Utilitarianism as an Ethical Framework for Effective Moral Action - Essay Example

It was a new company in the field of product manufacturing. Therefore, to draw more customers towards the newly manufactured products, the company used to deliver gifts and discounts to the customers. Such strategies were used to work well for the company, as they were able to attract a large number of customers. The reason was not only the discounts and gifts that the company offered to the customers but also the quality of the products manufactured by the company was very high.

The ethical dilemma, which I am going to relate to, occurred when the operation manager of the company left the job due to some personal reasons and the company hired a new manager, James Ferrel. The new manager had a different and less professional approach towards the business. An ethical dilemma occurred when he used the strategy of buy one get one free for a newly manufactured product of the company. The scheme was that if a customer buys an LCD TV from the company, the company would provide the customer with a free DVD player of the same quality. The scheme proved successful in the start as a large number of customers opted to buy the company’s products. However, the company could not stand on its words because the DVD players, which the company used to provide to the customers, were of very low quality. The customers bought the company’s products by trusting the company, but they were hurt badly because of the quality of the free item, which the company provided to the customers. My friend, Pollick, knew that the quality of the DVD player was not very good. He told me about the situation. He told me that the new manager gives importance to profits more than quality and for that, he planned to attract customers by providing them with a free product.

However, the strategy resulted in losing the customers’ confidence in the company’s products. The ethical issue involved in this example was that the company should have provided the customers with excellent quality not only in the product that intended to buy but also in the product that the company used to provide them as a gift. The company went against business ethics, which not only resulted in the loss of customers’ confidence but also affected the image of the company in the minds of the customers. The company faced huge criticism, which ultimately led to the dismissal of my friend and his manager.

            According to Ferrell and Gresham, ethical decision-making in business is key to a business's success. Had I been in the post of my friend, I would have informed the top management about the manager’s approach towards business. I would have also asked the manager to use some other way to increase the company’s sales instead of cheating the customers by providing them with a low-quality product. “Ethics are standards of conduct” (Smith). I would have used an ethical decision-making model to tackle the situation. I would have proved my words of delivering a free item of the same quality. I believe that Treviño and Nelson's eight-step model of ethical decision-making would have helped me in taking suitable decisions. Being in the situation of my friend, I would have gathered the facts at first to know the exact position of the company in the market. Next, I would have defined the ethical issues involved in my decision to deliver free items to the customers. In the next stage, I would have identified the affected parties in case of delivering low-quality products. I believe that consequences and moral obligations behind every action should be in the mind of an assistant manager.

“Utilitarianism is an ethical framework for effective moral action” (Anissimov). The Utilitarian approach could have helped me find out the positive and negative consequences of my manager’s decisions. It would have been my responsibility to assist my manager in every matter. I believe that customers are the main source of income for a company so I would have identified my obligations towards the customers. After identifying the relevant community standards, I would have made an ethical decision based on the virtue of ethics regarding the way to be used for increasing the company’s sales.