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HTY 110HA Assignment 7
Click here and review the information and guidelines for the
Presentation Project that is due in Module 8.
To prepare for the project, during this module you will submit,
on a Word document, your chosen
immigrant or refugee group for the presentation. This
submission must include the following information:
1. Chosen immigrant or refugee group (cannot be any of the
following already covered
extensively within the modules: Irish, German, Jewish, or
Chinese)
2. At least five internet sites and/or articles that you have found
to locate the necessary information
about your chosen group; include a summary about each source
that explains the information
available from the source
cles must include:
o Title and date of the article
o The author
o Where you found the article (which database or eBook)
o A few sentences explaining what information you found (or
expect to find) in each article
:
o Should end in .org or .edu or .gov in order for you to obtain
the most reliable information
o The URL for the website
o A few sentences explaining what information you found (or
expect to find) in each article.
Submit this assignment to the Dropbox no later than Sunday
11:59 PM EST/EDT.
To locate Information and articles:
LibGuide (library guide): In it are guides to the modules,
research guides, video links, film suggestions
and links, map links, reading overview links, images,
assignment, essay and presentation examples,
grading rubrics, and much more.
http://saintleo.libguides.com/immigration
From EBSCO “History Reference Center”:
1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html.
2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column.
3. Click on Databases.
4. Scroll down to the EBSCO and click on it.
5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if
prompted.
6. Scroll down to History Reference Center.
7. Select “U.S History” or “World History.”
8. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper
left. For example, if you enter a search
for “Refugees” or for “Italian Immigrants,” many articles are
available.
From ProQuest:
1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html.
2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column.
3. Click on Databases.
4. Scroll down to ProQuest and click on it.
5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if
prompted.
6. Enter your search term in the search window. For example, if
you enter a search for “Cambodian
Refugees” and scroll through the etnries, many articles are
available including one called
“Braving a New World: Cambodian (Khmer) Refugees in an
American City.”
http://mediaweb.saintleo.edu/Courses/HTY110HA/HTY110HA_
Presentation_Project.pdf
http://saintleo.libguides.com/immigration
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html
From the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History:
1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html.
2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column.
3. Click on E-Books.
4. Scroll down to “CQ Press Encyclopedias,” then select
Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History.
5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if
prompted.
6. Click on the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History link.
7. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper
left. For example, if you type in “Cuban
Refugees” (this might take a few minutes to load). You will
then see several entries related to
Cuban refugees.
From the Oxford Encyclopedias of African American History,
Latinos and Latinas in the United States,
Human Rights, International Encyclopedia of Peace, and more…
1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html.
2. Scroll down to “FIND INFO” column.
3. Click on E-Books.
4. Scroll down to Oxford Digital Reference Collection and click
on this link.
5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if
prompted.
6. Scroll through the choices until you locate one in which you
are interested. For example, if you
select the “Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United
States” you might type “Mexican
American deportation” in the search window to the upper right.
You will then see several entries
related to this topic.
From the CQ Researcher
1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html.
7. Scroll down to “FIND INFO” column.
2. Click on Databases.
3. Scroll down to CQ Researcher and click on it.
4. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if
prompted.
5. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper
right. For example, if you enter the
search term “refugees,” many articles will appear.
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html
http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html
Ashford 6: - Week 5 (Jun 23 - Jun 29)
The Forbes School of Business at Ashford University is proud
to announce two scholarship opportunities. The application
process for both scholarships is quick and easy. Please visit:
http://www.ashford.edu/admissions/scholarships.htm for more
information and a chance to secure $5000.00 towards your
educational cost at Ashford University.
Week Five Learning Outcomes
This week the students will:
· Evaluate the nature of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
· Explain the role of corporations in being economically,
legally, ethically, philanthropically, and environmentally
responsible.
· Assess the different strategies an international corporation can
use to extend its markets
Overview
Assignment
Due Date
Format
Grading Percent
Corporate Social Responsibility
Day 3
(1st post)
Discussion
2.5
International Strategies
Day 3
(1st post)
Discussion
2.5
Final Case Study and Strategic Plan
Day 7
Assignment
40
Required Readings
Abraham, S. (2012). Strategic management for organizations.
San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.
This text is a Constellation™ course digital materials (CDM)
title.
· Chapter 10: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
· Chapter 11: Diversified, Global, and Other Types of
Organizations
Recommended Resources
Article
Favaro, K. (2014). How IKEA, Disney, and Berkshire Hathaway
succeed with adjacencies. Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boozandcompany/2014/03/31/how-
ikea-disney-and-berkshire-hathaway-succeed-with-adjacencies/
Fisher, G. S. (2012). Why global diversification still makes
sense. Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greggfisher/2012/01/17/why-
global-diversification-still-makes-sense/
Geromel, R. (2012). Can we use corporate social responsibility
to evaluate companies?Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2012/05/21/csr-
corporate-social-responsibility/
Guthrie, D. (2014). A conversation on corporate social
responsibility. Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougguthrie/2014/01/09/a-
conversation-on-corporate-social-responsibility/
Henderson, R., & Reavis, C. (2009, August 25).What’s Driving
Porsche? Retrieved from
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/CaseDocs/08-075-
What%27s%20Driving%20Porsche.Henderson.pdf
History of Porsche AG – FundingUniverse. (n.d.). Retrieved
from http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-
histories/porsche-ag-history/
To participate in the following discussions, go to this
week's Discussion link in the left navigation.
1. Corporate Social Responsibility [CLO: 5]
In your own words, explain what corporate social responsibility
(CSR) is. Name two examples of social responsible companies
you know and explain why you consider them so.
We learned that CSR can be viewed as a pyramid with
Philanthropic Responsibilities at the top. Discuss what
particular advantages accrue to companies who proactively take
steps to be philanthropically responsible.
Guided Response:
Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a
substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend
their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post.
Defend your position by using information from your textbook
and this week’s lecture.
2. International Strategies [CLO: 4]
When companies expand into the international arena, they do so
either because their home market has matured or because they
see real opportunities in the foreign market. Discuss which
kinds of international strategies are most appropriate for
companies in the following domestic industries:
· Producing movies
· Software
· Management consulting
· Breakfast cereals
· School of business
Guided Response:
Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a
substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend
their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post.
Defend your position by using information from your textbook
and this week’s lecture..
Assignment
To complete the following assignment, go to this week's
Assignment link in the left navigation.
Final Case Study and Strategic Plan [CLOs: 1,2,3,4,5]
Read What’s Driving Porsche? and History of Porsche AG –
FundingUniverse. From the perspective of an executive with the
firm, prepare a strategic plan to grow the business over the next
three years.
Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must:
· Describe Porsche’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place,
and Promotion).
· Explain the current situation of the organization in the market
(industry, market, and general environment analysis).
· Assess the financial performance and condition of the
organization.
· Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats) to determine areas that offer
opportunities for change.
· Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and
explain why the areas you have chosen are essential to your
strategic plan.
· Describe your recommended organizational structure.
· Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic
plan.
Your paper must be 10 to 12 pages in length (excluding the title
and reference pages) and be formatted according to APA style
guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. In
addition to the text, you must use at least five scholarly sources.
Remember to incorporate information that you have learned
from this course as well as your personal experience.
Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be
used to evaluate your assignment
Weekly Lecture
Business Ethics
Ethics refers to accepted principles of right or wrong that
measure the conduct of a person, the members of a profession,
or the actions of an organization (Abraham, 2012, p. 278).
Managers may be confronted with ethical dilemmas while
pursuing strategies that maximize the long-term profitability of
the organization. We need to consider that the quest for
profitability should not be constrained only by law, but also by
ethical considerations.
Ethical Issues in Strategy
The ethical issues that managers confront are often due to the
conflict between the goals of the company and the rights of the
stakeholders. The most common examples of unethical behavior
involve: self-dealing, information manipulation, and anti-
competitive behavior among others.
Proponents of the stakeholder view of business ethics often
argue that managers should behave in an ethical manner to
ensure the support of the stakeholders, which will ultimately
benefit both the stakeholder and organizations. Others argue
that acting ethically is simply the right thing to do.
When facing an ethical dilemma, managers can ask themselves
five questions that might help in making the right decision:
1. What's in it for me?
2. What decision or action would lead to the greatest good
for the greatest number?
3. What rules, policies, and social norms (written or
unwritten) apply in this situation?
4. What are my obligations to others?
5. What will be the long-term impact on me and on
important stakeholders (Abraham, 2012, p. 287)?
For a real life example of the role of ethics in determining
company actions, see this discussion on Nike and the use of
sweatshops:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/05/02/sweatshops-in-
bangladesh-improve-the-lives-of-their-workers-and-boost-
growth/
Corporate Social Responsibilities
Ethics and social responsibility are closely related. Social
responsibility is the conscious effort to operate in a manner that
creates a win-win situation for all stakeholders. It is often
called corporate social responsibility as CSR is an umbrella
term for exploring the responsibilities of business and its role in
society (Abraham, 2012, p. 287).
Corporations have a responsibility to try to create a win-win
situation for stakeholders. For customers, the corporation must
provide safe products and services with customer value. For
society, the corporation should improve the quality of life, or at
least not destroy the environment. The corporation must
compete fairly with competitors. Through technology, the
corporation should develop new ways of increasing customer
value and the quality of life. The corporation must work with
suppliers in a cooperative manner. It must abide by the laws and
regulations of government. The corporation must strive to
provide equal-employment opportunities for the labor force. It
must be financially responsible in relation to the economy. The
corporation must provide shareholders with a reasonable profit.
It must provide employees with safe working conditions with
adequate pay and benefits.
For a discussion on the use of social media to promote CSR,
you may find the following article interesting:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/07/how-the-voice-of-the-people-is/
Going Global
As companies expand into foreign markets, they face the
challenge of how best to organize their activities across
different nations and regions. The five most common strategies
include:
• Exporting and market expansion
• Strategic alliances
• Joint ventures
• Acquisition
There are a number of ways in which global expansion can
enable companies to increase and rapidly grow profitability. At
the most basic level, global expansion increases the size of the
market in which a company is competing, thereby boosting
profit growth. Global expansion offers opportunities for
reducing the cost structure of the enterprise or adding value
through differentiation, thereby potentially boosting
profitability.
A company can increase its growth rate by taking goods or
services developed at home and selling them internationally.
The Ford Mustang is an excellent example of a product that is
being launched globally. Ford CEO, Alan Mulally talks about
the challenges of changing the look and feel of the Mustang to
appeal to international and domestic customers. Check out the
video here: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/12/05/n-
ford-new-mustang-mulally.cnnmoney/
Startups and Small Business
A small business is a business that is independently owned and
operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low
value of sales (Abraham, 2012, p. 322). Small businesses are
generally less bound by bureaucracy and corporate policies and
usually maintain closer relationships with their customers. In
other words, their flexibility affords them the ability to focus on
their customers and meet their needs, which naturally generates
customer loyalty. At the same time, small firms often grow out
of the innovative ideas of their entrepreneurial founders, and
therefore this mindset is likely to prevail in the small business.
The U.S. Small Business Administration provides numerous
articles on starting and managing a small business. Check out
its website here: http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-
structure/starting-managing-business
When starting a new business, managers should consider
developing a business plan which helps to ensure systematic
coverage of the important factors to be considered in starting a
new business. By identifying the variables that can affect the
success or failure of the business, the business plan becomes a
model that helps the entrepreneur and any employees focus on
important issues and activities for the new venture. Finally, a
business plan is essential when additional capital from outside
investors will be needed at some time in the foreseeable future.
The Forbes website provides valuable information on writing a
successful business plan:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/05/14/how-to-
write-a-business-succession-plan/
Nonprofit Organizations
The fundamental difference between nonprofit and for-profit
organizations is that the primary goal for a nonprofit
organization is not financial in nature. Another major
difference between nonprofit and for-profit organizations is that
nonprofit funding comes from a third party rather than a
customer. Lastly, nonprofits are cause driven and socially
geared (Abraham, 2012, p. 324).
Although some noteworthy differences exist, the manager’s role
is the same in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. All
managers need management skills, perform management
functions, and play management roles regardless of the
organization type.
SPACE ON RYDER FARM is an excellent example of a leading
arts nonprofit. For a brief discussion of the nonprofit and its
founder, Emily Simoness, visit:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tiffanypham/2014/06/05/how-i-did-
it-from-actress-to-founder-executive-director-of-a-leading-arts-
nonprofit/
References:
Abraham, S. (2014). Strategic management for organizations.
San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.
Ashford 6: - Week 5 - Discussion 1
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and
you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates.
Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and
the depth of your responses. Reference the Discussion Forum
Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be
evaluated.
Corporate Social Responsibility [CLO: 5]
In your own words, explain what corporate social responsibility
(CSR) is. Name two examples of social responsible companies
you know and explain why you consider them so.
We learned that CSR can be viewed as a pyramid with
Philanthropic Responsibilities at the top. Discuss what
particular advantages accrue to companies who proactively take
steps to be philanthropically responsible.
Guided Response:
Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a
substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend
their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post.
Defend your position by using information from your textbook
and this week’s lecture.
shford 6: - Week 5 - Discussion 2
International Strategies [CLO:4]
When companies expand into the international arena, they do so
either because their home market has matured or because they
see real opportunities in the foreign market. Discuss which
kinds of international strategies are most appropriate for
companies in the following domestic industries:
· Producing movies
· Software
· Management consulting
· Breakfast cereals
· School of business
Guided Response:
Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a
substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend
their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post.
Defend your position by using information from your textbook
and this week’s lecture.
Ashford 6: - Week 5 - Final Case Study
Final Case Study and Strategic Plan [CLOs: 1,2,3,4,5]
Read What’s Driving Porsche? and History of Porsche AG –
FundingUniverse. From the perspective of an executive with the
firm, prepare a strategic plan to grow the business over the next
three years.
Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must:
· Describe Porsche’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place,
and Promotion).
· Explain the current situation of the organization in the market
(industry, market, and general environment analysis).
· Assess the financial performance and condition of the
organization.
· Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats) to determine areas that offer
opportunities for change.
· Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and
explain why the areas you have chosen are essential to your
strategic plan.
· Describe your recommended organizational structure.
· Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic
plan.
Your paper must be 10 to 12 pages in length (excluding the title
and reference pages) and be formatted according to APA style
guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. In
addition to the text, you must use at least five scholarly sources.
Remember to incorporate information that you have learned
from this course as well as your personal experience.
Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be
used to evaluate your assignment
WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENT
Porsche’s Analysis
XXXXXXXXXX
BUS 402 Strategic Management & Business Policy
XXXXXXXXXXX
June 8, 2015
Porsche Automobil Holding SE, typically abbreviated to
Porsche, is a German holding organization with interests in the
car business. Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a
city region of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg and is possessed by
the Porsche and Piëch families. The organization was
established in Stuttgart as Dr. Ing. H.C. F. Porsche Gmbh in
1931 by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) and his child in-law
Anton Piëch (1894–1952).
It fabricates Cayenne and Panamera demonstrates in Leipzig,
Germany, and parts for the SUV are additionally amassed in the
Volkswagen Touareg plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. Boxster and
Cayman.it aldso makes tractors and air ship motors.
Separated from the aforementioned Volkswagen AG and
Porsche AG, different subsidiaries and working divisions of
Porsche SE incorporate Porsche Engineering, Porsche Design
Group, Mieschke Hofmann und Partner (81.1%) and Bertrandt
(25%).
Products
1952 Porsche 356 K/9-1 Prototype
In post-war Germany, parts were by and large in short supply,
so the 356 auto utilized segments from the Volkswagen Beetle,
including the motor case from its inside ignition motor,
transmission, and a few parts utilized within the suspension.
The 356, in any case, had a few evolutionary stages, A, B, and
C, while in generation, and most Volkswagen sourced parts
were supplanted by Porsche-made parts. Starting in 1954 the
356s motors began using motor cases composed particularly for
the 356. The smooth bodywork was planned by Erwin Komenda
who additionally had outlined the collection of the Beetle.
Porsche's signature outlines have, from the earliest starting
point, emphasized air-cooled back motor arrangements (like the
Beetle), uncommon for other auto producers, however
delivering vehicles that are exceptionally overall adjusted.
Financial performance
The organization has been very fruitful lately, and for sure
claims to have the most astounding benefit for every unit sold
of any auto organization in the world.Table of benefits (in a
huge number of euros) and number of autos delivered. Figures
from 2008/9 onwards were not reported as a feature of Porsche
SE.
Year ending
Revenue
Pre-tax profit
Production
Sales
31 July 2002
€4,857m
€829m
55,050
54,234
31 July 2003
€5,583m
€933m
73,284
66,803
31 July 2004
€6,148m
€1,137m
81,531
76,827
31 July 2005
€6,574m
€1,238m
90,954
88,379
31 July 2006
€7,273m
€2,110m
102,602
96,794
31 July 2007
€7,368m
€5,857m
101,844
97,515
31 July 2008
€7,466m
€8,569m
105,162
98,652
31 July 2009
€?m
€-2,559m
76,739
75,238
31 July 2010
€7.79b
N/A
89,123
81,850
31 December 2010
€9.23b
€1.67b[60]
N/A
97,273
31 December 2011[60]
€10.9b
€2.05b
127,793
116,978
31 December 2012
€13.9b
€2.44b
151,999
143,096[61]
31 December 2013
€14.3b
€2.78b
165,808
162,145[62]
Production composition
Of the 165,808 cars produced in the 2013 financial year, 29,751
(17.9%) were 911 models, 28,996 (17.5%) were Boxster and
Cayman cars, 81,916 (49.4%) were Cayennes, 24,798 (15.0%)
were Panameras. There were 312 Macan and 35 918 Spyder
models also reported.The production figures of sports cars were
quite similar to the 2001/2 totals when 33,061 Porsche 911 and
21,989 Boxsters were produced(Porsche SE, 2013).
