Ethical and Social Responsibility Issues (Essay Sample)

Business management
Name
Institution
Introduction
Ethics and social responsibilities are obligations that aim at fostering responsibility to concerned stakeholders within an organization. Among the most affected by these obligations are managers, leaders or employees. These individuals are obliged to various responsibilities that include; protecting the organizational resources, improving the organizational environment, maximizing organization’s profit and producing efficient and effective employees (Kazmi, 2012). This paper will discuss current ethical and social responsibility issues in the workplace by highlighting three common issues. More so, the paper will discuss ethical and social issues faced by retail store employees of BestBuy electronics in terms of duping consumers as per the managers orders or stop the scams. The paper looks at the affected parties of the ethical and social responsibility issue, the cause of the issue, ethical dilemmas involved; the consequences and then appropriate recommendation that the employees who execute the scams should opt for.
Ethical dilemmas and social responsibilities
Ethics are beliefs, values and principles that define the right from the wrong. Organizations are governed by ethics that oblige them to do right or adhere to the organizations values. On the other hand, social responsibility is referred to as the obligation or the responsibility of managers to act responsibly in protecting and improving the welfare of the society and at the same time protecting their own interest (Kazmi, 2012). This means that managers should not only strategize on maximizing the organization’s profit; but also protect the organizational resources, adhere to moral obligations, produce efficient and effective employees, improve the organizational environment among other responsibilities.
Current ethical and social responsibility issues in the workplace
There are many ethical and responsibility issues that affect both small and multi-national organizations. Among the main issues witnessed in workplaces is poor management of the company’s workforce that mainly includes unfair dismissal and underpayments. This aspect is fostered by poor human resource management that includes poor leadership and lack of motivation. Many of the companies affected by this issue have been highlighted by the media and it includes Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was under scrutiny for paying and promoting employees based on gender status, where male were favored over the female employees (Hines, 2012).
Another common ethical and social responsibility issue in the work place is misleading advertisement. These advertisements are executed by the marketing personnel with an aim of wooing the consumers, yet such discounts do not exist. Tesco was affected by such an issue when the retail store advertised a reduced price of a product from £ 4.99 to £ 4.50 for a period of 21 days. According to insights, the product had been selling at £ 4.00 before and during the promotion period, and the shocking part is that the product sold at the same price during the advertised period. This means that the advertisement was misleading because Tesco had not conducted or changed any price variations of the product and the advert was probably meant to remind customers of the company’s presence in the market or probably depict how the company was consumer conscious by “lowering” the price. Another culprit is Nestle, which was scrutinized by the media for price fixing in 2009 (Nieburg, 2014). Insights argued that Nestle colluded with other companies to raise chocolate prices; thus, destroying competition within the industry, and financially oppressing the consumers by granting them no alternative but to settle for the high prices of chocolate candy.
Another ethical and social responsibility in the work place today is accounting fraud, where companies are accused of overstating their profits. This case affected Tesco again in 2014 when it overstated its first-half profits by £ 263 million (Anderson, 2014). Though none of Tesco’s officials commented on the issue, analysts argue that the overstatement of figures was triggered by the company’s struggle in terms of sales and that the move was to paint a fake possession of competitive market share.
Ethical issue
The ethical issues in the case is that the customer service representatives in vast retail stores are obliged to act on the best interest of the company (making profits) or contend with the consumers.
The ethical dilemma
The ethical dilemma faced by the employees of BestBuy is that they should stop the scam by not wooing consumers to subscribe to MSN, AOL, NetZero when they buy accessories of the company or continue with the scam so as to abide by the managers orders. Therefore, whether or not they should carry on with the subscription scam is the ethical dilemma in question.
Consequences
Both the alternatives in the case have consequences. For instance, proceeding with the scam of duping loyal consumers’ huge sum of money by wooing them to subscribe or by swiping their credit cards is affecting their conscience. On the other hand, if they fail to carry on with the managers’ orders mean that they will loose their jobs. Therefore, any alternative by the employees expose them to either psychological torture or economic crisis. More so, exposing the scam will tarnish the image of the company and could attract legal action from relevant bodies that govern businesses. The company will loose large sums of money because the consumers will no longer buy the goods offered by the company. The consumers will also be affected psychologically because they will loose trust on many other similar companies that offer the same goods and services.
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