. Fair trade coffee guarantees poor farmers a price of $1.26 per pound of coffee which is twice the going rate for that product. 3. Unethical behavior can occur for a leader that has proper values and intentions. The reason that this can occur is that ethics is relative to the person or group that analyzes an act. A simple way to visualize ethics in the corporate world is through the stakeholder perspective. Each stakeholder group is going to react differently to an action.

A leader may have great intentions and proper values, but sometimes budgetary constraints force the hand of a leader. If a leader closes down an operation knowing that the community needs those jobs the person despite wanting to help was force to make a decision that will be viewed as unethical by the community. 4. The glass ceiling effect that limits the managerial opportunities for women occurs for a variety of reasons. Our society believes the positions of power are better handled by men. In the United States there has never been a woman president.

In the past there were more men in the workforce than women. The current trend is for more women to continue to enter the labor force. As of 2004 women represented 46% of the US labor force (Dol, 2004). Another social stigma that has helped men get better paying jobs is the belief that the man is supposed to be the provider of the household. It is also possible also that man visualize women as a threat to the corporate power structure which has historically been dominated by men. 5. In order to level the playing so that women can have better job opportunities including managerial spots at the executive level companies have to change from within.

The corporate culture of companies has to change. The executive managerial staff has to implement strategic diversity plans. To target the problem of the lack of women in corporate management firms could create managerial training programs that utilized quotas to ensure enough women are getting a chance. Based on the fact that 46% of the labor force is composed of women a fair quota would be a 54:46 split. The use of quotas will also ensure that ethnic minorities are properly represented in the managerial ranks.

Our educational system has to do a better job at recruiting women