North American sales
Annual sales 2003–2005
model
2003
2004
2005
units
% of total
Units
% of total
units
% of total
911(996)
9,935 ( 18%)
33%
10,227 ( 3%)
31%
10,653 ( 4%)
31%
Boxster
6,432 ( 38%)
21%
3,728 ( 42%)
11%
8,327 ( 123%)
25%
Cayenne
13,661
45%
19,134 ( 40%)
57%
14,524 ( 24%)
43%
total
30,028 ( 33%)
33,289 ( 11%)
33,859 ( 2%)
Annual sales 2006–2008
model
2006
2007
2008
units
% of total
Units
% of total
units
% of total
911(997)
12,702 ( 19%)
35%
13,153 ( 4%)
36%
8,324 ( 37%)
30%
Boxster
4,850 ( 42%)
14%
3,904 ( 24%)
11%
2,982 ( 24%)
11%
Cayman
7,313
20%
6,249 ( 17%)
17%
3,513 ( 44%)
13%
Cayenne
11,141 ( 23%)
31%
13,370 ( 20%)
36%
12,898 ( 4%)
46%
total
36,095 ( 7%)
36,680 ( 2%)
27,717 ( 24%)
Annual sales 2009–2011
model
2009
2010
2011
Units
% of total
units
% of total
Units
% of total
911(997)
6,839 ( 17.8%)
35.00%
5,735 ( 16.1%)
22.65%
6,016 ( 5.0%)
20.72%
Boxster&Cayman
3,875 ( 39.4%)
19.00%
3,499 ( 9.3%)
13.84%
3,150 ( 9.02%)
10.86%
Panamera
1,247
6.33%
7,741 ( 520.8%)
30.57%
6,879 ( 11.13%)
23.70%
Cayenne
7,735 ( 31.0%)
39.27%
8,343 ( 7.9%)
32.94%
12,978 ( 55.55%)
44.72%
total
19,696 ( 24.3%)
25,320 ( 28.6%)
29,023 ( 15%)
Annual sales 2012–2014
model
2012
2013
2014
units
% of total
Units
% of total
units
% of total
911
8,528
24.34%
10,442
Boxster&Cayman
3,356
9.58%
7,953
Panamera
7,614
21.73%
5,421
Cayenne
15,545
44.36%
18,507
total
35,043 ( 21%)
42,323
SWOT Analysis
One advantage of SWOT Analysis is that analysis can be
applied in any situation management, type of company
(regardless of size and activity) or business area. The first step
we must take is to describe the current situation of the company
or department in question, identify strategies, the changes
occurring in the market and our capabilities and limitations.
This will be the basis for a historical, casual and projective
analysis.The strengths and weaknesses are internal aspects of
the company or entrepreneur that affect the chances of success
of a strategy. For example, the ignorance of the market, lack of
capital and inexperience often weaknesses of many businesses
that start; while enthusiasm, working capacity and the desire to
grow are among the common strengths. A going concern also
has weaknesses of various kinds depending on the sector and the
team. Typical examples are failures in production, inadequate or
lack of proper marketing people to use new technologies;
strengths can come from the hand of the specific experience of
senior management, or may be the result of other assets as a
loyal customer base and a highly differentiated product. The
opportunities and threats arising from the context, that is, what
happens or may happen outside the company. Usually these
events can not be influenced, but given independently. A change
in the legal and tax framework, a trend in consumption, the
arrival of a new technology or a change in strategy by a
competitor can increase the chances of success (opportunities)
or decrease (threats).
RUNNING HEAD; PORCHE’S ANALYSIS
1
Porsche’s Analysis 99
Strengths
-Domestic market
-experienced business units
-high profitability and revenue
-high growth rate
-skilled workforce
Weaknesses
-Small business units
-investments in research and development
-tax structure
-costs
Opportunities
-New products and services
-growing economy
-income level is at a constant increase
-new markets
Threats
-Unexpected problems
Decision making
The unlucky deficiency of genuine system, market
research,sales anticipating and the nonattendance of vision and
taking the danger of changing division procedure, . They
considered these entrance level models to be shabby and failing
to meet expectations. Most supporters never truly acknowledged
these models as genuine Porsches. Truth be told, they were not
in any way blissful that they needed to impart their brand to a
client who didn t fit the Porsche holder profile. They were
turned off by what they saw as a corporate method that had
concentrated on mass over class showcasing. This discolored
picture was exacerbated by the way that Nissan, Toyota, BMW,
and other auto producers had increase top of the line sports auto
offerings, making some wild rivalry. Actually, both the Datsun
280-ZX and the Toyota Supra were less expensive than Porsche
s 944 as well as quicker. A battling economy tossed more sand
in Porsche s tank. By 1990, Porsche deals had dove, and the
organization played with chapter 11(Henderson & Reavis,
2009).
As per CNBC, even an at-the-time sketchy attack into the
SUV market with the Cayenne in 2003, couldn't harm Porsche
credibility.The Times writer Andrew Frankel says on one level,
it is the world's best 4x4, on an alternate, it is the critical abuse
of a brilliant brand that dangers long haul harm to that mark's
extremely character in the quest for simple money with his
verdict being "Incredible auto, if it wasn't a Porsche".
Recommendations
Rapidly they perceived the lapse of its ways and ended creation
of the section level models. It modified its harmed picture by
patching up its higher-end model lines with more race-
reproduced engineering. In an exertion to recapture
compatibility with clients, Porsche at the end of the day focused
on the high end of the business sector in both cost and
execution. It set unobtrusive deals objectives and chose that
direct development with higher edges would be more beneficial
in the long haul. Along these lines, the organization set out to
make one less Porsche than the general population requested. As
per one official, We re not searching for volume; we re hunting
down restrictiveness. Porsche s deliberations had the craved
impact. By the late 1990s, the brand was at the end of the day
supported by the same kind of achiever who had so profoundly
adored the auto for quite some time. The autos were by and by
restrictive. Also the organization was at the end of the day
beneficial. Notwithstanding the contention confronted by
faultfinders, the Cayenne has been a win, creating enough
benefit for the organization to put resources into and update the
current model reach, and store the Panamera project.
Conclusion
This paper has analyzed the case for Porsche AG.The company
has been successful seeing a rise in revenue and sells.The paper
analyzed the history, provided the swot analysis for the
company, financial performance, decisions and impacts on the
company.
References
Henderson, R., & Reavis, C. (2009). What’s Driving Porsche?
Porsche SE. (2013). Annual Report Fiscal Year 2013 (p. 25).
Retrieved from http://www.porsche-
se.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche-
Download.pdf?pool=pho&type=download&id=investorrelations-
annualreport2013-
pdf&lang=en&filetype=default&version=960af9ec-b8af-11e3-
ab3e-001a64c55f5c
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Ch 10: Ethics and Corporate Social Respo…
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Chapter 10
Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Cultura Limited/SuperStock
Learning Objectives
By the time you have completed this chapter, you should be able
to do the following:
· Understand the differences among ethics, morals, and values.
· Understand ethical issues and behavior.
· Learn about the various unethical behaviors that tempt
managers and corporations.
· Learn about ethical dilemmas and an approach to coping with
them.
· Ponder the extent to which ethics can be taught.
· Understand the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR)
and the role of corporations in being economically, legally,
ethically, philanthropically, and environmentally responsible.
Ethics and ethical behavior should be embedded into the way
people are brought up and the way business students are trained.
But the sad fact is that unethical behavior is more the norm in
the business world than the exception. The fact that it is
widespread in no way condones unethical behavior. This chapter
will clarify the distinctions between ethics, morality, and
values, what unethical behavior is and isn't, situations that make
it difficult to be ethical and how to cope with them, and the
degree to which ethics can be taught.
The chapter also discusses corporate social responsibility
(CSR), what it is, and the extent to which corporations have a
duty to be socially responsible. Finally, the physical
environment (air, land, water) is—or should be—an important
stakeholder for corporations. What does the responsibility to
safeguard the environment mean, and what role should
corporations play?
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10.1 Ethics, Morals, and Values
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10.1
Ethics, Morals, and Values
The terms ethics, morals and values are often confused or used
interchangeably in everyday speech. Before discussing ethics in
more detail, it is important to establish definitions of what each
means and the differences among them. A traditional definition
of ethics is the art and discipline of applying principles and
frameworks to analyze and resolve complex moral dilemmas
(Rossy, 2011).
The Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit organization
based in Los Angeles, defines ethics differently but perhaps
more aptly for the business world: "Ethics is about how we meet
the challenge of doing the right thing when that will cost more
than we want to pay."
This definition gets to the heart of why "doing the right thing"
is sometimes so difficult; we are unaware of the associated cost.
The Institute breaks down the definition into two parts: (1) the
ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil, and
propriety from impropriety; and (2) the commitment or will to
do what is right, good, and proper (Maxwell, 2003). People and
organizations need to develop a standard to follow and then the
will to uphold it, an ongoing struggle for both.
A moral person knows right from wrong and chooses right; an
immoral person knows the difference too but chooses wrong,
while an amoral person either doesn't know the difference or
doesn't care. This description includes notions of bad versus
good. Both require societal and cultural norms of right and
wrong and, because these evolve over time, what is "right" is
far from clear.
Values are the tenets most important to people and the ways that
govern how they choose to live their life. That statement also
applies to organizations (see Section 2.8). Some people have
been known to die for preserving a value very important to them
(like freedom, or protecting another's life), and at the other end
of the scale are people who think nothing of inflicting harm on
others if their cause warrants it (like allegiance to a gang and
killing rival gang members to defend "turf").
Virtually every company has an ethics code of behavior, which
more accurately might be called a moral code. More than 85%
of companies have created and circulated organizational codes
of conduct. Simply having a code does not necessarily mean
that employees will follow it, however; there is no proof that
codes of conduct actually influence ethical behavior (Rossy,
2011). An example of a less-than-successful code is that of
energy corporation Enron. Enron's 64-page Code of Ethics,
which opened with a motivating forward by CEO Kenneth Lay,
did not avert one of history's worst instances of corporate
ethical failure (Rossy, 2011). Enron went bankrupt as a result of
corporate officers' unethical accounting practices. By inflating
earnings and cash flow, and keeping liabilities off the books,
Enron presented a distorted picture of financial health,
attracting investors in the process. Among the losses were the
401K retirement accounts of Enron employees. In contrast, CEO
Lay sold stock in the months before the scandal broke and
profited greatly (Oppel, 2001).
An unethical act is carried out with immoral intent, done with
the full knowledge that it is legally and morally wrong or goes
against societal or organizational norms (Rossy, 2011). It
usually infringes obvious rules, laws, and corporate codes of
ethics. An ethical "mistake," on the other hand, is an act that is
not deliberately unethical, and is something an individual or
group regrets afterward and desires to undo (Rossy, 2011). The
following three components separate unethical actions from
ethical mistakes:
· Intentionality—did you harbor good or bad intention? Were
you aware that you were doing something wrong? Did you
attempt to hide or cover up your motives?
· Remorse—did you recognize and regret your unethical
behavior? Or did you regret only being found out and exposed?
· Accountability—were you willing to own up to your mistakes
and take responsibility for any unethical actions? Were you
ready to try and reverse your actions and set things right?
(Rossy, 2011)
The next four sections focus on ethics in business, amplifying
the nature of ethical issues and dilemmas, revealing the
unprecedented extent of unethical behavior, offering some
guidelines for dealing with ethical dilemmas, and discussing the
extent to which ethics can be taught.
Discussion Questions
1. Does obeying the law make a person "moral," and breaking it
"immoral"? Discuss the reasons for your answer.
2. Can ethics vary from country to country? If you think so,
provide an example of a country in which principles, norms, and
standards of conduct are different from the United States, and
provide as much detail as you can (even anecdotes).
3. Is a dictator moral, immoral, or amoral? Give reasons for
your answer and an example that could validate your answer.
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10.2 Ethical Issues and Behavior
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10.2
Ethical Issues and Behavior
The chairman of AOL Time Warner Book Group was having
dinner in New York one evening with John Maxwell, a
prominent author on leadership issues from a Christian
perspective, and suggested he'd be the perfect fellow to write a
book on business ethics. "There's no such thing," replied
Maxwell. When asked what he meant, he said, "There's only
ethics." This conversation spawned the title of the book
Maxwell came to write (Maxwell, 2003).
People get into trouble when one set of ethics or values governs
their private life and another their working life. For example, a
typical sales employee might say, "I'm an honest person, but it's
OK to pad my expense report because that's what everyone in
the company does." In fact, many people are ethically
duplicitous without realizing it. As Maxwell says, "The same
person who cheats on his taxes and steals office supplies wants
honesty and integrity from the corporation whose stock he buys,
the politician he votes for, and the client he deals with in his
own business" (Maxwell, 2003).
Ethical issues arise whenever people are tempted to behave
unethically or not do the right thing. Maxwell lists the five most
common things that give rise to unethical responses:
Lisette Le Bon/SuperStock
Ethical issues arise when people succumb to pressure to achieve
results. Executives manipulate stock prices to increase value,
students cheat to get higher grades, and workers produce
inferior products to increase production rates.
· Pressure to achieve results when things aren't going as
planned, which is why people often "cook the books," cut
corners, or "bend the rules." Students often cheat to get higher
grades, executives manipulate information to increase stock
price, factory workers produce inferior products to reduce costs
or increase throughput rate. Many of us are under pressure—in
2005, the Ethics Resource Center conducted a national survey of
U.S. employees and found that 10% of them at all levels
reported feeling pressure to compromise ethical standards
(Treviño & Nelson).
· The desire for pleasure (if it feels good, do it) leads people to
live beyond their means, abuse drugs (of all kinds), suffer
divorce and broken homes, and so on. Executives that have
achieved an elevated compensation level may do whatever they
must to preserve their lifestyle. The consequences are never
worth the promise of the temptation and are almost always
regretted later.
· Abusing the power a person has been given. This, too, can act
like a drug: "having power is like drinking salt water. The more
you drink the thirstier you get" (Maxwell, 2003, p. 80).
Powerful executives may develop a sense of entitlement. They
believe that they and the institution are one, so they can take
what they want when they want it (Abraham Zaleznik, as quoted
in Maxwell, 2003). Those who want to keep their power at all
costs are also most likely to compromise standard ethical
behavior to do so.
· While pride itself is not a bad thing—after all, we have all
been brought up to take pride in ourselves, our work, our
family, and our country—having an exaggerated sense of pride
and self-worth (hubris) is destructive. Pride is essentially
competitive; one is proud only of being richer, smarter, or
better looking than others. If everyone else were as rich, smart,
or good looking, there would be nothing about which to be
proud. If your goal is to outdo everyone else, then your focus is
entirely on yourself and your own interests (Maxwell, 2003).
"Pride can blind you to your own faults, to other people's needs,
and to ethical pitfalls that lie in your path" (Maxwell, 2003, p.
86).
· Priorities. German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe said, "Things that matter most must never be at the
mercy of things that matter least" (Quoted in Maxwell, 2003). Is
being liked by others the most important thing to you? Is
keeping your job more important than doing the right thing,
like, blowing the whistle on some malfeasance? Do you know
what your priorities are?
The following breakdown broadens our understanding of ethical
issues in the corporate world:
· Human-resources issues. An obvious example of this type of
ethical issue is discrimination, which can lead to rampant
unfairness. Sexual and other types of harassment may take the
form of an individual in a hierarchy taking advantage of their
position to use power to control others lower in the
organizational structure. Harassment may also occur between
peers and result in a hostile work environment for those who are
the objects of the unwanted attention. Conflicts of interest may
take many forms such as bribes and kickbacks, inappropriate
influence, and the use of privileged information to bestow favor
on special friends or interests.
· Customer-confidence issues. In many business situations a
person may be privy to confidential information, which they
may not reveal regardless of their position. To breach that
confidentiality and divulge such information is a serious ethical
violation. Product safety issues, whether the dangers to
consumers were intentional or not, also fall into this category.
When products are misrepresented, hyped beyond the benefits
they provide, or false claims are made, this transgresses truth in
advertising ethical boundaries. In professions that handle other
peoples' money, such as stockbrokers, there is an ethical
obligation called fiduciary responsibility to base all actions on
the best interest of the client. A stockbroker making an
investment of a client's money for which the only motivation is
the stockbroker's commission would be a violation of the
broker's fiduciary responsibility.
· Issues arising from the use of corporate resources. These
issues range from what may seem to be mundane to the
extremely serious. Many people do not give a second thought to
making personal calls from work, taking a long lunch or break,
or taking stationery products from the supply room to use at
home. All of these are examples of stealing company resources.
Using company letterhead for personal reasons or allowing a
personal view to be construed as the company's are
misappropriations of the company's reputation. Most people
would clearly recognize the ethical wrong in falsifying data to
make a company's financial results look better or receive
approval for a new drug (Treviño & Nelson).
The root problems in most of these instances are unfairness,
lack of respect, and self-interest.
Discussion Questions
1. This section introduced the notion that people behave
unethically rather than bear the costs of ethical behavior (an
economic reason). Do you think this is prevalent in corporations
today? Why or why not?
2. We have all heard of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you
would they do unto you." According to John Maxwell, it is the
only guide to ethics one needs. Do you agree?
3. Assuming you do the "right" thing all or most of the time,
how do you know it? Elaborate on your answer as best you can.
4. Ethics exist in law, business, medicine, and other spheres of
life, even politics. Other than the settings in each sphere, would
you say that the concept of ethics was the same or different in
all spheres? Discuss.
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10.3 Unethical Behavior
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10.3
Unethical Behavior
Stephen Chernin/Getty Images News/Getty Images
In the case of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, greed overruled
all ethics. Madoff received a long-term prison sentence for
bilking investors out of billions of dollars.
Every day brings new reports of some new ethical violation or
the disposition of a case brought against someone or a company
for unethical behavior. Unethical behavior consists of conduct
undertaken to benefit a person or organization while knowingly
(or being oblivious to the possibility of) harming others.
Behavior is still considered unethical if the act is wrongful,
whether or not it results in harm, for example, a deceitful
representation even though not acted upon (Christopher D.
Stone, J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, University of
Southern California Gould School of Law, personal
communication, October 3, 2011).
Many cases involve greed, like the Ponzi scheme run by
Bernard Madoff, a former chairman of the board of directors of
the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). Madoff
used money from new investors to pay "profits" to old ones
until the situation imploded and the scam was revealed. People
who trusted him with their investments lost billions of dollars.
Another type of greed-induced unethical behavior is illustrated
by the case of Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, an
international hedge fund based in New York. In 2011,
Rajaratnam was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy for
insider trading and sentenced to 11 years in prison, the longest-
ever term imposed for that type of offense. Unlike Madoff's
Ponzi scheme, which swindled identifiable victims directly of
specific amounts of money, insider trading cheats "the system"
including all those investors who are not privy to the
information on which profitable trades are made. At the heart of
the prosecutors' case was an allegation that Mr. Rajaratnam
gained access to confidential information about a $5 billion
investment in Goldman Sachs by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in
2008 during the financial crisis. Prosecutors described an
environment of rampant insider trading on Wall Street of which
the defendant was only one prominent offender. In pronouncing
his sentence, U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell stated that the
billionaire investor's crimes "reflect a virus in our business
culture that needs to be eradicated." In addition to the prison
term the judge also ordered Mr. Rajaratnam to pay a $10 million
fine and forfeit $53.8 million (Pulliam & Bray, 2011).
