Ethical Issues and Corporate Culture in the Modern Business - Case Study Example

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Ethics is the main concern of the modern businesses, as they should influence customers in a reliable way. There are many issues, which should can observed from the ethical perspective. The main one is corporate culture, considering this issue, it should be underlined that it is the main driving factor of company and customers’ experience, as preserving the right relationships within the organization can help to get more performance among employees. Ethics is researched with the qualitative approach to find out the main issues, which are influencing the ethical decisions within the organization and how organization culture can change customers’ opinion of the brand and its features. The main authors, who written the theoretical basis for this paper are Kupperman and Goodpaster. These two authors described the ethical issues in business and tried to provide the broader explanation of main driving factors of employees. Considering the Brown’s work, one should underline that they have provided the material regarding the proper (ethical) decision-making by successful managers. Materials of Rarick and Swindell were used to provide theoretical basis for probable solution of the problems, which can be caused by ethical misconducts.

There are many concerns ,which are influencing the company. One of them is associated with the corporate culture and the way it functions. These are main ethic points of the business, as all businesses should be done with consideration of some ethical issues. Thinking of the ethical behavior within the company, one should underline that it corresponds to the fact how the business issues are resolved and what are the consequences of decisions and managerial decisions. These factors create the ethics personality of company, regardless of its status and nature (Kupperman, 2009).

All companies from the point of view of ethics should do the business in the reliable and sustainable way, it means that company should not deceive or cheat in the market, should keep its promises and provide the services, which are requested by the relevant customers (Kupperman, 2009). However, such approach to the business ethics does not work in the modern business world, as there are many companies, which violate such rules and working only for their benefits. Thus, ethical concerns and other features are related to the extent of the result of such actions and their results. Company that is caring of the employees and understand  how their actions influence the business and its overall performance can produce the sustainable business from the ethical point of view. That is creating better corporate image of the company and provides more possibilities to produce the competitive advantage, as customers willingly cooperate with companies, which take the ethical concerns as their highest priority. It is essential to understand that the ethical issues are important in the business as they predetermine the business activities and help to ensure better business processes (Barnard, 1992).

Thinking of the ethical failures of the most popular brands, one should underline the Tesco business that had many ethical issues associated with the bad labeling of food, deceiving of customers and bad corporate culture within the company that allows people to suppress the minorities and women colleagues, which are working in the company. Thinking of the bad labeling company has assured customers that they are selling the beef that is the natural and useful product (Swindell, 2009). However, after the check, special organization found out that Tesco actually sold the horse meat that is taboo for Ireland people. This misconduct resulted in the serious scandal, where many people including the executives were involved. Furthermore, this scandal influenced the corporate image of the company. And now, Tesco has hard way to restore its activities due to such violation of the ethical norms. However, even know Tesco is saying customers that supplier that offered a meat has assured it that the meat is actually beef and it is supplier, who made this problem to Tesco. However, this problem caused many changes in the company and resulted in the transparent activities of company and the more reliable services, which were aimed on the restoring of the corporate image. Such activities making companies better from the ethic point of view and they help to maintain customer-oriented services. In such a case company can easier fulfill the customers’ requirements and needs (Barnard, 1992).

According to Brown, ethical culture is working as the multi-system framework that has many features within it, both formal and informal, which aimed on to support the proper ethical judgment and actions. Thinking of the both perspectives, one should underline that the leadership is quite important, as the leader can easily handle the issues, which result in the misconducts associated with the ethical concerns and can provide the example of the sustainable leader and employee that is working on the projects without the violation of certain norms. Furthermore, establishment of the company’s code can help to maintain the reliable services, which are based on the following certain rules. They serve as the informal control of the employees that is good for businesses, which are working with customers directly, as even the minor problem within the team can produce serious problems to the company(Brown, 1981).

