United Way - Case Study Example

United Way The organization and its ethical and social justice issues Having been founded in the early years of the 19th century, company X has grown to become one of the major multinational corporations of the world. Today, it is among the largest companies and of a special kind there are in the world serving thousands of customers in more than one hundred and forty states and having employed workers from more than fifty states. The company operates in more than twenty five states across the world. Every year, it makes sales of billions of dollars both in the country of origin and in the international market. In this regard, the company does often appear in the ‘Fortune Global 500’ list of the best companies. This company has experienced tremendous success in the history of world since its origin despite several setbacks it has faced in the past and recently particularly in ethical and social justice issues. Such issues include racial discrimination, gender discrimination, age discrimination, fraud and unfair distribution of job promotions, unfair compensations, and even sexual harassment. Not long ago, the company was facing a series of law suits in regard to these issues. Even though the company has won most of these law suits, it is evident that these ethical issues are still imminent and continues to cause challenges to the different employees. The organization and its ethical issues in relation to the philosophical theories There are a number of ethical approaches recognized by the philosophers of the world. The ethical approaches; normative ethics and meta-ethics are perceived to be among the widely recognized approaches. The normative ethic approach provides answers to the questions ‘are actions bad or good? ‘Are the actions right or wrong?’ The approach takes a more practical role to arrive at the moral standard that should regulate the moral conduct of the different individuals (Garner and Bernard, 1967). The normative ethical theory therefore seeks to establish the ethical action and indicates how one should act. It is believed that the normative ethics tend to follow the Golden Rule that “we should do to others what we would want others to do to us” (Hume, 2000). In real world, this particular theory tends to argue that for example someone would not steal the neighbor’s clothes since he or she would not want the neighbor to come and steal his or her clothes. Therefore, as human, if we want to ever be rescued when in danger, we should start by rescuing the ones already in danger. This theoretical reasoning can be applied in our actions to determine if they are wrong or right, bad or good. In an organizational setup therefore, we can possible use the Golden Rule to determine what is right or wrong, good or bad. In this case, it is wrong to victimize, harass, assault or even abuse the co-workers or the employees on the grounds of gender, age, race, color or even religion. Meta-ethics theory on the other hand seeks to further understand nature of the attitudes, judgments, statements and even properties (Garner and Bernard, 1967). Therefore, the meta-ethic approach is the complete opposite of the normative ethics approach since while the normative ethics seeks to find ‘the right act to be done’, meta-ethics seeks to establish ‘how to tell that an action is good or bad’. ‘Meta’ in this case means beyond or after. In a nutshell, meta-ethics generally involves a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the actions of the different individuals. It seeks to find the origin and meaning of the different ethical concepts in different contexts (Couture and Kai, 1995). Meta-ethic further seeks to find what really moral judgments entail and means in the different contexts. Also, it seeks to establish whether the various moral judgments are relative or universal and if there are many kinds of such moral judgments or just one kind in the whole world. It can therefore be argued that, meta-ethics approach provides means of how the different moral judgments would be defended or supported in different contexts (Garner and Bernard, 1967). In this case, ethical and social justice issues such as age and gender discrimination would be defended on the grounds that the certain age or certain gender was preferred for a post in the company for the economic well being of the company or because the certain gender was preferred because it is known to be more productive in a certain field than the un-preferred gender. Major ethical challenges and conflicts of responsibility Ten years ago, the company was facing a law suit where the workers had moved to court on three very serious claims against the company; racial and gender discrimination, unfair distribution of the promotion opportunities and unfair compensation. These workers pointed out that due to their skin color they were harassed, assaulted and victimized by their supervisors. The workers also complained that for being female, they always got taunted by their male colleagues at work who called them by all sorts of names. The government agencies sought to investigate these claims in the company and they were proved to be true something that saw this company face adequate legal implications. Other than presence of forms of discrimination on the grounds of gender, race, color and even age, it was also established that the company was paying the minorities group of workers little salary as compared to the other major groups of workers. In the history of the American corporations the problem of wage gap between the male and female has been in existence for centuries. Therefore, this is not a problem of just this company but a problem of many other American companies. Today, most of these ethical challenges are still imminent despite the efforts made by the company to restore it global image. Though the greatest part of the ‘dark’ history is gone, there are still traces of the past challenges. Gender discrimination and issues of masculinity have continued to be a major challenge in most modern companies of the world despite introduction of stringent international laws and regulations (Block et.al, 