Kai Chiang/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Company consumer contracts' fine print allows a firm to change
the terms as they see fit at any time, initiate higher fees, and
forbid consumers from filing lawsuits.
Not all unethical behavior can be attributed to an individual
acting out of the prospect of personal gain. Companies may
collectively make unethical decisions that result in harm to
others. Workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the
Gulf of Mexico were concerned about safety on the rig months
before the oil rig exploded but feared retribution and retaliation
if they reported problems. In particular, employees reported that
drilling took priority over maintenance that could have ensured
safety. The explosion killed 11 employees and resulted in
history’s largest accidental oil spill. The oil killed large
numbers of wildlife, shut down crucial industries such as
fisheries and tourism in large areas of the Gulf of Mexico,
causing billions of dollars of economic damage and affecting
untold numbers of people directly and indirectly (Urbina, 2010).
Entire industries may be tarred with the brush of unethical
behavior in the interest of making profits. For decades the
tobacco industry fought a cynical campaign to deny and
discredit extensive research that demonstrated the very serious
health risks of smoking. In the meantime, the tobacco
companies were among the largest spenders on all forms of
advertising to induce people to become addicted to smoking. As
we all know, they finally lost their protracted case, and it has
been conclusively shown that executives were aware of the
dangers even as they denied it publicly. Tobacco ads are no
longer allowed on television, and it is now illegal to smoke in
many public places such as restaurants, movie theaters,
museums, aircraft, and so forth. Some states such as California
have gone further, banning smoking in parks, apartment-
complex balconies, and on the beach. There is now no disputing
the fact that tobacco kills, yet these same tobacco companies
continue to expand their markets for cigarettes around the world
and get new generations addicted to smoking. The argument
often used to justify their actions is that tobacco is a legal
product. Of course, if tobacco was a new product being
introduced to the market today, with all the attendant proven
health effects, there is no question that it would be immediately
rejected by regulatory agencies as unsafe.
What about new drugs and medical products rushed to market
without adequate testing or approval? In 2010, DePuy
Orthopaedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, issued a global
recall of its ASR XL Acetabular System and Hip Resurfacing
System (hip implants) because of growing problems with the
products and for selling them and other products without FDA
approval (Kavilanz, 2011). Also in 2010, France's health
regulators issued a recall of prefilled silicone breast implants
manufactured by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), a French
company, and said to affect 35,000–45,000 women worldwide.
The gel used in them was unauthorized, and the implants have
been associated with abnormally high rupture rates (PIP breast
implant recall, 2010). In these examples, the companies
involved paid for reparations to victims—and PIP was even shut
down.
An ethical concern that may not be as obvious as the preceding
examples because the harm is harder to identify has to do with
the immensely complicated "fine print" that we seem to
confront on an increasing basis. Every time we install or update
a software package we are required to accept a lengthy user
agreement filled with legalese unintelligible to (and ignored by)
most people. Hidden among the verbiage often are clauses that
have been described as "weasel words in contracts that allow a
company to change the terms at any time, or lay the groundwork
for sky-high fees, or that forbid a consumer from filing a
lawsuit." Web service providers such as Facebook and Google
have attracted firestorms of protest when they have decided to
make unilateral changes to their privacy policies that invariably
give the companies more freedom to make commercial use of
the users' information or browsing habits and eroding what little
is left of the individual's privacy. As Web entrepreneur David
Hirsch commented in an interview on the burgeoning practice,
"This fine-print world we're living in is bad for consumers, bad
for business, and bad for the country. You've got people not
understanding what they're agreeing to, and they're getting
clobbered" (Lazarus, 2011).
It may be glib to say that executives cheat, lie, fudge, and line
their own pockets because they can, or because it's
unfortunately more acceptable nowadays, or because no one will
find out. But isn't this at the heart of ethical behavior—to do the
"right" thing, even when no one is looking? Doing otherwise is
unethical, and there must be many more unreported instances
where people and organizations intentionally get away with
such behavior, thus, in their minds, legitimizing it.
Case Study
Corporate Ethics
On January 13, 2012, Carnival Corporation's Costa Concordia
cruise ship ran aground a reef and capsized off the Italian coast
after its captain, Francesco Schettino, steered the ship off the
approved course. The ship sustained a hole in its hull greater
than the length of a football field, causing it to take on water
immediately. The chaos that ensued aboard the ship of panic-
stricken passengers futilely seeking information and a
disorganized evacuation was heavily reported in international
news reports. Surviving passengers even reported that the ship's
safety briefing hadn't been conducted at the time of the disaster
and wasn't scheduled until the next day—three days after the
ship sailed. And this is just the beginning of the ethical issues
that arose in the days following the crash.
The captain's ethics were called into question when reports
emerged that he had an unauthorized female companion on the
ship's bridge at the time of the crash with whom he'd also
shared dinner and wine just minutes before, that he was
performing a close "sail-by" to show off to the residents of the
Island of Giglio or to "salute" a friend living on the island.
Days later, recordings of conversations between the captain and
Italian Coast Guard officials revealed that he had abandoned
ship and was aboard a lifeboat before most of the ships
passengers were evacuated. The Christian Science Monitor
concluded that Schettino had engaged in "a pattern of untruths
and attempted coverup" (Marquand, 2012, para. 1).
Carnival's corporate ethics were called into question, as well.
For example, Schettino later deflected attention from his initial
"salute" story with the claim that his corporate managers told
him to take the ship close to the shore as a publicity maneuver.
Surviving passengers described chaos aboard the ship as
language barriers, an unskilled crew, passenger lack of
knowledge about evacuation procedures, and malfunctioning
lifeboats all contributed to fear and panic. Reports indicate that
passengers were initially told that the problem was an electrical
failure; in an amateur video shot by a passenger, a crew member
is heard telling passengers: "The situation is under control. Go
back to your cabins. We ask you that you all return to your
cabins. Once the electrical problem is sorted out everything will
be back to normal shortly. Everything is under control. We are
resolving the problem" (Pisa, 2012). An hour passed before the
Captain ordered everyone to abandon ship, plunging nearly
4,000 people into complete chaos. During evacuation, crew
members appeared to have little control and offered minimal
support to panicked passengers—calling into questions
corporate safety procedures.
Subsequent to the disaster, the corporation's moral compass was
questioned when Carnival authorized call center employees to
phone survivors and offer "30% off their next voyage." News
accounts and editorials have labeled the offer "insensitive" and
"crass," indicating that the decision to offer the discounts was
an ill-conceived strategy for promoting company loyalty that
might, in fact, further damage the cruise line's reputation (Costa
Concordia disaster, 2012).
Finally, the wreck posed a grave threat to the maritime
environment and the health and safety of coastal residents amid
fears that the ship's 17 fuel tanks might begin to leak into the
sea. As National Public Radio noted, "What do you do with a
1,000-foot wreck … Remove it. Very carefully" (Neuman, 2012,
para. 1). The article further noted that removing the wreck
involved "logistical and environmental issues that are just as
large" as the ship (Neuman, 2012, para. 5).
Question for Critical Thinking and Engagement
Assume the role of a consultant hired by Carnival Corporation.
Prepare a briefing on the critical issues that executives,
management, and other leaders should address. What
recommendations would you make to the corporation relative to
public concerns about employee ethics, corporate safety
policies, and the impact of this disaster on the environment?
Discussion Questions
1. List as many reasons as you can why a company would wish
to abide by ethical standards. Organize the reasons based on
whether they are morally or economically motivated.
2. Do you think business executives, particularly CEOs, have a
general public image of behaving selfishly and unethically? Do
you think that reputation is deserved? Discuss.
3. Imagine you are looking for a job. Is the company's having an
ethical culture or behavior important to you? If so, how would
you go about determining this?
4. Imagine you are hiring people. Your company is proud of the
fact that it makes a profit by being ethical. How would you
ensure you are hiring people with a similar ethos?
5. Cite some examples of trust in business from your personal
experience or from reading the newspapers. What happens when
trust is lost?
6. What other industries not discussed in this section have also
succumbed to unethical behavior? Cite examples to justify your
choices.
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10.4 Ethical Dilemmas and How to Approac…
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10.4
Ethical Dilemmas and How to Approach Them
Every person will be faced with ethical dilemmas throughout
life; it is inevitable. By definition, the "right answer" is elusive.
An ethical dilemma arises when a person is presented with a
choice (ordinarily of action) in which one consideration is the
rightness or wrongness of the action (Christopher D. Stone, J.
Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, University of Southern
California, personal communication, October 3, 2011). Some
ethicists evaluate the action in itself, whatever the
consequences. Consider a situation in which a person is
attempting to shoot someone but realizes too late that the gun
isn't loaded; the act is unethical even though the target didn't
die. Others focus their evaluation on the consequences. For
example, lying, which is a "bad" act, may have good
consequences. Within the workplace, the "right thing to do" is
usually complicated by time pressures and conflicting financial
and political demands, and often comes with a price tag. While
we never seem to have the right answer when we need it, there
are five questions we can ask ourselves when faced with an
ethical dilemma that might well help us avoid making the wrong
decision:
De Agostini Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that moral
decisions should be based upon the one principle he called the
"Categorical Imperative"–act as if the maxim of your action
were to become the general law.
1. What's in it for me? How will my loved ones and I benefit,
and what price will I pay in terms such as time, money, effort,
and reputation? To fully understand what influences your self–
interest in a situation, it can be helpful to ask, "Would I be
comfortable sharing my real motives with the public?"
2. What decision or action would lead to the greatest good for
the greatest number? This presupposes that one knows and
understands the legitimate interests and values of others. John
Stuart Mill's classic work on utilitarianism holds that the
preferred decision is the one that will return the highest net
social benefit to all stakeholders (those people who might be
affected by the outcome) (Mill, 1906). Value conflicts can make
achieving such a noble outcome difficult; how do we define the
"greater good"? Many environmental and air-quality
regulations, for example, are motivated by a desire to protect
the general public and act in its behalf.
3. What laws, regulations, and written or unwritten social norms
apply in this situation? German philosopher Immanuel Kant
thought that moral decisions should be made by following a
principle he called the Categorical Imperative; behave as though
the maxim of your decision were to become a general law,
required of all people. Patricia Werhane, Director of the
Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul
University, asks the following germane questions implied by
such a rule-based perspective:
· Does the action set positive or negative precedents?
· Is the action acceptable to other reasonable persons?
· Is it applicable to other similar situations?
· Does it respect, or at least not denigrate, human dignity?
(Werhane, 1994)
4. What are my obligations to others? To understand this, one
has to appreciate the role of reciprocity and trust in society.
Reciprocity is a universal norm common to all human cultures;
it is embodied in the Golden Rule. Implicit in this view is that
people have to trust one another. How do you feel when
someone you've previously helped rejects your request for help?
Will you ever forget when someone you have helped many times
doesn't reciprocate?
5. What will the lasting impact be on me and on my key
stakeholders? Informed self–interest requires looking at the big
picture and assuming that one's self–interest is aligned with
societal interests. That is, one's self-interest rests on doing what
is right for others. For example, consider the actions of
environmentalists and others who make sacrifices for societal
movements.
These five questions in fact constitute a framework for
identifying ethical dilemmas and help think through any
inherent conflicts among the values and obligations they
underscore. The following three criteria will help you to choose
from and resolve those conflicts:
· Priority. In this instance, which questions are most applicable
to the key values held by you and your company?
· Balance. If you must compromise among your values, which is
the best tradeoff?
· Acceptance. How well will your decision and rationale fare if
submitted to public scrutiny? (Rossy, 2011)
In conclusion, ensure that you consider all five questions before
making a decision. Always keep in mind the pivotal role of
values when assessing the implications of the issues at hand.
Compare the short- and long-term consequences. Take your time
and avoid the urge to give into quick solutions that may be too
good to be true. Go with your instincts, but remain open to
counsel and advice. And be brave—sometimes the ethical
answer can be politically unpopular. As a way of thinking
through the ethical criteria just presented, consider the
following examples of common, everyday situations that many
employees face, and answer the related questions.
Everyday Ethics
Sheryl often takes home pens, pencils, printer paper, and other
small office supplies for her personal use—even though she
doesn't perform any work from home. Is Sheryl's behavior
ethical or unethical? Why or why not? Is there any "gray area"
to what Sheryl is doing? In other words, under any
circumstances, is her behavior ethical? What are the potential
consequences of Sheryl's behavior to others? To her
organization? How about to herself?
In order to get some new business, Phil overpromised, knowing
his company couldn't deliver. He told the prospect that their
orders would be delivered within 14 days, when he knew that
deliveries have been taking 30–45 days. He also told the client
that technology platforms were updated annually. However, due
to the recent economic downturn, Phil knew that the platform
hadn't been updated in over three years. What are the potential
consequences of Phil's distortions? Is Phil's behavior unethical,
or is he just doing what it takes to stay competitive in a tough
economic climate?
Suzanne works in management for a pet supply retail chain and
is upset by some questionable corporate policies about how
small animals sold by the store are cared for. For example, she
is not permitted to schedule cage cleaning for the hamsters and
birds as often as she believes is necessary for their optimal
health and well-being. What are her options? Are there any risks
to Suzanne should she decide to expose her employer's policies?
Do the benefits of blowing the whistle on corporate policy
outweigh the risks?
Cathy gets to work in the morning at the required hour, and
spends about 20 minutes having coffee with her friends before
heading to her desk. Cathy then spends the first hour of her day
checking her personal e-mail, Facebook account, and even
online dating sites. By about 10:00, she starts working; but she
keeps Facebook and her personal e-mail account open
throughout the day. Is Cathy's behavior ethical or unethical? Is
there any "gray area" to what Cathy is doing? In other words, is
her behavior acceptable? Would the answer be different if she is
able to complete her assigned tasks and meet deadlines?
Eric is a supervisor for a transportation company that has
several government contracts. This work is obtained through a
strict competitive bidding process regulated by the federal
government. He recently discovered that a coworker responsible
for preparing project bids is having an affair with an insider at
the government agency. Is the activity that Eric has observed
(or learned of) unethical? Why or why not? If Eric is reasonably
sure that the information he's learned is accurate, would it be
unethical if he chose to ignore it? Why or why not? What are
Eric's options?
Discussion Questions
1. Consider the case of a highly profitable public company that
is rewarding its stockholders with capital gains on rising stock
prices and dividend payouts. It is also awarding its top
management generous compensation packages with guaranteed
bonuses. Its rank-and-file employees, however, don't get raises
or bonuses or otherwise realize the effects of such impressive
corporate performance. In fact, the profit is achieved by keeping
labor and other costs down. Is this an ethical issue? Do such
companies perceive it as an ethical issue? Why or why not?
2. The role of unions has been to give a voice and some power
to employees as stakeholders. Have they balanced the ethical
issue? Do you see the rise in power of unions as a bad thing
because they constrain what management can do and increase
labor costs? Discuss.
3. If a corporation did not have an ethics officer, to whom
would someone report a breach of organizational ethics? What
if the alleged perpetrator were that person's manager?
4. When are ethics and ethics standards especially important in
companies?
5. Companies often require that their employees work long
hours or travel extensively. If you worked for such a company
but had young children or elderly relatives to care for, you
might find that your career would be jeopardized if you
declined these additional work pressures. Is it unethical for a
manager or a company to expect so much of employees despite
their needs as parents, caregivers, or other life outside work?
Discuss.
6. Is employing illegal migrant workers ethical? Why or why
not? What is the nature of the dilemma?
7. Why do companies do business with other companies in
China or Indonesia given unsettling reports one hears
concerning labor practices? Is saving a few extra dollars the
most important thing? Do companies realize that by doing so,
they are helping perpetuate such practices?
8. Companies don't give a second thought to outsourcing jobs to
lower-cost countries. Does the end (making profits) always
justify the means? What does it say about the companies'
attitude to its workers?
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10.5 Can Ethics Be Taught?
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10.5
Can Ethics Be Taught?
Associated Press/Matt Houston
Ethics classes may teach ethics, but by the time students get to
college, most have learned their personal values from their
family environment.
Today, every business school includes courses in ethics or
requires ethics to be a part of every course in its curriculum.
Judging by the results, however, the regular reports of unethical
practices in business suggest the requirement hasn't made much
difference. An informal poll of students in a business program a
few years ago posed two questions: "Would you cheat if you
knew for certain you would not be found out?" and "Would you
cheat if everyone else was cheating?" Sadly, over 85% of the
students answered "Yes" to each question. This experience
seems to be shared by many instructors in business education.
College business students are more likely to practice academic
dishonesty, such as plagiarizing or cheating on exams, than
students who are pursuing different majors or careers (McCabe
& Treviño, 1995). Based on research showing that business-
school students' moral reasoning skills may be ranked lower
than students in philosophy, political science, law, medicine,
and dentistry, business students may require increased ethics
training (McCabe & Treviño, 1993). Lester Thurow, former
Dean of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, believes the
foundation of ethics must begin with family, clergy, schooling,
and the jobs students hold prior to business school (Treviño &
Nelson, 2007).
In the mid-'90s, Joseph Badaracco, an ethics professor at
Harvard Business School did some research on MBA graduates
that had taken an ethics course at Harvard and faced ethical
dilemmas in the business world. Fifty percent of them had been
employed by companies with official ethics programs. He
wrote: "Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission
statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help . . . the
young managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on
the basis of personal reflection and individual values, not
through reliance on corporate credos, company loyalty, the
exhortations of senior executives, philosophical principles, or
religious reflection" (Badaracco & Webb, 1995, p. 9). In other
words, their personal integrity came from their upbringing
rather than from ethics courses.
To find out how students felt about the business world, another
professor asked his students a series of questions, one of which
was whether they would dump known carcinogens in a river.
Astonishingly, the students said that they would, claiming if
they did not, someone else would. When asked if such a
pessimistic environment was one in which they would like to
live, students made the argument that they already lived in one.
Disheartened, the professor concluded that his students'
attitudes had been shaped long before his course began. He
decided, as others had before him, that as a society, our
obsession with money and material goods was producing future
generations eager to succeed at any cost (Treviño & Nelson,
2007).
People, it turns out, are taught values early in life. If they do
have a set of values that includes honesty, fairness, and
selflessness, being around others that dismiss their values out of
self-interest will quickly erode them. Parents will attest to
changes that take place when their teenage children begin
paying more attention to their peer group than to them. It
becomes really challenging when people learn that in order to
"win" (whether it's passing a test or climbing the career ladder),
they have to sacrifice their values and ethics.