On the example of the Domino’s Pizza, one can observe the problem of the lack of the code in the company, where two employees have recorded the video about the cooking food in the disgusting conditions and without the following sanitary norms and placed this video in the YouTube. From the ethical point of view they have made the greatest lie, as the company never treat customers in such a way and the cooking conditions are always better than were depicted (Moberg&Meyer, 1990). However, video caused serious problems with the company and its corporate image along with the customers’ trust issues. Furthermore, even now company should manage special issues with the sanitary checks, as even officials are not sure that company is not doing the businesses in such a way, despite the assures of company’s CEO. Company could have maintained the code within its team to make employees understand the vision of the company and the main benefits, which are offered to customers and values. It could help to prevent such issues from happening and will keep the company from such strong decline. However, now company is suffering from the accusations and constant claims from the customers, as they associate their health problems with the eating of the Domino’s Pizza and most people support this opinion towards the brand (Kupperman, 2009).

All companies have their corporate cultures and they vary for their most important issues. The ethical culture of the company is associated with the particular slice of entire company’s culture. It is important to understand how businesses prefer to conduct businesses, what features they use to achieve success. All these things help to understand what is the company’s value and the virtue and how it works with customers. From the point of view of businesses, no matter what is in the company and how they handle their problems and issues, company should provide the stable and reliable services or products with appropriate quality. Otherwise company is doomed to failure.

Thinking of the main features of the ethical decisions of the managers, one should underline working conditions of employees, as there are many people, who are involved the business processes, and their conditions should be good enough to fulfill the tasks. It means that employees should have the reliable equipment and informed about the possible dangers of the work in some place. There are many companies, which fail to carry out good working conditions, it results in low performance and employees dissatisfaction along with the customer’s ones. Latter do not want to purchase the product and to use services, as they rendered by the employees, which have bad conditions of work and cannot face high quality standards. Many managers are using employees for long-lasting projects making them work too long, or assign the weak or new employees to the hard tasks. In such conditions people cannot work effectively and it is the main ethical issue that is associated with bad company’s organization and poor managerial decisions. One of such issues one can encounter in Tesco activities. Tesco is international retailing giant and it has many stores around the world. However, it cannot fulfill the need of the local employees and invite people from other countries. This makes the ethnic issues within the staff that result in the pressures of the minorities and lower performance. Due to the fact of such diverse teams, many employees need to work under such conditions and cannot be effective enough to reach the company’s requirements. Thus, violation of some ethic issues backfires to the company’s effectiveness. Many employees can even take actions, which are associated with their personal benefits and undermining the company’s activities. It can be illustrated on the example of the Domino’s Pizza, where managers are issuing refund, without releasing of money. They just take the money that should be refunded and many customers ask for refund for many times. Such misconducts decrease, as it is damaged corporate image of the company and make it ineffective in the local environment (Goodpaster, 1991).

Employee behavior is quite important in the businesses, as they predetermine the amount of revenues that company can produce and all other issues associated with the company’s reputation and image. Employees are the face of the company as they are working with customers, they render the services and they produce the products. Thus, customers should know that under their products are working people, which are aware of the ethical issues and understand what is the main value of each company. For all successful companies, which are working in the international or local market – customers are the main value. Thinking of the employees and their behavior, they can even make customers use other services, through their attitude or poor work, especially when employees are cooperating with customers directly.

Summing up, one should underline the fact that ethical issues are important in the business and should be considered. Furthermore, businesses should concentrate some efforts on their following and undertake some policies to make employees follow them. Otherwise, one can face the problems, which were stated above. The main issue here is associated with the corporate culture as well that should be also concerned and maintained in the reliable way. Without this, one cannot expect the company to grow or produce some revenues, benefits. Ethical issues are important, as it predetermines overall effectiveness of the company, especially within the company’s culture (Turning contract crises, 2013). Employees, who mainly the last link between the company’s representatives and customers should understand how to work with customers, how to make the product that will have high demand, etc. All these issues are included to the proper business ethics, as otherwise, actions of the employees will not be ethical from the point of view of the corporate culture. Thinking of the superiors, one should underline their work too, as they are working with employees and are responsible for their loyalty to brand and the understanding of the main points of the company’s policies. It means that managers are responsible for sharing the ethical issues, which influencing their business and can provide some negative effects on the customers. The main way to eliminate such risks is to work with employees and trying to maintain their understanding of the main values, which company has and should keep vital (Quinton, 1973). Otherwise company will echo the example of the above-mentioned companies, which have problems with employees, who were unaware of the main value of company and carried out actions, which resulted in corporate issues (Rarick, 2003). Corporate culture matters and the ethical issues, as they help company to stay trustworthy and transparent.

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