2010). However, the world statistics reveal that today, the representation of women and the minority groups in the corporate world is far much better and improving (Block et.al, 2011). In this particular company, there are departments where only a very small portion of the minorities work while in some other sectors of the company where manual labor and other light jobs are undertaken, the minorities are represented in big proportions. There have also been claims in the company that the job promotion opportunities are never fairly distributed in most outlets of the company across the world and that in the foreign market, the casual workers are underpaid. Also, there have been issues that the company has sometimes been engaging in unfair market competition and since it is a big company amongst the major ones in the world, it has engaged in ‘gorilla’ tactics in the past to keep its rivals at bay and this has earned it continued dominance of the world market. Another major issue in the company has been that following the influence the company has in the country of origin, the law has always been to its advantage. Therefore, the company’s officials have a way of maneuvering the legal system and end up not paying for damages or paying very little. The strategies that the organization uses to maintain responsible conduct Despite all these claims, the management of the company has really worked hard towards making this company a good working environment. First, there are strict guidelines and procedures to govern the conduct of the employees inform of a code of conduct which is signed by all the employees at the time of recruitment and a summary of the company values that should guide them. The employees in this case therefore are obligated to practice the highest level of ethical standards in honoring their commitments and exercising their duties with high level of integrity. The intact organizational policies in the company are is prove of how the company is obligated to exercising reasonable care to protect the environment. The company’s organizational policies further ensure well being of its employees and their families. Every year, the company is involved in societal activities as a way of giving back to the community. The company is also dedicated to ensuring good returns to its shareholders and reasonable prices to its customers across the world. As an employee of the company one is obliged to only engage in fair business, use the company’s materials to only conduct the business of the company and not for one’s material gain and also not to inappropriately disclose company’s information. Further, the company has introduced as system where all of its employees undertake an ethical training every year. This is geared towards personal ethical development. Recommended strategies to address the ethical issues I would recommend the following so as to end the current ethical issues in the company. Firstly, there is need to create an internal oversight department with the powers to hire and fire and reshuffle the employees across the departments. This new department will be in charge of the employee’s welfare including assessing the wages and salaries of the different employees and casual workers. The new department will also be involved in recruitment of diverse employees and be in charge of the promotion practices in the organization. Secondly, I would recommend initialization and launching of a resume study in the company. This will enable the company’s management to establish whether the resumes with the equivalent of experience and education are weighted equally across the company’s departments with respect to gender, race and culture. Further, use of an external force to find a solution to the issues of gender and color biasness in the company may prove appropriate. Other than seeking legal redress through the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and through other government agencies, such employees can establish networks with some of the international NGOs who can help in piling more pressure to help put an end to gender and color biasness in a the company. External audits will also be necessary in reducing cases of fraud in the organization. Also, I would recommend that the company’s management offers customized training to the employees. This will be based on the results from anonymous surveys conducted touching on all employees of the company; former and the current employees. Such surveys will offer a wider scope of the ethical challenges facing the different workers in the company since surveys done plainly on the current employees are biased in a way for the current employees of a company fear the consequences of disclosing some information to the analysts or may not want to risk closure of the tracks they use to conduct the unethical practices. Through the customized training therefore, it will be possible to critically evaluate the hidden forms of biasness still existing in the company, the hidden tracks of ethical malpractices, the various forms of unfairness that have proved hurtful and de-motivating to the employees and also help come up with very positive solutions to these problems. On the part of the unfair competing strategies as well as law manipulation, these are challenges that can only be addresses through the respective government agencies. However, international laws need to be tightened in respect to the operations of the major corporations of the world. Factors that would affect the implementation of the recommendations The ethical decision-making model requires that when the problems are identified, the ACA Code of Ethics is applied to determine if the issues fall in the categories addressed (Kitchener, 1984). If they fall within the categories, remedies are provided. If not adequate procedure is to be followed in establishing solutions to the established problems. The organization is a multinational company and operates in more than a hundred and forty five different states. The 145 states have different and independent laws and regulations. In this case, it will be hard to ascertain the best solutions that would suit the company and its different