Boys and girls that participate in sports in middle and high
school and college are fortunate because, besides acquiring
skills and stamina, they are taught the ethics of good
sportsmanship and other character-building traits, such as
teamwork, discipline, and sacrificing individualism for the
team. Unfortunately, there are coaches—and parents—that
preach winning at any cost. In some sports such as track & field
and cycling, we have almost reached a point where there is a
presumption of guilt against those who are successful. When
athletes in any sport are caught cheating, the common refrain is
that "everyone else is doing it so I had to as well just to
compete."
To conclude, the values and ethics ingrained in us from a very
early age by our parents and family are the most reliable
indicator of how we will fare when ethically tested later in our
careers, no matter what those careers are. However, even people
with good values and ethics can, when thrust into morally and
ethically wanting corporations, behave unethically. When told
by your manager to fudge some data or do something else that's
wrong, do you comply in order to remain in their good graces
and stay on that fast track up the corporate ladder, or do you
stand your ground and risk not only your prospects but also
your job? And when you are a few years from retirement, do
you succumb to such demands or lose everything, knowing that
getting another job at your age is highly unlikely? It is the
unusual corporation that develops an ethical system and culture
to make sure that employees behave ethically and want to
behave ethically. One way that organizations can teach,
encourage, and promote ethical behavior is by creating and
modeling social responsibility and good citizenship through
policies. Corporate social responsibility policies will be covered
in the next section.
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10.6 Corporate Social Responsibility
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10.6
Corporate Social Responsibility
George Rose/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Economist Milton Friedman considers a corporation's sole
responsibility to society to be to make a profit and continue to
create wealth and jobs.
Perceptions of corporate social responsibility vary widely. As
University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman wrote almost
50 years ago: "Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the
very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by
corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make
as much money for their stockholders as possible" (Friedman,
1962). Many people still believe, like Milton Friedman, that a
corporation's sole responsibility to society is to make a profit so
it can continue to provide jobs for people and thereby sustain
communities and standards of living. To many others, corporate
social responsibility (CSR) is so much more. For example, The
Gap Inc. has a comprehensive social responsibility commitment
that encompasses a youth development program, an
environmental protection plan that addresses supply chain and
in-store issues, and community investment that confronts social
challenges (Gap, n.d.).
CSR is the idea that business has a duty to serve society as well
as the financial interest of stockholders (Pierce & Robinson,
2005). CSR was conceptualized by Archie B. Carroll of the
University of Georgia as a pyramid that represents various kinds
of social responsibility (Figure 10.1). Economic
responsibilities, at the base of the pyramid, are met by all well-
managed corporations; the ones that aren't well managed fail or
are acquired. The economic responsibility is to make as much
profit as possible in order to create wealth and jobs. Then
follow in order of importance legal, ethical, and philanthropic
responsibilities. The pyramid is useful because it not only
provides a structure for discussion but also demonstrates the
complexities of the topic—different people perceive CSR to
mean different things.
Legal Responsibilities
Companies are duty bound to honor the law and not break it in
whichever country they do business. This is called their legal
responsibilities. As was discussed earlier, many regulations and
laws are enacted to protect the public and the public good, and
there are a plethora of government agencies responsible for
enforcing them, including the following:
· The Securities and Exchange Commission for ensuring the
proper functioning of the securities industry (online and stock
exchanges) and the integrity of financial reporting for public
companies
· Occupational Safety Health Administration for ensuring safety
in the workplace
· The Environmental Protection Agency for protecting the
environment
· The US CPSC, while not a government agency, still has the
authority to ensure the safety of consumer products sold in the
United States
· The Internal Revenue Service for collecting taxes owed the
federal government
· The National Labor Relations Board for minimizing unfair
labor practices and ideally preventing them from happening
Figure 10.1: Corporate social responsibility pyramid
Source: From A. B. Carroll, "The pyramid of corporate social
responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational
stakeholders." Business Horizons, Vol. 34 No. 4, 1991, pp. 39-
48. Copyright © Elsevier. Used with permission.
These agencies came into being to enforce appropriate
regulations and laws to prevent corporations from inflicting
harm on particular constituencies—investors, workers,
consumers, the environment, and so on. Corporations know
about these laws and the consequences for breaking them; it is
their obligation to the shareholders and employees to be aware
of the laws. Despite this, they may commit both errors of
commission (they know about the laws but still try to
circumvent them) and omission (they are not aware of particular
laws or their consequences or don't agree with them). But are
these laws effective? Do they succeed in changing the corporate
behavior that is at the root of much malfeasance?
As far back as 1975, Christopher Stone (1975) of the University
of Southern California Law School explored this very topic. He
found maximization of profits to be the dominant characteristic
of corporations and that, by and large, corrective actions by the
law in terms of fines and penalties for wrongdoing had little
effect on changing behavior. They were perceived as a "cost of
doing business" so long as they were a relatively small
percentage of profits, so firms simply paid them and then went
about business as usual. In 2011 United States District Court
Judge Jed Rakoff took a strong stand from the bench regarding
the culpability of financial institutions in the mortgage crisis
that contributed to the recent recession. He refused to approve a
boilerplate agreement between Citigroup and the Securities and
Exchange Commission to settle a civil fraud case in which Citi
was accused of having loaded a $1 billion mortgage fund with
securities that it believed would fail. Citi sold the fund to
investors and then it bet against its customers and reaped
enormous profits when values declined. The settlement Rakoff
rejected called for Citigroup to pay $285 million, which the
judged described as "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate,
nor in the public interest." He characterized the $285 million
figure as "pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup,"
and stated that large financial institutions regard such penalties
"as a cost of doing business." In reaching this opinion, Judge
Rakoff noted that Citigroup had settled similar cases with the
SEC in the past and promised not to repeat the same behavior.
The judge, in rejecting the agreement referred to Citi as "a
repeat offender" (Wyatt, 2011).
To make penalties so severe as to jeopardize a company's ability
to continue to produce goods and possibly force it out of
business would be counterproductive and perhaps viewed as
overregulation. Stone made persuasive arguments in his book
that the law, as part of the punishment for specific kinds of
wrongdoing should insert into the corporation a probation
officer or trustee, answerable to the court, to make sure that
procedures are changed and that the problem would not recur.
The types of offenses for which he envisions this type of
remedy include the kind where the source of the problem could
be ascertained, like the poor design of a car, quality of
materials purchased not checked, cooking foods to the wrong
temperature, lack of quality inspections, and the like.
It seems that laws and regulations play a necessary but far from
sufficient role in trying to get corporations to behave more
responsibly; so long as corporations can absorb the costs
incurred when they are indicted, in all likelihood they will
continue to do whatever they want in pursuit of profit. The best
solution, as Stone surmises, is for corporations to want to
behave ethically. While a good number do, that number is not
nearly large enough.
Ethical Responsibilities
Vince Mannino/Bettmann/Corbis
Corporations dislike becoming ethically responsible of their
own volition. Ralph Nader and others formed Campaign GM to
buy GM stock and wage a proxy fight against GM, urging them
to adopt stricter testing and environmental standards.
Notwithstanding the ethics of individuals within a company,
companies themselves are often reluctant to become ethically
responsible on their own. They are typically pushed to do so by
critics or stockholders. Campaign GM, formed by Ralph Nader
and others, bought stock in General Motors and proceeded to
wage a proxy fight to force GM to adopt stricter testing and
environmental standards and to put women and representatives
from minority groups on its board of directors. Corporations
have found themselves trying to satisfy their critics while at the
same time hoping the critics would go away. How could
corporations become socially responsible if their management
couldn't, even in principle, determine what their social
obligations were (Wyatt, 2011)?
Corporations and researchers developed a new idea—instead of
being socially responsible, why not be socially responsive? As
long as a company was "responsive" to the demands of society
and tried to anticipate and meet these demands, it didn't have to
worry about being "responsible." In other words, it would have
no obligation to be moral or ethical. Corporate social
responsiveness is primarily pragmatic and perverts the
connection between ethics and strategy. It is simple, easy, and
wrongheaded (Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). It conveniently
sidesteps the true notion of responsibility.
Ethical responsibilities encompass the more general
responsibility to do the right thing and avoid doing undue harm
to others. Unless a company's culture and public declarations
put a priority on behaving ethically, individual managers will
have a hard time being true to their values—swimming against
the tide, so to speak. It is much easier to "go along" if it's okay
with everyone else. In the rare instance when it's not okay, that
individual will tender his or her resignation and join a company
whose values are aligned with the individual's own.
Philanthropic Responsibilities
Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images
In U.S. culture, wealthy individuals and businesses are expected
to share their good fortune. Many of the wealthiest billionaires
in the United States are prolific philanthropists. Bill and
Melinda Gates top the list, having given $24 billion to their Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation to help bridge the gap in human
health between the developed and developing world.
Philanthropic responsibilities are voluntary and engage the
corporation's participation in activities that promote human
welfare and goodwill. These take the form of donations of time
or money to any of a number of deserving causes, charities, and
civic-related projects. However, because such activities are
voluntary and discretionary, failure to be philanthropic is not
considered unethical, and some don't consider it even a
responsibility (Treviño & Nelson, 2007).
It was Milton Friedman who said, in not so many words, that
giving corporate profits to charity or using them in a way that
doesn't benefit stockholders was tantamount to stealing from
stockholders (Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). Wouldn't it make more
sense to return excess profits to the stockholders and let them
decide to donate the money to causes near and dear to their
hearts? What right does the corporation (and its board of
directors) have to give its money away?
Fortunately, many companies feel it is their duty to "give back"
to society and to contribute where the need is greatest. When
the tsunami of 2004 hit Southeast Asia, companies like FedEx,
Abbott Laboratories, and Coca-Cola jumped in to help. Over
100 companies are estimated to have sent $178 million worth of
cash and medicine to affected countries, many doing so quietly,
not announcing or advertising their contributions (Chandler,
2005). Many corporations also responded swiftly in September
2005 to help victims of hurricane Katrina after it rampaged
through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Walmart donated
over $20 million to aid victims and donated 1,500 truckloads of
free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals, and the promise of
jobs for all displaced workers (Barbaro & Gillis, 2005). The
recent earthquake, tsunami, and resultant nuclear accident that
hit northern Japan on March 11, 2011, cost an estimated 22,000
lives and an estimated $300 billion, not counting the tens of
thousands that were still homeless months later. The nuclear
contamination is expected to persist for decades. The flood of
donations and assistance from countries, nongovernmental
entities, corporations, and individuals has come from every
region of the world. Businesses have provided donations of
cash, materials, and services to help the victims. Many, such as
Sony and Mitsubishi from Japan, Disney and Goldman Sachs
from the United States, and Pak Suzuki Motors from Pakistan
have contributed matching funds to supplement employee
donations (Philanthropy News Digest, 2011). Again, these are
examples of the best of human nature, coming to the aid of
those less fortunate and in dire need.
In the United States, there is a tradition of philanthropy on the
part of wealthy individuals and businesses. In support of this,
the federal tax code includes tax incentives to do so. Many of
the wealthiest individuals and families in the United States are
prolific givers. Bill Gates tops the list, having given generously
to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over the years to help
bridge the gap in human health that exists between the
developed and developing world (Treviño & Nelson, 2007).
Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor in recent
history, has, in addition to donating in excess of $9.5 billion to
the Gates Foundation alone, committed to donating the bulk of
his fortune to charity on his death. Further, he has persuaded
more than 40 other billionaires to pledge the majority of their
fortunes to charity during or after their lifetimes. The
commitments by these benefactors are expressed in personal
letters from each at Giving Pledge.com, describing the role
philanthropy has played in their lives.
Other forms of philanthropy support the arts (such as symphony
orchestras, opera companies, and museums), city beautification
projects (such as commissioning a work of art or a garden),
scholarships for students, research facilities at universities,
hospitals, libraries, and so on. Many high-profile contemporary
organizations have significant corporate social responsibility
programs. For example, retailer Target contributes 5% of its
income to programs benefitting local communities with a Target
presence (Target.com, 2008). Philanthropy goes beyond "doing
the right thing," because it is something no one has a right to
expect but something for which everyone is thankful.
Many of America's cities owe their greatest cultural features—
museums, artwork, buildings, auditoriums, schools, and
community facilities to the philanthropic efforts of corporate
families such as the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and
many more. Just walk around any university campus, and the
names of some of those who have donated to fund education
will be evident in the names of the buildings.
Environmental Responsibilities
Associated Press/Tokyo Electric Power Co.
For consumers, the benefits of using nuclear power rather than
fossil fuels are overshadowed by the risk of nuclear accidents,
such as the one that occurred at the Fukushima nuclear facility
in Japan in March of 2011.
Externalities are costs to society, such as air and water
pollution, that are produced by companies but not reflected in
the company's cost structure (Kuttner, 1997). Historically, it
was cheaper for such companies to pollute than not to; profits
won out over the harm being done to society. The only way to
protect society was through regulation. Thus, despite the
aversion that companies have for regulations, not all are bad;
some force an ethical standard on companies that otherwise
would be ignored.
Because environmental responsibilities was not included in the
pyramid shown in Figure 10.1, one shouldn't assume that they
are "less important" or of a "lower order" of responsibility than
philanthropic responsibilities. On the contrary, they are a vital
part of corporate social responsibility and becoming more so
with each passing year.
What we are talking about here is a company accepting
responsibility for and reducing the adverse environmental
effects stemming from its operations. Not only are expectations
rising for corporations to become more environmentally
responsible but technologies are advancing even faster to make
some actions possible that only a few years ago were not. Take
genetically engineered crops and genetically modified foods—
are they safe, and what will be the effect on farmers in regions
where GM crops are planted (Schwartz & Gibb, 1999)? Or
consider the case of Pacific Gas and Electric's contamination of
the water supply in a small California town popularized in the
film Erin Brockovich. It turns out that 20 years later, water
samples indicate that PG&E has not solved the problem.
Despite this bad news, a growing number of companies are
becoming more environmentally responsible— leading one
scholar to label the phenomenon business's new "megatrend"
(Reid, 2010). For instance, the Coca-Cola Corporation has
partnered with communities to restore watersheds (Coca-Cola
Company, n.d.). Apple seeks to lead the industry in "reducing or
eliminating environmentally harmful substances" from its
packaging and the metal and plastic in its parts (Apple and the
environment, n.d.); and hotelier Marriott is focused on
"integrating greater environmental sustainability . . . through
architecture and construction, engineering and procurement
(Marriott, n.d.).
While companies are motivated by current pressures and
existing laws to "clean up after themselves" in the short term,
they resist making investments in causes such as research
toward long-term solutions to the adverse environmental
impacts of their operations. Generally, the immediate pressures
to produce profits prevail. Michael Porter has said that pollution
is in itself a form of inefficiency in production, creating
negative externalities that until now companies have been able
to shift on to the public sector (Schwartz & Gibb, 1999). Will
there come a time when the accounting profession begins to
include costs for safeguarding the environment as a legitimate
cost of doing business? Probably not until everyone in an
industry is forced to do the same thing. Of course, in some
industries, such costs are much higher than in others (for
example, preventing oil spills, nuclear accidents, and tainted
food).
Another problem is the growing skepticism the consumers have
for technological advances being risk-free. A case in point is
nuclear power, where the potential benefits over using fossil
fuels are balanced by the real risks of a nuclear accident such as
the one experienced in Japan in March 2011. In a cost/benefit
analysis of nuclear power, how do you account for the
possibility of a major nuclear accident or the risk in storing
irradiated spent fuel for hundreds of years?
But whom do we blame for overly high levels of mercury in
seafood? For the dumping of plastic and other indecomposable
garbage now swirling in the Pacific Ocean in two pools, each
the size of Texas? For rapidly depleting the world's supply of
fossil fuel? For adding to our global carbon footprint? For
changing global climate patterns?
Taking care of negative externalities caused by a particular
firm's operations is one thing, but there is growing evidence of
massive environmental damage that is collectively caused,
making it difficult to pin blame and rendering the law helpless.
While I don't have any solutions (nor is this the appropriate
forum for delving into the full extent of the problems),
becoming aware of the problems is a first step, followed closely
by nations getting together to try to mitigate them. How bad do
they have to get before we are all forced to cooperate and take
responsibility for solving them?
Discussion Questions
1. In your opinion, what is the most pressing environmental
problem: (a) that particular corporations are responsible for, and
(b) that the global community is responsible for. Explain your
choices.
2. Why is the law so far behind developments and policymakers
even further behind? (Stone's book, for example, is a call for
policymakers to act.) Is it because not enough facts are
available, or there is too much ambiguity, or the costs of
following through too high? Discuss.
3. If companies were suddenly expected to bear the costs of
their negative externalities, whether or not you agree that is
just, how do you think it will affect their stock prices, their
prospects for the future, their investors, and their other
stakeholders?
4. Following on from (3), do you believe it will spur innovation
and investment in innovation?
5. What particular advantages accrue to companies who
proactively take steps to safeguard the environment (like
BMW), besides giving them a warm, fuzzy feeling?
6. Just from your perception over the past few years of reading
the papers and listening to the news, what has accelerated
interest in environmental responsibilities of corporations? Has
it been the growth of environmental "watchdogs," investor
activism, or consumer pressure? Discuss your thinking.
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Summary and Key Terms
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Summary
Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of doing the right
thing when it will cost more than we want to pay, which is a
better definition for the business world than the traditional
definition of "the art and discipline of applying principles and
frameworks to analyze and resolve complex moral dilemmas."
Morality is knowing the difference between right and wrong and
choosing right. Someone who is immoral also knows the
difference but chooses wrong. Values are tenets that are
important to an individual or group and the ways that govern
how they choose to live their life. An unethical act has immoral
intent and is done with the full knowledge that it is legally and
morally wrong or contravenes the prevailing societal or
organizational culture. Unethical behavior consists of conduct
undertaken to benefit a person or organization while
knowingly—or being oblivious to the possibility of—harming
others. Behavior is still considered unethical if the act is
wrongful, whether or not it results in harm.
Why do people behave unethically? In most instances, they are
motivated by self-interest. Often they justify such behavior by
claiming that other people are getting away with it. Fudging
data to make quarterly results look good or to qualify for a
bonus, cutting corners to meet production targets, and obeying
an order by your manager to cover something up are a few
examples of unethical behaviors. Organizations, particularly
large ones, are so focused on meeting profit goals, buoying their
stock price, and pleasing their stockholders that they may go to
great lengths to avoid or minimize unnecessary expenditures.
