Business Ethics & Organization Studies-Free-Samples-Myassignment

Questions: 1.In your own words Identify and briefly describe two major ethical issues from the article titled Enron Ethic. 2.How might we enact and develop virtuous traits? How does this theory Compare to Consequentialist and Non-Consequentialist theories? 3.Do you think that Kelloggs CSR statement is sincere, or is the company merely trying to convince stakeholders that it is a socially responsible company? Assess Kelloggs CSR statement using Kantian theory. 4.Fair trade can sometimes be grounded in the assumption that it helps to address slave labour and give fair returns to farmers. What other perspectives on fair trade could be considered? Do corporations have a responsibility to the global Community? Answers: 1.The initial phase of the twenty first century has experienced a large number of organizational failures because of wrong ethical practices. According to Sims and Brinkmann lack of attention in organizational culture to ethical practice leads to organizational collapse and corruption. The Enron scandal is a significant example of organizational failure because of ethical misconducts in accounting and finance business (Soltani 2014). Through this corporate scandal the managements practice of pressuring the employees for improving the economic profit. Sims and Brinkmann showed how Enrons ethics showed the contradiction between promise and practice. It fore grounded the conflict between the organizations rotten structure and deceiving glossy (Sims and Brinkmann 2003). The auditor of Enron Arthur Andersen engaged in unethical practice by misrepresenting the financial statement. Enron kept hidden their financial problems from its investors and stakeholders (Giannetti and Wang 2016). The top management of Enron developed an organizational culture within the company that valued the bottom line profits above the right ethical practice. The leaders reaction to the crisis also brings the organizational value to the surface. The leaders started pointing and blaming each other. The accusations the leadership was receiving initially the deliberately overlooked it but after the accusations started coming to the surface they applied different strategies. The organization strategically fired everyone who started blaming the managements wrong pr actice before they officially announced it. The employees were forced by the leaders to stretch the ethical limitation as further as possible to achieve the next big financial target. 2.According to Aristotle if we obtain good habits we will be able to regulate our emotion and reason in a better way (Yu 2013). This will help us to take right moral decisions even in the difficult situations. In the critical thinking individual characteristic contribute significantly. The ultimate goal of happiness could be achieved if we build up virtuous character. He focused more on finding the mean than the moral virtue in order to cultivate a virtuous character. We have to act honestly in the right way at the right time. We must have to avoid extreme emotions and actions to be virtuous. To develop ourselves as the ethically virtuous human beings we have to cultivate human virtues not too little or not too much (YouTube 2012). In the consequentialsit school of virtue the morality is judged by the consequences (Portmore 2016). If the consequence results in positive way then it is considered to be ethically right but if it results negatively it is morally wrong. In the practice of Non-consequestialism the reasons are valued not the results. The intentions decide the ethical quality. The responsibility to do the right things drives us to engage in right ethical practice. Therefore both are focused on judging the actions in consequestialist and non-consequestialist theory but Artistotles virtue ethics judges the character. 3.The Customer Social Responsibility statement by Kellogg does not appear sincere. After examining the various issues it is evident that the company is superficially trying to convince the stakeholders that they highly value socially responsible service. Instead it has been found that they are engaged in irresponsible business and customer misguiding. The company has claimed to invest their money for improving public health by producing nutritious food products (Kelloggcompany.com 2017). The British Food Commissions investigation found that their Coco Pops bar is harmful for health as it contains high sugar and fat. Another product of the company the LCM bar also lack dietary fibre and carries high amount of saturated fat. These products highlight the contradiction between Kelloggs big promise and their practice. The unethical behavior of the company has come to the surface by their production of harmful food. The Kantian theory can be interpreted in the business CSR in various ways. One aspect would be acting by the universal laws. The theory encourages treating everyone as human beings and not just as a mean to achieve something. The organizations should treat stakeholders as persons, not like Kelloggs treatment towards it stakeholders. They are making false promises just to get more profit. The Kantian theory of subjects acting as a member of ideal kingdom can be interpreted as the organizations act as an ethically strong community (Michaelson et al. 2014). The CSR method by Kellog does not support the customers profit as they only want to ensure their own profit by producing potentially harmful products for public health. 4.The trade fair is also potential for the small producers for long term benefit. In a fair trade system helps them to nurture leadership and grow strongly bonded communities (Brett 2017). In the direct trade a single farmer gets benefitted but in the trade fair they gain profit collectively. Therefore the trade fair strengthens the farmer community. They increase their business by sharing knowledge and participating in the decision making. However there are different views on the topic as well. In the developing countries the market share is so small that it fails to influence the common living standards. The organizations do not engage in effective communication outside the corporations. Also though trade fair cuts off the middle man but the organizations cannot effectively transfer the full amount the producers. The organizations from the developed countries should engage more in improving the system. The corporations should allow average priced products in their markets by large quantities. Most private corporations in the world covers global economys three quarters, so there contribution to the global community is significant. The organizations must engage in responsible business and economic development. The organizations from the developed countries must address the issues such as food security. The corporations donating money also proves their interest to improve the global community. This not only helps its reputation to the global market bust also to its stakeholders. The corporations should participate more responsibly in order to break the monopoly of certain organizations and enhance the global corporate economy. The need of the global community must be addressed. The organizations should encourage sharing their values, working collaboratively and by strengthening the global commun ity developing a sustainable business. References Brett, A., 2017. Fairtrade, fair-trade, fair trade and ethical trade: reflections of a practitioner.Fairtrade Impacts: Lessons from around the world Rugby, p.121. Giannetti, M. and Wang, T.Y., 2016. Corporate scandals and household stock market participation.The Journal of Finance,71(6), pp.2591-2636. Kelloggcompany.com. (2017).Ethics Culture. [online] Available at: https://www.kelloggcompany.com/en_US/about-ethics.html [Accessed 26 Aug. 2017]. Michaelson, C., Pratt, M.G., Grant, A.M. and Dunn, C.P., 2014. Meaningful work: Connecting business ethics and organization studies.Journal of Business Ethics,121(1), pp.77-90. Portmore, D.W., 2016. The Dimensions of Consequentialism: Ethics, Equality and Risk, written by M. Peterson.Journal of Moral Philosophy,13(6), pp.747-750. Sims, R.R. and Brinkmann, J., 2003. Enron ethics (or: culture matters more than codes).Journal of Business ethics,45(3), pp.243-256. Soltani, B., 2014. The anatomy of corporate fraud: A comparative analysis of high profile American and European corporate scandals.Journal of Business Ethics,120(2), pp.251-274. YouTube. (2012).Aristotle's Virtue Ethics. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPdUxkqqoA [Accessed 26 Aug. 2017]. Yu, J., 2013.The ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of virtue(Vol. 7). Routledge.