outlets across the world. It will also be hard to define the applicability of the solutions arrived at since determining the dimensions and nature of the problems raised is a challenge. The company is practically big and implementation of the recommendations will be a process involving the different managers across the different departments. Creation of an oversight department may prove costly for the company since it is something that was not budgeted for by the management hence there is a probability that the management will not consider the recommendation. Further, implementation of such changes in a company often face resistance from part of the management and the employees if particularly the recommendations do touch on the organizational culture and values or somehow tend to derail the company in the process of achieving its set goals and objectives and not forgetting the fact that the company has its own remedies already in play. Also, convincing the management to adopt other remedies would be a bit tricky and is only possible if one is able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the remedies in place have not produced the desired outcomes. Description of the outcomes expected On implementation of the recommendations, the first impact expected is an amendment of the company’s codes of conduct binding the employees of the company. The amendments will in this case include unique policies and guidelines in regard to the ethical issues of the company. In regard to these amendments, it is expected that the employees will fully comply with the new ethical guidelines following the internal and external pressures from the government agencies and the international Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO). This will cleanse the name and the image of the organization to the outside world that has been associated with unethical issues not only enhancing the performance of the organization in the foreign markets but also putting the organization in a level where it will be able to attract the best talents in the market. The company is therefore likely to become one of the best employer’s of the world in the near future. Also, it is expected that there will be an observable change in the different departments; some employees are likely to be promoted as others get demoted following launching of the resume study in the organization. Further issues of gender and racial representation in the different departments will be properly addressed by the resume study. Further, through the customized training, the employees will learn more on how to embrace the issues of diversity, honesty and integrity and how to work together with each other as colleagues in an organizational setup. This will not only promote the ethical standards of the organization but also promote team spirit hence driving the performance of the organization to scaling heights. It is also expected that the international laws governing the operation of international companies in the foreign countries will be amended in respect to the ethical issues addressed. Raised issues relation to social justice themes The raised concern largely relate to social justice themes-human rights and equality. According to the United Nations Convention of Human Rights of 1952, human rights are defined as the universal applicable norms or moral principles (Tasioulas, 2011). Academic scholars, activists, trade unions and lawyers have in the past debated over the issue of inclusion of the labor rights under the human rights. According to Mantouvalou (2012), through the different approaches to ethics, the labor rights can be grouped as being human rights or non- human rights. The International Labor organization (ILO) has in the recent years endorsed various labor rights as human rights. According to Mantouvalou (2012), all forms of discrimination at work place were abolished when the ILO adopted the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Therefore, any form of work place discrimination is an infringement of the human rights. In the company, there issues of gender, racial and age discrimination amongst others are imminent. Equality on the other hand refers to the state of being equal in terms of degrees, rank, value, ability and correspondence in quantity in the place of work. Mathematically, the two statements in the equation are equal to one another despite being on different sides. According to the Fair Work Act, all employees in the work environment are to be treated and considered equal irrespective of their age, race, color, gender, and religion or even marital status (Smith, 2011). Also, the employees are to be equally considered when the opportunity to promotion arises. In this case, cases of discrimination and unequal distribution of the promotion opportunities are evident. References Block, Caryn J., Koch, Sandy, M., Liberman, Benjamin, E., Merriweather, Tarani, J. & Loriann, Roberson. (2011). Contending With Stereotype Threat at Work: A Model of Long-Term Responses, The Counseling Psychologist, 39 (4) 570–600. Couture, J & Kai, N. (1995). "Introduction: The Ages of Metaethics," in On the Relevance of Metaethics: New Essays in Metaethics, Jocelyne Couture and Kai Nielsen (eds.). Calgary: University of Calgary Press, pp. 1-30. Garner, R. T., & Bernard R. (1967). Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Introduction to Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. New York: Macmillan. p. 215. LOC card number 67-18887. Hume, D. (2000). A Treatise of Human Nature (Eds). David Fate Norton, Mary J. Norton Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press . Kitchener, K. S. (1984). Intuition, critical evaluation and ethical principles: The foundation for ethical decisions in counseling psychology. Counseling Psychologist, 12(3), 43-55. Mantouvalou, V. (2012). Are Labor Rights Human Rights? European Labor Law Journal, Smith, B. (2011). What kind of Equality can we the Fair Work Act? Melbourne University Law Review, Vol. 3, pp. 545-577. Tasioulas, J. (2011). ‘On the Nature of Human Rights’, in Ernst and Heilinger (eds), The Philosophy of Human Rights, Gruyter, p 17- 22. Read More