This includes a proclivity for externalizing whatever costs they
can such as pollution. In some industries it is common for firms
to tolerate fines and penalties for breaking the law or to settle a
lawsuit so long as they are a fraction of profits, but continuing
to do "business as usual." To some, this is simply a cost of
doing business.
Ethical issues arise whenever people are tempted to behave
unethically or not do the "right" thing. In the business world
they include a host of issues. In the sphere of human resources,
they include such matters as discrimination, sexual and other
forms of harassment, and conflicts of interest. Customer-
confidence issues encompass confidentiality, product safety,
truth in advertising, and fiduciary responsibilities. The use, or
misuse, of corporate resources includes such behaviors as co-
opting corporate reputation, stealing corporate resources, and
falsifying data. The root problems in most of these instances are
unfairness, lack of respect, and self-interest.
All of us face ethical dilemmas—a choice in which one
consideration is the rightness or wrongness of the action—at
some point in our careers. You will recognize you are facing
one when you're not sure what the right thing to do is. However,
asking yourself five questions might help you avoid making the
wrong decision: (1) What is in it for me? (2) What decision or
action would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number?
(3) What laws, regulations, and social norms apply in this
situation? (4) What are my obligations to others? (5) What will
the lasting impact be on me and on my key stakeholders? Three
further questions will aid in resolving conflicts you may
encounter: In the current situation, which questions above relate
most to your personal and organizational values? If those values
must be jeopardized, which is the best tradeoff? How well will
your decision and rationale fare if submitted to public scrutiny?
It is naive to think that ethics can be taught either in the
workplace or in business school. Research has shown that such
courses make little if any difference and that one's values and
ethics are molded early on in life by our parents, family, church
or religious group, and so on. Those values and ethics turn out
to be the most reliable indicator of how we will fare when
ethically tested later in our careers, no matter what those
careers are. However, even people with good values and ethics
can, when thrust into morally and ethically challenged cultures,
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HTY 110HA Assignment 7 Click here and review the informat.docx

  • 1. HTY 110HA Assignment 7 Click here and review the information and guidelines for the Presentation Project that is due in Module 8. To prepare for the project, during this module you will submit, on a Word document, your chosen immigrant or refugee group for the presentation. This submission must include the following information: 1. Chosen immigrant or refugee group (cannot be any of the following already covered extensively within the modules: Irish, German, Jewish, or Chinese) 2. At least five internet sites and/or articles that you have found to locate the necessary information about your chosen group; include a summary about each source that explains the information available from the source cles must include: o Title and date of the article o The author o Where you found the article (which database or eBook) o A few sentences explaining what information you found (or expect to find) in each article :
  • 2. o Should end in .org or .edu or .gov in order for you to obtain the most reliable information o The URL for the website o A few sentences explaining what information you found (or expect to find) in each article. Submit this assignment to the Dropbox no later than Sunday 11:59 PM EST/EDT. To locate Information and articles: LibGuide (library guide): In it are guides to the modules, research guides, video links, film suggestions and links, map links, reading overview links, images, assignment, essay and presentation examples, grading rubrics, and much more. http://saintleo.libguides.com/immigration From EBSCO “History Reference Center”: 1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html. 2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column. 3. Click on Databases. 4. Scroll down to the EBSCO and click on it. 5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if prompted. 6. Scroll down to History Reference Center. 7. Select “U.S History” or “World History.” 8. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper left. For example, if you enter a search for “Refugees” or for “Italian Immigrants,” many articles are available.
  • 3. From ProQuest: 1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html. 2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column. 3. Click on Databases. 4. Scroll down to ProQuest and click on it. 5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if prompted. 6. Enter your search term in the search window. For example, if you enter a search for “Cambodian Refugees” and scroll through the etnries, many articles are available including one called “Braving a New World: Cambodian (Khmer) Refugees in an American City.” http://mediaweb.saintleo.edu/Courses/HTY110HA/HTY110HA_ Presentation_Project.pdf http://saintleo.libguides.com/immigration http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html From the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History: 1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html. 2. Scroll down to the “FIND INFO” column. 3. Click on E-Books.
  • 4. 4. Scroll down to “CQ Press Encyclopedias,” then select Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History. 5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if prompted. 6. Click on the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History link. 7. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper left. For example, if you type in “Cuban Refugees” (this might take a few minutes to load). You will then see several entries related to Cuban refugees. From the Oxford Encyclopedias of African American History, Latinos and Latinas in the United States, Human Rights, International Encyclopedia of Peace, and more… 1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html. 2. Scroll down to “FIND INFO” column. 3. Click on E-Books. 4. Scroll down to Oxford Digital Reference Collection and click on this link. 5. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if prompted. 6. Scroll through the choices until you locate one in which you are interested. For example, if you select the “Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States” you might type “Mexican American deportation” in the search window to the upper right. You will then see several entries related to this topic.
  • 5. From the CQ Researcher 1. Go to the Saint Leo Library website http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html. 7. Scroll down to “FIND INFO” column. 2. Click on Databases. 3. Scroll down to CQ Researcher and click on it. 4. Enter your Saint Leo portal username and password if prompted. 5. Enter your search term in the search window on the upper right. For example, if you enter the search term “refugees,” many articles will appear. http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html http://saintleolibrary.cloudaccess.net/homepage.html Ashford 6: - Week 5 (Jun 23 - Jun 29) The Forbes School of Business at Ashford University is proud to announce two scholarship opportunities. The application process for both scholarships is quick and easy. Please visit: http://www.ashford.edu/admissions/scholarships.htm for more information and a chance to secure $5000.00 towards your educational cost at Ashford University. Week Five Learning Outcomes This week the students will: · Evaluate the nature of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) · Explain the role of corporations in being economically, legally, ethically, philanthropically, and environmentally responsible. · Assess the different strategies an international corporation can
  • 6. use to extend its markets Overview Assignment Due Date Format Grading Percent Corporate Social Responsibility Day 3 (1st post) Discussion 2.5 International Strategies Day 3 (1st post) Discussion 2.5 Final Case Study and Strategic Plan Day 7 Assignment 40 Required Readings Abraham, S. (2012). Strategic management for organizations. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education. This text is a Constellation™ course digital materials (CDM) title. · Chapter 10: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility · Chapter 11: Diversified, Global, and Other Types of Organizations
  • 7. Recommended Resources Article Favaro, K. (2014). How IKEA, Disney, and Berkshire Hathaway succeed with adjacencies. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/boozandcompany/2014/03/31/how- ikea-disney-and-berkshire-hathaway-succeed-with-adjacencies/ Fisher, G. S. (2012). Why global diversification still makes sense. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/greggfisher/2012/01/17/why- global-diversification-still-makes-sense/ Geromel, R. (2012). Can we use corporate social responsibility to evaluate companies?Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2012/05/21/csr- corporate-social-responsibility/ Guthrie, D. (2014). A conversation on corporate social responsibility. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougguthrie/2014/01/09/a- conversation-on-corporate-social-responsibility/ Henderson, R., & Reavis, C. (2009, August 25).What’s Driving Porsche? Retrieved from https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/CaseDocs/08-075- What%27s%20Driving%20Porsche.Henderson.pdf History of Porsche AG – FundingUniverse. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company- histories/porsche-ag-history/ To participate in the following discussions, go to this
  • 8. week's Discussion link in the left navigation. 1. Corporate Social Responsibility [CLO: 5] In your own words, explain what corporate social responsibility (CSR) is. Name two examples of social responsible companies you know and explain why you consider them so. We learned that CSR can be viewed as a pyramid with Philanthropic Responsibilities at the top. Discuss what particular advantages accrue to companies who proactively take steps to be philanthropically responsible. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from your textbook and this week’s lecture. 2. International Strategies [CLO: 4] When companies expand into the international arena, they do so either because their home market has matured or because they see real opportunities in the foreign market. Discuss which kinds of international strategies are most appropriate for companies in the following domestic industries: · Producing movies · Software · Management consulting · Breakfast cereals · School of business Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from your textbook and this week’s lecture..
  • 9. Assignment To complete the following assignment, go to this week's Assignment link in the left navigation. Final Case Study and Strategic Plan [CLOs: 1,2,3,4,5] Read What’s Driving Porsche? and History of Porsche AG – FundingUniverse. From the perspective of an executive with the firm, prepare a strategic plan to grow the business over the next three years. Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must: · Describe Porsche’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion). · Explain the current situation of the organization in the market (industry, market, and general environment analysis). · Assess the financial performance and condition of the organization. · Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to determine areas that offer opportunities for change. · Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and explain why the areas you have chosen are essential to your strategic plan. · Describe your recommended organizational structure. · Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic plan. Your paper must be 10 to 12 pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages) and be formatted according to APA style guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. In addition to the text, you must use at least five scholarly sources. Remember to incorporate information that you have learned from this course as well as your personal experience. Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment
  • 10. Weekly Lecture Business Ethics Ethics refers to accepted principles of right or wrong that measure the conduct of a person, the members of a profession, or the actions of an organization (Abraham, 2012, p. 278). Managers may be confronted with ethical dilemmas while pursuing strategies that maximize the long-term profitability of the organization. We need to consider that the quest for profitability should not be constrained only by law, but also by ethical considerations. Ethical Issues in Strategy The ethical issues that managers confront are often due to the conflict between the goals of the company and the rights of the stakeholders. The most common examples of unethical behavior involve: self-dealing, information manipulation, and anti- competitive behavior among others. Proponents of the stakeholder view of business ethics often argue that managers should behave in an ethical manner to ensure the support of the stakeholders, which will ultimately benefit both the stakeholder and organizations. Others argue that acting ethically is simply the right thing to do. When facing an ethical dilemma, managers can ask themselves five questions that might help in making the right decision: 1. What's in it for me? 2. What decision or action would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number? 3. What rules, policies, and social norms (written or unwritten) apply in this situation? 4. What are my obligations to others? 5. What will be the long-term impact on me and on important stakeholders (Abraham, 2012, p. 287)? For a real life example of the role of ethics in determining company actions, see this discussion on Nike and the use of sweatshops:
  • 11. http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/05/02/sweatshops-in- bangladesh-improve-the-lives-of-their-workers-and-boost- growth/ Corporate Social Responsibilities Ethics and social responsibility are closely related. Social responsibility is the conscious effort to operate in a manner that creates a win-win situation for all stakeholders. It is often called corporate social responsibility as CSR is an umbrella term for exploring the responsibilities of business and its role in society (Abraham, 2012, p. 287). Corporations have a responsibility to try to create a win-win situation for stakeholders. For customers, the corporation must provide safe products and services with customer value. For society, the corporation should improve the quality of life, or at least not destroy the environment. The corporation must compete fairly with competitors. Through technology, the corporation should develop new ways of increasing customer value and the quality of life. The corporation must work with suppliers in a cooperative manner. It must abide by the laws and regulations of government. The corporation must strive to provide equal-employment opportunities for the labor force. It must be financially responsible in relation to the economy. The corporation must provide shareholders with a reasonable profit. It must provide employees with safe working conditions with adequate pay and benefits. For a discussion on the use of social media to promote CSR, you may find the following article interesting: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/07/how-the-voice-of-the-people-is/ Going Global As companies expand into foreign markets, they face the challenge of how best to organize their activities across different nations and regions. The five most common strategies include: • Exporting and market expansion • Strategic alliances • Joint ventures
  • 12. • Acquisition There are a number of ways in which global expansion can enable companies to increase and rapidly grow profitability. At the most basic level, global expansion increases the size of the market in which a company is competing, thereby boosting profit growth. Global expansion offers opportunities for reducing the cost structure of the enterprise or adding value through differentiation, thereby potentially boosting profitability. A company can increase its growth rate by taking goods or services developed at home and selling them internationally. The Ford Mustang is an excellent example of a product that is being launched globally. Ford CEO, Alan Mulally talks about the challenges of changing the look and feel of the Mustang to appeal to international and domestic customers. Check out the video here: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/12/05/n- ford-new-mustang-mulally.cnnmoney/ Startups and Small Business A small business is a business that is independently owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low value of sales (Abraham, 2012, p. 322). Small businesses are generally less bound by bureaucracy and corporate policies and usually maintain closer relationships with their customers. In other words, their flexibility affords them the ability to focus on their customers and meet their needs, which naturally generates customer loyalty. At the same time, small firms often grow out of the innovative ideas of their entrepreneurial founders, and therefore this mindset is likely to prevail in the small business. The U.S. Small Business Administration provides numerous articles on starting and managing a small business. Check out its website here: http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation- structure/starting-managing-business When starting a new business, managers should consider developing a business plan which helps to ensure systematic coverage of the important factors to be considered in starting a new business. By identifying the variables that can affect the
  • 13. success or failure of the business, the business plan becomes a model that helps the entrepreneur and any employees focus on important issues and activities for the new venture. Finally, a business plan is essential when additional capital from outside investors will be needed at some time in the foreseeable future. The Forbes website provides valuable information on writing a successful business plan: http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/05/14/how-to- write-a-business-succession-plan/ Nonprofit Organizations The fundamental difference between nonprofit and for-profit organizations is that the primary goal for a nonprofit organization is not financial in nature. Another major difference between nonprofit and for-profit organizations is that nonprofit funding comes from a third party rather than a customer. Lastly, nonprofits are cause driven and socially geared (Abraham, 2012, p. 324). Although some noteworthy differences exist, the manager’s role is the same in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. All managers need management skills, perform management functions, and play management roles regardless of the organization type. SPACE ON RYDER FARM is an excellent example of a leading arts nonprofit. For a brief discussion of the nonprofit and its founder, Emily Simoness, visit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tiffanypham/2014/06/05/how-i-did- it-from-actress-to-founder-executive-director-of-a-leading-arts- nonprofit/ References: Abraham, S. (2014). Strategic management for organizations. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education. Ashford 6: - Week 5 - Discussion 1
  • 14. Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Reference the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated. Corporate Social Responsibility [CLO: 5] In your own words, explain what corporate social responsibility (CSR) is. Name two examples of social responsible companies you know and explain why you consider them so. We learned that CSR can be viewed as a pyramid with Philanthropic Responsibilities at the top. Discuss what particular advantages accrue to companies who proactively take steps to be philanthropically responsible. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from your textbook and this week’s lecture. shford 6: - Week 5 - Discussion 2 International Strategies [CLO:4] When companies expand into the international arena, they do so either because their home market has matured or because they
  • 15. see real opportunities in the foreign market. Discuss which kinds of international strategies are most appropriate for companies in the following domestic industries: · Producing movies · Software · Management consulting · Breakfast cereals · School of business Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from your textbook and this week’s lecture. Ashford 6: - Week 5 - Final Case Study Final Case Study and Strategic Plan [CLOs: 1,2,3,4,5] Read What’s Driving Porsche? and History of Porsche AG – FundingUniverse. From the perspective of an executive with the firm, prepare a strategic plan to grow the business over the next three years. Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must: · Describe Porsche’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion). · Explain the current situation of the organization in the market (industry, market, and general environment analysis). · Assess the financial performance and condition of the organization. · Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to determine areas that offer opportunities for change. · Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and
  • 16. explain why the areas you have chosen are essential to your strategic plan. · Describe your recommended organizational structure. · Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic plan. Your paper must be 10 to 12 pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages) and be formatted according to APA style guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. In addition to the text, you must use at least five scholarly sources. Remember to incorporate information that you have learned from this course as well as your personal experience. Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENT Porsche’s Analysis XXXXXXXXXX BUS 402 Strategic Management & Business Policy XXXXXXXXXXX June 8, 2015 Porsche Automobil Holding SE, typically abbreviated to Porsche, is a German holding organization with interests in the car business. Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a
  • 17. city region of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg and is possessed by the Porsche and Piëch families. The organization was established in Stuttgart as Dr. Ing. H.C. F. Porsche Gmbh in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) and his child in-law Anton Piëch (1894–1952). It fabricates Cayenne and Panamera demonstrates in Leipzig, Germany, and parts for the SUV are additionally amassed in the Volkswagen Touareg plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. Boxster and Cayman.it aldso makes tractors and air ship motors. Separated from the aforementioned Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG, different subsidiaries and working divisions of Porsche SE incorporate Porsche Engineering, Porsche Design Group, Mieschke Hofmann und Partner (81.1%) and Bertrandt (25%). Products 1952 Porsche 356 K/9-1 Prototype In post-war Germany, parts were by and large in short supply, so the 356 auto utilized segments from the Volkswagen Beetle, including the motor case from its inside ignition motor, transmission, and a few parts utilized within the suspension. The 356, in any case, had a few evolutionary stages, A, B, and C, while in generation, and most Volkswagen sourced parts were supplanted by Porsche-made parts. Starting in 1954 the 356s motors began using motor cases composed particularly for the 356. The smooth bodywork was planned by Erwin Komenda who additionally had outlined the collection of the Beetle. Porsche's signature outlines have, from the earliest starting point, emphasized air-cooled back motor arrangements (like the Beetle), uncommon for other auto producers, however delivering vehicles that are exceptionally overall adjusted. Financial performance The organization has been very fruitful lately, and for sure claims to have the most astounding benefit for every unit sold of any auto organization in the world.Table of benefits (in a huge number of euros) and number of autos delivered. Figures from 2008/9 onwards were not reported as a feature of Porsche
  • 18. SE. Year ending Revenue Pre-tax profit Production Sales 31 July 2002 €4,857m €829m 55,050 54,234 31 July 2003 €5,583m €933m 73,284 66,803 31 July 2004 €6,148m €1,137m 81,531 76,827 31 July 2005 €6,574m €1,238m 90,954 88,379 31 July 2006 €7,273m €2,110m 102,602 96,794 31 July 2007 €7,368m €5,857m 101,844 97,515
  • 19. 31 July 2008 €7,466m €8,569m 105,162 98,652 31 July 2009 €?m €-2,559m 76,739 75,238 31 July 2010 €7.79b N/A 89,123 81,850 31 December 2010 €9.23b €1.67b[60] N/A 97,273 31 December 2011[60] €10.9b €2.05b 127,793 116,978 31 December 2012 €13.9b €2.44b 151,999 143,096[61] 31 December 2013 €14.3b €2.78b 165,808 162,145[62] Production composition
  • 20. Of the 165,808 cars produced in the 2013 financial year, 29,751 (17.9%) were 911 models, 28,996 (17.5%) were Boxster and Cayman cars, 81,916 (49.4%) were Cayennes, 24,798 (15.0%) were Panameras. There were 312 Macan and 35 918 Spyder models also reported.The production figures of sports cars were quite similar to the 2001/2 totals when 33,061 Porsche 911 and 21,989 Boxsters were produced(Porsche SE, 2013). North American sales Annual sales 2003–2005 model 2003 2004 2005 units % of total Units % of total units % of total 911(996) 9,935 ( 18%) 33% 10,227 ( 3%) 31% 10,653 ( 4%) 31% Boxster 6,432 ( 38%) 21% 3,728 ( 42%) 11% 8,327 ( 123%) 25% Cayenne 13,661
  • 21. 45% 19,134 ( 40%) 57% 14,524 ( 24%) 43% total 30,028 ( 33%) 33,289 ( 11%) 33,859 ( 2%) Annual sales 2006–2008 model 2006 2007 2008 units % of total Units % of total units % of total 911(997) 12,702 ( 19%) 35% 13,153 ( 4%) 36% 8,324 ( 37%) 30% Boxster 4,850 ( 42%) 14% 3,904 ( 24%) 11% 2,982 ( 24%) 11%
  • 22. Cayman 7,313 20% 6,249 ( 17%) 17% 3,513 ( 44%) 13% Cayenne 11,141 ( 23%) 31% 13,370 ( 20%) 36% 12,898 ( 4%) 46% total 36,095 ( 7%) 36,680 ( 2%) 27,717 ( 24%) Annual sales 2009–2011 model 2009 2010 2011 Units % of total units % of total Units % of total 911(997) 6,839 ( 17.8%) 35.00% 5,735 ( 16.1%) 22.65%
  • 23. 6,016 ( 5.0%) 20.72% Boxster&Cayman 3,875 ( 39.4%) 19.00% 3,499 ( 9.3%) 13.84% 3,150 ( 9.02%) 10.86% Panamera 1,247 6.33% 7,741 ( 520.8%) 30.57% 6,879 ( 11.13%) 23.70% Cayenne 7,735 ( 31.0%) 39.27% 8,343 ( 7.9%) 32.94% 12,978 ( 55.55%) 44.72% total 19,696 ( 24.3%) 25,320 ( 28.6%) 29,023 ( 15%) Annual sales 2012–2014 model 2012 2013 2014 units % of total
  • 24. Units % of total units % of total 911 8,528 24.34% 10,442 Boxster&Cayman 3,356 9.58% 7,953 Panamera 7,614 21.73% 5,421 Cayenne 15,545 44.36% 18,507 total 35,043 ( 21%) 42,323
  • 25. SWOT Analysis One advantage of SWOT Analysis is that analysis can be applied in any situation management, type of company (regardless of size and activity) or business area. The first step we must take is to describe the current situation of the company or department in question, identify strategies, the changes occurring in the market and our capabilities and limitations. This will be the basis for a historical, casual and projective analysis.The strengths and weaknesses are internal aspects of the company or entrepreneur that affect the chances of success of a strategy. For example, the ignorance of the market, lack of capital and inexperience often weaknesses of many businesses that start; while enthusiasm, working capacity and the desire to grow are among the common strengths. A going concern also has weaknesses of various kinds depending on the sector and the team. Typical examples are failures in production, inadequate or lack of proper marketing people to use new technologies; strengths can come from the hand of the specific experience of senior management, or may be the result of other assets as a loyal customer base and a highly differentiated product. The opportunities and threats arising from the context, that is, what happens or may happen outside the company. Usually these events can not be influenced, but given independently. A change in the legal and tax framework, a trend in consumption, the arrival of a new technology or a change in strategy by a competitor can increase the chances of success (opportunities) or decrease (threats). RUNNING HEAD; PORCHE’S ANALYSIS 1 Porsche’s Analysis 99 Strengths
  • 26. -Domestic market -experienced business units -high profitability and revenue -high growth rate -skilled workforce Weaknesses -Small business units -investments in research and development -tax structure -costs Opportunities -New products and services -growing economy -income level is at a constant increase -new markets Threats -Unexpected problems Decision making The unlucky deficiency of genuine system, market research,sales anticipating and the nonattendance of vision and taking the danger of changing division procedure, . They considered these entrance level models to be shabby and failing to meet expectations. Most supporters never truly acknowledged these models as genuine Porsches. Truth be told, they were not in any way blissful that they needed to impart their brand to a
  • 27. client who didn t fit the Porsche holder profile. They were turned off by what they saw as a corporate method that had concentrated on mass over class showcasing. This discolored picture was exacerbated by the way that Nissan, Toyota, BMW, and other auto producers had increase top of the line sports auto offerings, making some wild rivalry. Actually, both the Datsun 280-ZX and the Toyota Supra were less expensive than Porsche s 944 as well as quicker. A battling economy tossed more sand in Porsche s tank. By 1990, Porsche deals had dove, and the organization played with chapter 11(Henderson & Reavis, 2009). As per CNBC, even an at-the-time sketchy attack into the SUV market with the Cayenne in 2003, couldn't harm Porsche credibility.The Times writer Andrew Frankel says on one level, it is the world's best 4x4, on an alternate, it is the critical abuse of a brilliant brand that dangers long haul harm to that mark's extremely character in the quest for simple money with his verdict being "Incredible auto, if it wasn't a Porsche". Recommendations Rapidly they perceived the lapse of its ways and ended creation of the section level models. It modified its harmed picture by patching up its higher-end model lines with more race- reproduced engineering. In an exertion to recapture compatibility with clients, Porsche at the end of the day focused on the high end of the business sector in both cost and execution. It set unobtrusive deals objectives and chose that direct development with higher edges would be more beneficial in the long haul. Along these lines, the organization set out to make one less Porsche than the general population requested. As per one official, We re not searching for volume; we re hunting down restrictiveness. Porsche s deliberations had the craved impact. By the late 1990s, the brand was at the end of the day supported by the same kind of achiever who had so profoundly adored the auto for quite some time. The autos were by and by restrictive. Also the organization was at the end of the day beneficial. Notwithstanding the contention confronted by
  • 28. faultfinders, the Cayenne has been a win, creating enough benefit for the organization to put resources into and update the current model reach, and store the Panamera project. Conclusion This paper has analyzed the case for Porsche AG.The company has been successful seeing a rise in revenue and sells.The paper analyzed the history, provided the swot analysis for the company, financial performance, decisions and impacts on the company. References Henderson, R., & Reavis, C. (2009). What’s Driving Porsche? Porsche SE. (2013). Annual Report Fiscal Year 2013 (p. 25). Retrieved from http://www.porsche- se.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche- Download.pdf?pool=pho&type=download&id=investorrelations- annualreport2013- pdf&lang=en&filetype=default&version=960af9ec-b8af-11e3- ab3e-001a64c55f5c · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help Ch 10: Ethics and Corporate Social Respo… Previous section Next section Chapter 10 Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Cultura Limited/SuperStock Learning Objectives By the time you have completed this chapter, you should be able
  • 29. to do the following: · Understand the differences among ethics, morals, and values. · Understand ethical issues and behavior. · Learn about the various unethical behaviors that tempt managers and corporations. · Learn about ethical dilemmas and an approach to coping with them. · Ponder the extent to which ethics can be taught. · Understand the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the role of corporations in being economically, legally, ethically, philanthropically, and environmentally responsible. Ethics and ethical behavior should be embedded into the way people are brought up and the way business students are trained. But the sad fact is that unethical behavior is more the norm in the business world than the exception. The fact that it is widespread in no way condones unethical behavior. This chapter will clarify the distinctions between ethics, morality, and values, what unethical behavior is and isn't, situations that make it difficult to be ethical and how to cope with them, and the degree to which ethics can be taught. The chapter also discusses corporate social responsibility (CSR), what it is, and the extent to which corporations have a duty to be socially responsible. Finally, the physical environment (air, land, water) is—or should be—an important stakeholder for corporations. What does the responsibility to safeguard the environment mean, and what role should corporations play? · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.1 Ethics, Morals, and Values
  • 30. Previous section Next section 10.1 Ethics, Morals, and Values The terms ethics, morals and values are often confused or used interchangeably in everyday speech. Before discussing ethics in more detail, it is important to establish definitions of what each means and the differences among them. A traditional definition of ethics is the art and discipline of applying principles and frameworks to analyze and resolve complex moral dilemmas (Rossy, 2011). The Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, defines ethics differently but perhaps more aptly for the business world: "Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of doing the right thing when that will cost more than we want to pay." This definition gets to the heart of why "doing the right thing" is sometimes so difficult; we are unaware of the associated cost. The Institute breaks down the definition into two parts: (1) the ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil, and propriety from impropriety; and (2) the commitment or will to do what is right, good, and proper (Maxwell, 2003). People and organizations need to develop a standard to follow and then the will to uphold it, an ongoing struggle for both. A moral person knows right from wrong and chooses right; an immoral person knows the difference too but chooses wrong, while an amoral person either doesn't know the difference or doesn't care. This description includes notions of bad versus good. Both require societal and cultural norms of right and wrong and, because these evolve over time, what is "right" is far from clear. Values are the tenets most important to people and the ways that govern how they choose to live their life. That statement also applies to organizations (see Section 2.8). Some people have been known to die for preserving a value very important to them
  • 31. (like freedom, or protecting another's life), and at the other end of the scale are people who think nothing of inflicting harm on others if their cause warrants it (like allegiance to a gang and killing rival gang members to defend "turf"). Virtually every company has an ethics code of behavior, which more accurately might be called a moral code. More than 85% of companies have created and circulated organizational codes of conduct. Simply having a code does not necessarily mean that employees will follow it, however; there is no proof that codes of conduct actually influence ethical behavior (Rossy, 2011). An example of a less-than-successful code is that of energy corporation Enron. Enron's 64-page Code of Ethics, which opened with a motivating forward by CEO Kenneth Lay, did not avert one of history's worst instances of corporate ethical failure (Rossy, 2011). Enron went bankrupt as a result of corporate officers' unethical accounting practices. By inflating earnings and cash flow, and keeping liabilities off the books, Enron presented a distorted picture of financial health, attracting investors in the process. Among the losses were the 401K retirement accounts of Enron employees. In contrast, CEO Lay sold stock in the months before the scandal broke and profited greatly (Oppel, 2001). An unethical act is carried out with immoral intent, done with the full knowledge that it is legally and morally wrong or goes against societal or organizational norms (Rossy, 2011). It usually infringes obvious rules, laws, and corporate codes of ethics. An ethical "mistake," on the other hand, is an act that is not deliberately unethical, and is something an individual or group regrets afterward and desires to undo (Rossy, 2011). The following three components separate unethical actions from ethical mistakes: · Intentionality—did you harbor good or bad intention? Were you aware that you were doing something wrong? Did you attempt to hide or cover up your motives? · Remorse—did you recognize and regret your unethical behavior? Or did you regret only being found out and exposed?
  • 32. · Accountability—were you willing to own up to your mistakes and take responsibility for any unethical actions? Were you ready to try and reverse your actions and set things right? (Rossy, 2011) The next four sections focus on ethics in business, amplifying the nature of ethical issues and dilemmas, revealing the unprecedented extent of unethical behavior, offering some guidelines for dealing with ethical dilemmas, and discussing the extent to which ethics can be taught. Discussion Questions 1. Does obeying the law make a person "moral," and breaking it "immoral"? Discuss the reasons for your answer. 2. Can ethics vary from country to country? If you think so, provide an example of a country in which principles, norms, and standards of conduct are different from the United States, and provide as much detail as you can (even anecdotes). 3. Is a dictator moral, immoral, or amoral? Give reasons for your answer and an example that could validate your answer. · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.2 Ethical Issues and Behavior Previous section Next section 10.2 Ethical Issues and Behavior The chairman of AOL Time Warner Book Group was having dinner in New York one evening with John Maxwell, a prominent author on leadership issues from a Christian perspective, and suggested he'd be the perfect fellow to write a
  • 33. book on business ethics. "There's no such thing," replied Maxwell. When asked what he meant, he said, "There's only ethics." This conversation spawned the title of the book Maxwell came to write (Maxwell, 2003). People get into trouble when one set of ethics or values governs their private life and another their working life. For example, a typical sales employee might say, "I'm an honest person, but it's OK to pad my expense report because that's what everyone in the company does." In fact, many people are ethically duplicitous without realizing it. As Maxwell says, "The same person who cheats on his taxes and steals office supplies wants honesty and integrity from the corporation whose stock he buys, the politician he votes for, and the client he deals with in his own business" (Maxwell, 2003). Ethical issues arise whenever people are tempted to behave unethically or not do the right thing. Maxwell lists the five most common things that give rise to unethical responses: Lisette Le Bon/SuperStock Ethical issues arise when people succumb to pressure to achieve results. Executives manipulate stock prices to increase value, students cheat to get higher grades, and workers produce inferior products to increase production rates. · Pressure to achieve results when things aren't going as planned, which is why people often "cook the books," cut corners, or "bend the rules." Students often cheat to get higher grades, executives manipulate information to increase stock price, factory workers produce inferior products to reduce costs or increase throughput rate. Many of us are under pressure—in 2005, the Ethics Resource Center conducted a national survey of U.S. employees and found that 10% of them at all levels reported feeling pressure to compromise ethical standards (Treviño & Nelson). · The desire for pleasure (if it feels good, do it) leads people to live beyond their means, abuse drugs (of all kinds), suffer divorce and broken homes, and so on. Executives that have
  • 34. achieved an elevated compensation level may do whatever they must to preserve their lifestyle. The consequences are never worth the promise of the temptation and are almost always regretted later. · Abusing the power a person has been given. This, too, can act like a drug: "having power is like drinking salt water. The more you drink the thirstier you get" (Maxwell, 2003, p. 80). Powerful executives may develop a sense of entitlement. They believe that they and the institution are one, so they can take what they want when they want it (Abraham Zaleznik, as quoted in Maxwell, 2003). Those who want to keep their power at all costs are also most likely to compromise standard ethical behavior to do so. · While pride itself is not a bad thing—after all, we have all been brought up to take pride in ourselves, our work, our family, and our country—having an exaggerated sense of pride and self-worth (hubris) is destructive. Pride is essentially competitive; one is proud only of being richer, smarter, or better looking than others. If everyone else were as rich, smart, or good looking, there would be nothing about which to be proud. If your goal is to outdo everyone else, then your focus is entirely on yourself and your own interests (Maxwell, 2003). "Pride can blind you to your own faults, to other people's needs, and to ethical pitfalls that lie in your path" (Maxwell, 2003, p. 86). · Priorities. German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, "Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least" (Quoted in Maxwell, 2003). Is being liked by others the most important thing to you? Is keeping your job more important than doing the right thing, like, blowing the whistle on some malfeasance? Do you know what your priorities are? The following breakdown broadens our understanding of ethical issues in the corporate world: · Human-resources issues. An obvious example of this type of ethical issue is discrimination, which can lead to rampant
  • 35. unfairness. Sexual and other types of harassment may take the form of an individual in a hierarchy taking advantage of their position to use power to control others lower in the organizational structure. Harassment may also occur between peers and result in a hostile work environment for those who are the objects of the unwanted attention. Conflicts of interest may take many forms such as bribes and kickbacks, inappropriate influence, and the use of privileged information to bestow favor on special friends or interests. · Customer-confidence issues. In many business situations a person may be privy to confidential information, which they may not reveal regardless of their position. To breach that confidentiality and divulge such information is a serious ethical violation. Product safety issues, whether the dangers to consumers were intentional or not, also fall into this category. When products are misrepresented, hyped beyond the benefits they provide, or false claims are made, this transgresses truth in advertising ethical boundaries. In professions that handle other peoples' money, such as stockbrokers, there is an ethical obligation called fiduciary responsibility to base all actions on the best interest of the client. A stockbroker making an investment of a client's money for which the only motivation is the stockbroker's commission would be a violation of the broker's fiduciary responsibility. · Issues arising from the use of corporate resources. These issues range from what may seem to be mundane to the extremely serious. Many people do not give a second thought to making personal calls from work, taking a long lunch or break, or taking stationery products from the supply room to use at home. All of these are examples of stealing company resources. Using company letterhead for personal reasons or allowing a personal view to be construed as the company's are misappropriations of the company's reputation. Most people would clearly recognize the ethical wrong in falsifying data to make a company's financial results look better or receive approval for a new drug (Treviño & Nelson).
  • 36. The root problems in most of these instances are unfairness, lack of respect, and self-interest. Discussion Questions 1. This section introduced the notion that people behave unethically rather than bear the costs of ethical behavior (an economic reason). Do you think this is prevalent in corporations today? Why or why not? 2. We have all heard of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would they do unto you." According to John Maxwell, it is the only guide to ethics one needs. Do you agree? 3. Assuming you do the "right" thing all or most of the time, how do you know it? Elaborate on your answer as best you can. 4. Ethics exist in law, business, medicine, and other spheres of life, even politics. Other than the settings in each sphere, would you say that the concept of ethics was the same or different in all spheres? Discuss. · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.3 Unethical Behavior Previous section Next section 10.3 Unethical Behavior Stephen Chernin/Getty Images News/Getty Images In the case of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, greed overruled all ethics. Madoff received a long-term prison sentence for bilking investors out of billions of dollars. Every day brings new reports of some new ethical violation or
  • 37. the disposition of a case brought against someone or a company for unethical behavior. Unethical behavior consists of conduct undertaken to benefit a person or organization while knowingly (or being oblivious to the possibility of) harming others. Behavior is still considered unethical if the act is wrongful, whether or not it results in harm, for example, a deceitful representation even though not acted upon (Christopher D. Stone, J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, University of Southern California Gould School of Law, personal communication, October 3, 2011). Many cases involve greed, like the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff, a former chairman of the board of directors of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). Madoff used money from new investors to pay "profits" to old ones until the situation imploded and the scam was revealed. People who trusted him with their investments lost billions of dollars. Another type of greed-induced unethical behavior is illustrated by the case of Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, an international hedge fund based in New York. In 2011, Rajaratnam was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy for insider trading and sentenced to 11 years in prison, the longest- ever term imposed for that type of offense. Unlike Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which swindled identifiable victims directly of specific amounts of money, insider trading cheats "the system" including all those investors who are not privy to the information on which profitable trades are made. At the heart of the prosecutors' case was an allegation that Mr. Rajaratnam gained access to confidential information about a $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in 2008 during the financial crisis. Prosecutors described an environment of rampant insider trading on Wall Street of which the defendant was only one prominent offender. In pronouncing his sentence, U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell stated that the billionaire investor's crimes "reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated." In addition to the prison term the judge also ordered Mr. Rajaratnam to pay a $10 million
  • 38. fine and forfeit $53.8 million (Pulliam & Bray, 2011). Kai Chiang/iStockphoto/Thinkstock Company consumer contracts' fine print allows a firm to change the terms as they see fit at any time, initiate higher fees, and forbid consumers from filing lawsuits. Not all unethical behavior can be attributed to an individual acting out of the prospect of personal gain. Companies may collectively make unethical decisions that result in harm to others. Workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico were concerned about safety on the rig months before the oil rig exploded but feared retribution and retaliation if they reported problems. In particular, employees reported that drilling took priority over maintenance that could have ensured safety. The explosion killed 11 employees and resulted in history’s largest accidental oil spill. The oil killed large numbers of wildlife, shut down crucial industries such as fisheries and tourism in large areas of the Gulf of Mexico, causing billions of dollars of economic damage and affecting untold numbers of people directly and indirectly (Urbina, 2010). Entire industries may be tarred with the brush of unethical behavior in the interest of making profits. For decades the tobacco industry fought a cynical campaign to deny and discredit extensive research that demonstrated the very serious health risks of smoking. In the meantime, the tobacco companies were among the largest spenders on all forms of advertising to induce people to become addicted to smoking. As we all know, they finally lost their protracted case, and it has been conclusively shown that executives were aware of the dangers even as they denied it publicly. Tobacco ads are no longer allowed on television, and it is now illegal to smoke in many public places such as restaurants, movie theaters, museums, aircraft, and so forth. Some states such as California have gone further, banning smoking in parks, apartment- complex balconies, and on the beach. There is now no disputing the fact that tobacco kills, yet these same tobacco companies
  • 39. continue to expand their markets for cigarettes around the world and get new generations addicted to smoking. The argument often used to justify their actions is that tobacco is a legal product. Of course, if tobacco was a new product being introduced to the market today, with all the attendant proven health effects, there is no question that it would be immediately rejected by regulatory agencies as unsafe. What about new drugs and medical products rushed to market without adequate testing or approval? In 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, issued a global recall of its ASR XL Acetabular System and Hip Resurfacing System (hip implants) because of growing problems with the products and for selling them and other products without FDA approval (Kavilanz, 2011). Also in 2010, France's health regulators issued a recall of prefilled silicone breast implants manufactured by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), a French company, and said to affect 35,000–45,000 women worldwide. The gel used in them was unauthorized, and the implants have been associated with abnormally high rupture rates (PIP breast implant recall, 2010). In these examples, the companies involved paid for reparations to victims—and PIP was even shut down. An ethical concern that may not be as obvious as the preceding examples because the harm is harder to identify has to do with the immensely complicated "fine print" that we seem to confront on an increasing basis. Every time we install or update a software package we are required to accept a lengthy user agreement filled with legalese unintelligible to (and ignored by) most people. Hidden among the verbiage often are clauses that have been described as "weasel words in contracts that allow a company to change the terms at any time, or lay the groundwork for sky-high fees, or that forbid a consumer from filing a lawsuit." Web service providers such as Facebook and Google have attracted firestorms of protest when they have decided to make unilateral changes to their privacy policies that invariably give the companies more freedom to make commercial use of
  • 40. the users' information or browsing habits and eroding what little is left of the individual's privacy. As Web entrepreneur David Hirsch commented in an interview on the burgeoning practice, "This fine-print world we're living in is bad for consumers, bad for business, and bad for the country. You've got people not understanding what they're agreeing to, and they're getting clobbered" (Lazarus, 2011). It may be glib to say that executives cheat, lie, fudge, and line their own pockets because they can, or because it's unfortunately more acceptable nowadays, or because no one will find out. But isn't this at the heart of ethical behavior—to do the "right" thing, even when no one is looking? Doing otherwise is unethical, and there must be many more unreported instances where people and organizations intentionally get away with such behavior, thus, in their minds, legitimizing it. Case Study Corporate Ethics On January 13, 2012, Carnival Corporation's Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground a reef and capsized off the Italian coast after its captain, Francesco Schettino, steered the ship off the approved course. The ship sustained a hole in its hull greater than the length of a football field, causing it to take on water immediately. The chaos that ensued aboard the ship of panic- stricken passengers futilely seeking information and a disorganized evacuation was heavily reported in international news reports. Surviving passengers even reported that the ship's safety briefing hadn't been conducted at the time of the disaster and wasn't scheduled until the next day—three days after the ship sailed. And this is just the beginning of the ethical issues that arose in the days following the crash. The captain's ethics were called into question when reports emerged that he had an unauthorized female companion on the ship's bridge at the time of the crash with whom he'd also shared dinner and wine just minutes before, that he was performing a close "sail-by" to show off to the residents of the Island of Giglio or to "salute" a friend living on the island.
  • 41. Days later, recordings of conversations between the captain and Italian Coast Guard officials revealed that he had abandoned ship and was aboard a lifeboat before most of the ships passengers were evacuated. The Christian Science Monitor concluded that Schettino had engaged in "a pattern of untruths and attempted coverup" (Marquand, 2012, para. 1). Carnival's corporate ethics were called into question, as well. For example, Schettino later deflected attention from his initial "salute" story with the claim that his corporate managers told him to take the ship close to the shore as a publicity maneuver. Surviving passengers described chaos aboard the ship as language barriers, an unskilled crew, passenger lack of knowledge about evacuation procedures, and malfunctioning lifeboats all contributed to fear and panic. Reports indicate that passengers were initially told that the problem was an electrical failure; in an amateur video shot by a passenger, a crew member is heard telling passengers: "The situation is under control. Go back to your cabins. We ask you that you all return to your cabins. Once the electrical problem is sorted out everything will be back to normal shortly. Everything is under control. We are resolving the problem" (Pisa, 2012). An hour passed before the Captain ordered everyone to abandon ship, plunging nearly 4,000 people into complete chaos. During evacuation, crew members appeared to have little control and offered minimal support to panicked passengers—calling into questions corporate safety procedures. Subsequent to the disaster, the corporation's moral compass was questioned when Carnival authorized call center employees to phone survivors and offer "30% off their next voyage." News accounts and editorials have labeled the offer "insensitive" and "crass," indicating that the decision to offer the discounts was an ill-conceived strategy for promoting company loyalty that might, in fact, further damage the cruise line's reputation (Costa Concordia disaster, 2012). Finally, the wreck posed a grave threat to the maritime environment and the health and safety of coastal residents amid
  • 42. fears that the ship's 17 fuel tanks might begin to leak into the sea. As National Public Radio noted, "What do you do with a 1,000-foot wreck … Remove it. Very carefully" (Neuman, 2012, para. 1). The article further noted that removing the wreck involved "logistical and environmental issues that are just as large" as the ship (Neuman, 2012, para. 5). Question for Critical Thinking and Engagement Assume the role of a consultant hired by Carnival Corporation. Prepare a briefing on the critical issues that executives, management, and other leaders should address. What recommendations would you make to the corporation relative to public concerns about employee ethics, corporate safety policies, and the impact of this disaster on the environment? Discussion Questions 1. List as many reasons as you can why a company would wish to abide by ethical standards. Organize the reasons based on whether they are morally or economically motivated. 2. Do you think business executives, particularly CEOs, have a general public image of behaving selfishly and unethically? Do you think that reputation is deserved? Discuss. 3. Imagine you are looking for a job. Is the company's having an ethical culture or behavior important to you? If so, how would you go about determining this? 4. Imagine you are hiring people. Your company is proud of the fact that it makes a profit by being ethical. How would you ensure you are hiring people with a similar ethos? 5. Cite some examples of trust in business from your personal experience or from reading the newspapers. What happens when trust is lost? 6. What other industries not discussed in this section have also succumbed to unethical behavior? Cite examples to justify your choices. · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads
  • 43. · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.4 Ethical Dilemmas and How to Approac… Previous section Next section 10.4 Ethical Dilemmas and How to Approach Them Every person will be faced with ethical dilemmas throughout life; it is inevitable. By definition, the "right answer" is elusive. An ethical dilemma arises when a person is presented with a choice (ordinarily of action) in which one consideration is the rightness or wrongness of the action (Christopher D. Stone, J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, University of Southern California, personal communication, October 3, 2011). Some ethicists evaluate the action in itself, whatever the consequences. Consider a situation in which a person is attempting to shoot someone but realizes too late that the gun isn't loaded; the act is unethical even though the target didn't die. Others focus their evaluation on the consequences. For example, lying, which is a "bad" act, may have good consequences. Within the workplace, the "right thing to do" is usually complicated by time pressures and conflicting financial and political demands, and often comes with a price tag. While we never seem to have the right answer when we need it, there are five questions we can ask ourselves when faced with an ethical dilemma that might well help us avoid making the wrong decision: De Agostini Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images The German philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that moral decisions should be based upon the one principle he called the "Categorical Imperative"–act as if the maxim of your action were to become the general law.
  • 44. 1. What's in it for me? How will my loved ones and I benefit, and what price will I pay in terms such as time, money, effort, and reputation? To fully understand what influences your self– interest in a situation, it can be helpful to ask, "Would I be comfortable sharing my real motives with the public?" 2. What decision or action would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number? This presupposes that one knows and understands the legitimate interests and values of others. John Stuart Mill's classic work on utilitarianism holds that the preferred decision is the one that will return the highest net social benefit to all stakeholders (those people who might be affected by the outcome) (Mill, 1906). Value conflicts can make achieving such a noble outcome difficult; how do we define the "greater good"? Many environmental and air-quality regulations, for example, are motivated by a desire to protect the general public and act in its behalf. 3. What laws, regulations, and written or unwritten social norms apply in this situation? German philosopher Immanuel Kant thought that moral decisions should be made by following a principle he called the Categorical Imperative; behave as though the maxim of your decision were to become a general law, required of all people. Patricia Werhane, Director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University, asks the following germane questions implied by such a rule-based perspective: · Does the action set positive or negative precedents? · Is the action acceptable to other reasonable persons? · Is it applicable to other similar situations? · Does it respect, or at least not denigrate, human dignity? (Werhane, 1994) 4. What are my obligations to others? To understand this, one has to appreciate the role of reciprocity and trust in society. Reciprocity is a universal norm common to all human cultures; it is embodied in the Golden Rule. Implicit in this view is that people have to trust one another. How do you feel when someone you've previously helped rejects your request for help?
  • 45. Will you ever forget when someone you have helped many times doesn't reciprocate? 5. What will the lasting impact be on me and on my key stakeholders? Informed self–interest requires looking at the big picture and assuming that one's self–interest is aligned with societal interests. That is, one's self-interest rests on doing what is right for others. For example, consider the actions of environmentalists and others who make sacrifices for societal movements. These five questions in fact constitute a framework for identifying ethical dilemmas and help think through any inherent conflicts among the values and obligations they underscore. The following three criteria will help you to choose from and resolve those conflicts: · Priority. In this instance, which questions are most applicable to the key values held by you and your company? · Balance. If you must compromise among your values, which is the best tradeoff? · Acceptance. How well will your decision and rationale fare if submitted to public scrutiny? (Rossy, 2011) In conclusion, ensure that you consider all five questions before making a decision. Always keep in mind the pivotal role of values when assessing the implications of the issues at hand. Compare the short- and long-term consequences. Take your time and avoid the urge to give into quick solutions that may be too good to be true. Go with your instincts, but remain open to counsel and advice. And be brave—sometimes the ethical answer can be politically unpopular. As a way of thinking through the ethical criteria just presented, consider the following examples of common, everyday situations that many employees face, and answer the related questions. Everyday Ethics Sheryl often takes home pens, pencils, printer paper, and other small office supplies for her personal use—even though she doesn't perform any work from home. Is Sheryl's behavior ethical or unethical? Why or why not? Is there any "gray area"
  • 46. to what Sheryl is doing? In other words, under any circumstances, is her behavior ethical? What are the potential consequences of Sheryl's behavior to others? To her organization? How about to herself? In order to get some new business, Phil overpromised, knowing his company couldn't deliver. He told the prospect that their orders would be delivered within 14 days, when he knew that deliveries have been taking 30–45 days. He also told the client that technology platforms were updated annually. However, due to the recent economic downturn, Phil knew that the platform hadn't been updated in over three years. What are the potential consequences of Phil's distortions? Is Phil's behavior unethical, or is he just doing what it takes to stay competitive in a tough economic climate? Suzanne works in management for a pet supply retail chain and is upset by some questionable corporate policies about how small animals sold by the store are cared for. For example, she is not permitted to schedule cage cleaning for the hamsters and birds as often as she believes is necessary for their optimal health and well-being. What are her options? Are there any risks to Suzanne should she decide to expose her employer's policies? Do the benefits of blowing the whistle on corporate policy outweigh the risks? Cathy gets to work in the morning at the required hour, and spends about 20 minutes having coffee with her friends before heading to her desk. Cathy then spends the first hour of her day checking her personal e-mail, Facebook account, and even online dating sites. By about 10:00, she starts working; but she keeps Facebook and her personal e-mail account open throughout the day. Is Cathy's behavior ethical or unethical? Is there any "gray area" to what Cathy is doing? In other words, is her behavior acceptable? Would the answer be different if she is able to complete her assigned tasks and meet deadlines? Eric is a supervisor for a transportation company that has several government contracts. This work is obtained through a strict competitive bidding process regulated by the federal
  • 47. government. He recently discovered that a coworker responsible for preparing project bids is having an affair with an insider at the government agency. Is the activity that Eric has observed (or learned of) unethical? Why or why not? If Eric is reasonably sure that the information he's learned is accurate, would it be unethical if he chose to ignore it? Why or why not? What are Eric's options? Discussion Questions 1. Consider the case of a highly profitable public company that is rewarding its stockholders with capital gains on rising stock prices and dividend payouts. It is also awarding its top management generous compensation packages with guaranteed bonuses. Its rank-and-file employees, however, don't get raises or bonuses or otherwise realize the effects of such impressive corporate performance. In fact, the profit is achieved by keeping labor and other costs down. Is this an ethical issue? Do such companies perceive it as an ethical issue? Why or why not? 2. The role of unions has been to give a voice and some power to employees as stakeholders. Have they balanced the ethical issue? Do you see the rise in power of unions as a bad thing because they constrain what management can do and increase labor costs? Discuss. 3. If a corporation did not have an ethics officer, to whom would someone report a breach of organizational ethics? What if the alleged perpetrator were that person's manager? 4. When are ethics and ethics standards especially important in companies? 5. Companies often require that their employees work long hours or travel extensively. If you worked for such a company but had young children or elderly relatives to care for, you might find that your career would be jeopardized if you declined these additional work pressures. Is it unethical for a manager or a company to expect so much of employees despite their needs as parents, caregivers, or other life outside work? Discuss. 6. Is employing illegal migrant workers ethical? Why or why
  • 48. not? What is the nature of the dilemma? 7. Why do companies do business with other companies in China or Indonesia given unsettling reports one hears concerning labor practices? Is saving a few extra dollars the most important thing? Do companies realize that by doing so, they are helping perpetuate such practices? 8. Companies don't give a second thought to outsourcing jobs to lower-cost countries. Does the end (making profits) always justify the means? What does it say about the companies' attitude to its workers? · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.5 Can Ethics Be Taught? Previous section Next section 10.5 Can Ethics Be Taught? Associated Press/Matt Houston Ethics classes may teach ethics, but by the time students get to college, most have learned their personal values from their family environment. Today, every business school includes courses in ethics or requires ethics to be a part of every course in its curriculum. Judging by the results, however, the regular reports of unethical practices in business suggest the requirement hasn't made much difference. An informal poll of students in a business program a few years ago posed two questions: "Would you cheat if you knew for certain you would not be found out?" and "Would you
  • 49. cheat if everyone else was cheating?" Sadly, over 85% of the students answered "Yes" to each question. This experience seems to be shared by many instructors in business education. College business students are more likely to practice academic dishonesty, such as plagiarizing or cheating on exams, than students who are pursuing different majors or careers (McCabe & Treviño, 1995). Based on research showing that business- school students' moral reasoning skills may be ranked lower than students in philosophy, political science, law, medicine, and dentistry, business students may require increased ethics training (McCabe & Treviño, 1993). Lester Thurow, former Dean of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, believes the foundation of ethics must begin with family, clergy, schooling, and the jobs students hold prior to business school (Treviño & Nelson, 2007). In the mid-'90s, Joseph Badaracco, an ethics professor at Harvard Business School did some research on MBA graduates that had taken an ethics course at Harvard and faced ethical dilemmas in the business world. Fifty percent of them had been employed by companies with official ethics programs. He wrote: "Corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help . . . the young managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values, not through reliance on corporate credos, company loyalty, the exhortations of senior executives, philosophical principles, or religious reflection" (Badaracco & Webb, 1995, p. 9). In other words, their personal integrity came from their upbringing rather than from ethics courses. To find out how students felt about the business world, another professor asked his students a series of questions, one of which was whether they would dump known carcinogens in a river. Astonishingly, the students said that they would, claiming if they did not, someone else would. When asked if such a pessimistic environment was one in which they would like to live, students made the argument that they already lived in one.
  • 50. Disheartened, the professor concluded that his students' attitudes had been shaped long before his course began. He decided, as others had before him, that as a society, our obsession with money and material goods was producing future generations eager to succeed at any cost (Treviño & Nelson, 2007). People, it turns out, are taught values early in life. If they do have a set of values that includes honesty, fairness, and selflessness, being around others that dismiss their values out of self-interest will quickly erode them. Parents will attest to changes that take place when their teenage children begin paying more attention to their peer group than to them. It becomes really challenging when people learn that in order to "win" (whether it's passing a test or climbing the career ladder), they have to sacrifice their values and ethics. Boys and girls that participate in sports in middle and high school and college are fortunate because, besides acquiring skills and stamina, they are taught the ethics of good sportsmanship and other character-building traits, such as teamwork, discipline, and sacrificing individualism for the team. Unfortunately, there are coaches—and parents—that preach winning at any cost. In some sports such as track & field and cycling, we have almost reached a point where there is a presumption of guilt against those who are successful. When athletes in any sport are caught cheating, the common refrain is that "everyone else is doing it so I had to as well just to compete." To conclude, the values and ethics ingrained in us from a very early age by our parents and family are the most reliable indicator of how we will fare when ethically tested later in our careers, no matter what those careers are. However, even people with good values and ethics can, when thrust into morally and ethically wanting corporations, behave unethically. When told by your manager to fudge some data or do something else that's wrong, do you comply in order to remain in their good graces and stay on that fast track up the corporate ladder, or do you
  • 51. stand your ground and risk not only your prospects but also your job? And when you are a few years from retirement, do you succumb to such demands or lose everything, knowing that getting another job at your age is highly unlikely? It is the unusual corporation that develops an ethical system and culture to make sure that employees behave ethically and want to behave ethically. One way that organizations can teach, encourage, and promote ethical behavior is by creating and modeling social responsibility and good citizenship through policies. Corporate social responsibility policies will be covered in the next section. · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help 10.6 Corporate Social Responsibility Previous section Next section 10.6 Corporate Social Responsibility George Rose/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Economist Milton Friedman considers a corporation's sole responsibility to society to be to make a profit and continue to create wealth and jobs. Perceptions of corporate social responsibility vary widely. As University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman wrote almost 50 years ago: "Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible" (Friedman,
  • 52. 1962). Many people still believe, like Milton Friedman, that a corporation's sole responsibility to society is to make a profit so it can continue to provide jobs for people and thereby sustain communities and standards of living. To many others, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is so much more. For example, The Gap Inc. has a comprehensive social responsibility commitment that encompasses a youth development program, an environmental protection plan that addresses supply chain and in-store issues, and community investment that confronts social challenges (Gap, n.d.). CSR is the idea that business has a duty to serve society as well as the financial interest of stockholders (Pierce & Robinson, 2005). CSR was conceptualized by Archie B. Carroll of the University of Georgia as a pyramid that represents various kinds of social responsibility (Figure 10.1). Economic responsibilities, at the base of the pyramid, are met by all well- managed corporations; the ones that aren't well managed fail or are acquired. The economic responsibility is to make as much profit as possible in order to create wealth and jobs. Then follow in order of importance legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities. The pyramid is useful because it not only provides a structure for discussion but also demonstrates the complexities of the topic—different people perceive CSR to mean different things. Legal Responsibilities Companies are duty bound to honor the law and not break it in whichever country they do business. This is called their legal responsibilities. As was discussed earlier, many regulations and laws are enacted to protect the public and the public good, and there are a plethora of government agencies responsible for enforcing them, including the following: · The Securities and Exchange Commission for ensuring the proper functioning of the securities industry (online and stock exchanges) and the integrity of financial reporting for public companies · Occupational Safety Health Administration for ensuring safety
  • 53. in the workplace · The Environmental Protection Agency for protecting the environment · The US CPSC, while not a government agency, still has the authority to ensure the safety of consumer products sold in the United States · The Internal Revenue Service for collecting taxes owed the federal government · The National Labor Relations Board for minimizing unfair labor practices and ideally preventing them from happening Figure 10.1: Corporate social responsibility pyramid Source: From A. B. Carroll, "The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders." Business Horizons, Vol. 34 No. 4, 1991, pp. 39- 48. Copyright © Elsevier. Used with permission. These agencies came into being to enforce appropriate regulations and laws to prevent corporations from inflicting harm on particular constituencies—investors, workers, consumers, the environment, and so on. Corporations know about these laws and the consequences for breaking them; it is their obligation to the shareholders and employees to be aware of the laws. Despite this, they may commit both errors of commission (they know about the laws but still try to circumvent them) and omission (they are not aware of particular laws or their consequences or don't agree with them). But are these laws effective? Do they succeed in changing the corporate behavior that is at the root of much malfeasance? As far back as 1975, Christopher Stone (1975) of the University of Southern California Law School explored this very topic. He found maximization of profits to be the dominant characteristic of corporations and that, by and large, corrective actions by the law in terms of fines and penalties for wrongdoing had little effect on changing behavior. They were perceived as a "cost of doing business" so long as they were a relatively small percentage of profits, so firms simply paid them and then went
  • 54. about business as usual. In 2011 United States District Court Judge Jed Rakoff took a strong stand from the bench regarding the culpability of financial institutions in the mortgage crisis that contributed to the recent recession. He refused to approve a boilerplate agreement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a civil fraud case in which Citi was accused of having loaded a $1 billion mortgage fund with securities that it believed would fail. Citi sold the fund to investors and then it bet against its customers and reaped enormous profits when values declined. The settlement Rakoff rejected called for Citigroup to pay $285 million, which the judged described as "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest." He characterized the $285 million figure as "pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup," and stated that large financial institutions regard such penalties "as a cost of doing business." In reaching this opinion, Judge Rakoff noted that Citigroup had settled similar cases with the SEC in the past and promised not to repeat the same behavior. The judge, in rejecting the agreement referred to Citi as "a repeat offender" (Wyatt, 2011). To make penalties so severe as to jeopardize a company's ability to continue to produce goods and possibly force it out of business would be counterproductive and perhaps viewed as overregulation. Stone made persuasive arguments in his book that the law, as part of the punishment for specific kinds of wrongdoing should insert into the corporation a probation officer or trustee, answerable to the court, to make sure that procedures are changed and that the problem would not recur. The types of offenses for which he envisions this type of remedy include the kind where the source of the problem could be ascertained, like the poor design of a car, quality of materials purchased not checked, cooking foods to the wrong temperature, lack of quality inspections, and the like. It seems that laws and regulations play a necessary but far from sufficient role in trying to get corporations to behave more responsibly; so long as corporations can absorb the costs
  • 55. incurred when they are indicted, in all likelihood they will continue to do whatever they want in pursuit of profit. The best solution, as Stone surmises, is for corporations to want to behave ethically. While a good number do, that number is not nearly large enough. Ethical Responsibilities Vince Mannino/Bettmann/Corbis Corporations dislike becoming ethically responsible of their own volition. Ralph Nader and others formed Campaign GM to buy GM stock and wage a proxy fight against GM, urging them to adopt stricter testing and environmental standards. Notwithstanding the ethics of individuals within a company, companies themselves are often reluctant to become ethically responsible on their own. They are typically pushed to do so by critics or stockholders. Campaign GM, formed by Ralph Nader and others, bought stock in General Motors and proceeded to wage a proxy fight to force GM to adopt stricter testing and environmental standards and to put women and representatives from minority groups on its board of directors. Corporations have found themselves trying to satisfy their critics while at the same time hoping the critics would go away. How could corporations become socially responsible if their management couldn't, even in principle, determine what their social obligations were (Wyatt, 2011)? Corporations and researchers developed a new idea—instead of being socially responsible, why not be socially responsive? As long as a company was "responsive" to the demands of society and tried to anticipate and meet these demands, it didn't have to worry about being "responsible." In other words, it would have no obligation to be moral or ethical. Corporate social responsiveness is primarily pragmatic and perverts the connection between ethics and strategy. It is simple, easy, and wrongheaded (Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). It conveniently sidesteps the true notion of responsibility. Ethical responsibilities encompass the more general
  • 56. responsibility to do the right thing and avoid doing undue harm to others. Unless a company's culture and public declarations put a priority on behaving ethically, individual managers will have a hard time being true to their values—swimming against the tide, so to speak. It is much easier to "go along" if it's okay with everyone else. In the rare instance when it's not okay, that individual will tender his or her resignation and join a company whose values are aligned with the individual's own. Philanthropic Responsibilities Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images In U.S. culture, wealthy individuals and businesses are expected to share their good fortune. Many of the wealthiest billionaires in the United States are prolific philanthropists. Bill and Melinda Gates top the list, having given $24 billion to their Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help bridge the gap in human health between the developed and developing world. Philanthropic responsibilities are voluntary and engage the corporation's participation in activities that promote human welfare and goodwill. These take the form of donations of time or money to any of a number of deserving causes, charities, and civic-related projects. However, because such activities are voluntary and discretionary, failure to be philanthropic is not considered unethical, and some don't consider it even a responsibility (Treviño & Nelson, 2007). It was Milton Friedman who said, in not so many words, that giving corporate profits to charity or using them in a way that doesn't benefit stockholders was tantamount to stealing from stockholders (Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). Wouldn't it make more sense to return excess profits to the stockholders and let them decide to donate the money to causes near and dear to their hearts? What right does the corporation (and its board of directors) have to give its money away? Fortunately, many companies feel it is their duty to "give back" to society and to contribute where the need is greatest. When the tsunami of 2004 hit Southeast Asia, companies like FedEx,
  • 57. Abbott Laboratories, and Coca-Cola jumped in to help. Over 100 companies are estimated to have sent $178 million worth of cash and medicine to affected countries, many doing so quietly, not announcing or advertising their contributions (Chandler, 2005). Many corporations also responded swiftly in September 2005 to help victims of hurricane Katrina after it rampaged through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Walmart donated over $20 million to aid victims and donated 1,500 truckloads of free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals, and the promise of jobs for all displaced workers (Barbaro & Gillis, 2005). The recent earthquake, tsunami, and resultant nuclear accident that hit northern Japan on March 11, 2011, cost an estimated 22,000 lives and an estimated $300 billion, not counting the tens of thousands that were still homeless months later. The nuclear contamination is expected to persist for decades. The flood of donations and assistance from countries, nongovernmental entities, corporations, and individuals has come from every region of the world. Businesses have provided donations of cash, materials, and services to help the victims. Many, such as Sony and Mitsubishi from Japan, Disney and Goldman Sachs from the United States, and Pak Suzuki Motors from Pakistan have contributed matching funds to supplement employee donations (Philanthropy News Digest, 2011). Again, these are examples of the best of human nature, coming to the aid of those less fortunate and in dire need. In the United States, there is a tradition of philanthropy on the part of wealthy individuals and businesses. In support of this, the federal tax code includes tax incentives to do so. Many of the wealthiest individuals and families in the United States are prolific givers. Bill Gates tops the list, having given generously to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over the years to help bridge the gap in human health that exists between the developed and developing world (Treviño & Nelson, 2007). Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor in recent history, has, in addition to donating in excess of $9.5 billion to the Gates Foundation alone, committed to donating the bulk of
  • 58. his fortune to charity on his death. Further, he has persuaded more than 40 other billionaires to pledge the majority of their fortunes to charity during or after their lifetimes. The commitments by these benefactors are expressed in personal letters from each at Giving Pledge.com, describing the role philanthropy has played in their lives. Other forms of philanthropy support the arts (such as symphony orchestras, opera companies, and museums), city beautification projects (such as commissioning a work of art or a garden), scholarships for students, research facilities at universities, hospitals, libraries, and so on. Many high-profile contemporary organizations have significant corporate social responsibility programs. For example, retailer Target contributes 5% of its income to programs benefitting local communities with a Target presence (Target.com, 2008). Philanthropy goes beyond "doing the right thing," because it is something no one has a right to expect but something for which everyone is thankful. Many of America's cities owe their greatest cultural features— museums, artwork, buildings, auditoriums, schools, and community facilities to the philanthropic efforts of corporate families such as the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and many more. Just walk around any university campus, and the names of some of those who have donated to fund education will be evident in the names of the buildings. Environmental Responsibilities Associated Press/Tokyo Electric Power Co. For consumers, the benefits of using nuclear power rather than fossil fuels are overshadowed by the risk of nuclear accidents, such as the one that occurred at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan in March of 2011. Externalities are costs to society, such as air and water pollution, that are produced by companies but not reflected in the company's cost structure (Kuttner, 1997). Historically, it was cheaper for such companies to pollute than not to; profits won out over the harm being done to society. The only way to
  • 59. protect society was through regulation. Thus, despite the aversion that companies have for regulations, not all are bad; some force an ethical standard on companies that otherwise would be ignored. Because environmental responsibilities was not included in the pyramid shown in Figure 10.1, one shouldn't assume that they are "less important" or of a "lower order" of responsibility than philanthropic responsibilities. On the contrary, they are a vital part of corporate social responsibility and becoming more so with each passing year. What we are talking about here is a company accepting responsibility for and reducing the adverse environmental effects stemming from its operations. Not only are expectations rising for corporations to become more environmentally responsible but technologies are advancing even faster to make some actions possible that only a few years ago were not. Take genetically engineered crops and genetically modified foods— are they safe, and what will be the effect on farmers in regions where GM crops are planted (Schwartz & Gibb, 1999)? Or consider the case of Pacific Gas and Electric's contamination of the water supply in a small California town popularized in the film Erin Brockovich. It turns out that 20 years later, water samples indicate that PG&E has not solved the problem. Despite this bad news, a growing number of companies are becoming more environmentally responsible— leading one scholar to label the phenomenon business's new "megatrend" (Reid, 2010). For instance, the Coca-Cola Corporation has partnered with communities to restore watersheds (Coca-Cola Company, n.d.). Apple seeks to lead the industry in "reducing or eliminating environmentally harmful substances" from its packaging and the metal and plastic in its parts (Apple and the environment, n.d.); and hotelier Marriott is focused on "integrating greater environmental sustainability . . . through architecture and construction, engineering and procurement (Marriott, n.d.). While companies are motivated by current pressures and
  • 60. existing laws to "clean up after themselves" in the short term, they resist making investments in causes such as research toward long-term solutions to the adverse environmental impacts of their operations. Generally, the immediate pressures to produce profits prevail. Michael Porter has said that pollution is in itself a form of inefficiency in production, creating negative externalities that until now companies have been able to shift on to the public sector (Schwartz & Gibb, 1999). Will there come a time when the accounting profession begins to include costs for safeguarding the environment as a legitimate cost of doing business? Probably not until everyone in an industry is forced to do the same thing. Of course, in some industries, such costs are much higher than in others (for example, preventing oil spills, nuclear accidents, and tainted food). Another problem is the growing skepticism the consumers have for technological advances being risk-free. A case in point is nuclear power, where the potential benefits over using fossil fuels are balanced by the real risks of a nuclear accident such as the one experienced in Japan in March 2011. In a cost/benefit analysis of nuclear power, how do you account for the possibility of a major nuclear accident or the risk in storing irradiated spent fuel for hundreds of years? But whom do we blame for overly high levels of mercury in seafood? For the dumping of plastic and other indecomposable garbage now swirling in the Pacific Ocean in two pools, each the size of Texas? For rapidly depleting the world's supply of fossil fuel? For adding to our global carbon footprint? For changing global climate patterns? Taking care of negative externalities caused by a particular firm's operations is one thing, but there is growing evidence of massive environmental damage that is collectively caused, making it difficult to pin blame and rendering the law helpless. While I don't have any solutions (nor is this the appropriate forum for delving into the full extent of the problems), becoming aware of the problems is a first step, followed closely
  • 61. by nations getting together to try to mitigate them. How bad do they have to get before we are all forced to cooperate and take responsibility for solving them? Discussion Questions 1. In your opinion, what is the most pressing environmental problem: (a) that particular corporations are responsible for, and (b) that the global community is responsible for. Explain your choices. 2. Why is the law so far behind developments and policymakers even further behind? (Stone's book, for example, is a call for policymakers to act.) Is it because not enough facts are available, or there is too much ambiguity, or the costs of following through too high? Discuss. 3. If companies were suddenly expected to bear the costs of their negative externalities, whether or not you agree that is just, how do you think it will affect their stock prices, their prospects for the future, their investors, and their other stakeholders? 4. Following on from (3), do you believe it will spur innovation and investment in innovation? 5. What particular advantages accrue to companies who proactively take steps to safeguard the environment (like BMW), besides giving them a warm, fuzzy feeling? 6. Just from your perception over the past few years of reading the papers and listening to the news, what has accelerated interest in environmental responsibilities of corporations? Has it been the growth of environmental "watchdogs," investor activism, or consumer pressure? Discuss your thinking. · My Bookshelf · TOC/Annotation menu · Downloads · Print · Search · Profile · Help
  • 62. Summary and Key Terms Previous section Next section Summary Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of doing the right thing when it will cost more than we want to pay, which is a better definition for the business world than the traditional definition of "the art and discipline of applying principles and frameworks to analyze and resolve complex moral dilemmas." Morality is knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing right. Someone who is immoral also knows the difference but chooses wrong. Values are tenets that are important to an individual or group and the ways that govern how they choose to live their life. An unethical act has immoral intent and is done with the full knowledge that it is legally and morally wrong or contravenes the prevailing societal or organizational culture. Unethical behavior consists of conduct undertaken to benefit a person or organization while knowingly—or being oblivious to the possibility of—harming others. Behavior is still considered unethical if the act is wrongful, whether or not it results in harm. Why do people behave unethically? In most instances, they are motivated by self-interest. Often they justify such behavior by claiming that other people are getting away with it. Fudging data to make quarterly results look good or to qualify for a bonus, cutting corners to meet production targets, and obeying an order by your manager to cover something up are a few examples of unethical behaviors. Organizations, particularly large ones, are so focused on meeting profit goals, buoying their stock price, and pleasing their stockholders that they may go to great lengths to avoid or minimize unnecessary expenditures. This includes a proclivity for externalizing whatever costs they can such as pollution. In some industries it is common for firms to tolerate fines and penalties for breaking the law or to settle a lawsuit so long as they are a fraction of profits, but continuing to do "business as usual." To some, this is simply a cost of
  • 63. doing business. Ethical issues arise whenever people are tempted to behave unethically or not do the "right" thing. In the business world they include a host of issues. In the sphere of human resources, they include such matters as discrimination, sexual and other forms of harassment, and conflicts of interest. Customer- confidence issues encompass confidentiality, product safety, truth in advertising, and fiduciary responsibilities. The use, or misuse, of corporate resources includes such behaviors as co- opting corporate reputation, stealing corporate resources, and falsifying data. The root problems in most of these instances are unfairness, lack of respect, and self-interest. All of us face ethical dilemmas—a choice in which one consideration is the rightness or wrongness of the action—at some point in our careers. You will recognize you are facing one when you're not sure what the right thing to do is. However, asking yourself five questions might help you avoid making the wrong decision: (1) What is in it for me? (2) What decision or action would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number? (3) What laws, regulations, and social norms apply in this situation? (4) What are my obligations to others? (5) What will the lasting impact be on me and on my key stakeholders? Three further questions will aid in resolving conflicts you may encounter: In the current situation, which questions above relate most to your personal and organizational values? If those values must be jeopardized, which is the best tradeoff? How well will your decision and rationale fare if submitted to public scrutiny? It is naive to think that ethics can be taught either in the workplace or in business school. Research has shown that such courses make little if any difference and that one's values and ethics are molded early on in life by our parents, family, church or religious group, and so on. Those values and ethics turn out to be the most reliable indicator of how we will fare when ethically tested later in our careers, no matter what those careers are. However, even people with good values and ethics can, when thrust into morally and ethically challenged cultures,