Consequences of Ethical Decision Making: PepsiCo (Research Paper Sample)

Consequences of Ethical Decision Making: PepsiCo
Name:
Institution:
Consequences of Ethical Decision Making: PepsiCo
Introduction
Ethical decision-making marks a very critical component in forming or creating the foundation for any given business ethics. This essay seeks in order to offer an analysis of the ethical approach, consequences, as well as tradeoffs in making business ethical decisions using the case of PepsiCo’s Aquifina bottled water as an example.
Ethical Issues and PepsiCo
Ethics plays a very central role in business running, whereby ethical leaders are able to interact with the various business ethics to the degree that these businesses are motivated through moral values, whenever strengthening organizational values and goals. Ethical judgment is also very important, as it is a moral as well as lawful decision that is considered tolerable by the public. Through values such as respect, nurturing behaviors, and honesty, many of the ethical leaders are able to depict the required traits that help in enriching the performance of a company. These values enable leaders to perform crucial roles in establishing the moral identities of businesses, which entails the application of moral principles as well as ethical values in the process of decision-making.
Past activities offer signs of warnings for business leaders of possible moral collapses, which result from the calamities of ethical decision-making. Furthermore, business scandals depict these ethical challenges of businesses. For instance, in the year 2007, the corporate watchdog alleged PepsiCo of selling tap water, which the company branded as purified water. Besides, the branded water contained a label that suggested the image of snow-capped maintains, which has been widely criticized as purified spring water (Ferrell and Ferrell, 2010). Furthermore, whereas the water was not regular tap water and underwent through all the procedures of eliminating impurities before branding it as purified, many critics accused the company of not being transparent in its business undertakings.
Pressures from external environment for responsibility enable businesses to become equipped to utilize suitable ethical practices in order to conform to the society’s moral expectations. In fact, PepsiCo acknowledged the implications of integrating ethical decision-making into standard business behaviors. The accusation that Aquafina bottled water was tap water was a suggestion of just how pertinent corporate social responsibility is to a company in considering business activities in ethical business practices (Ferrell and Ferrell, 2010). Through the criticism that PepsiCo has faced over the time, it has made it to put more emphasis on corporate social responsibility as well as sustainable growth, while giving back to the community that it serves.
Ethical Framework
Many of the existing ethical principles address moral conducts and offer a scheme of ideology in order to guide one’s understanding of what is wrong and right in various situations (Gill, 2006). For international and large-scale businesses like PepsiCo, consequences of ethical decision-making bear implications on a large scale area and may even lead to brand crisis. Besides, a brand crisis is a major event, which may occur at some time in a business’s existence. Corporate social responsibility perform a major role in the manner clients perceive a business’s products during such situations. For a business to sustain and maintain prosperity through clients’ trust as well as confidence, then it is important for the company to follow sound ethical behaviors.
Ethical Principles in Business
Businesses should decide on the moral approach to undertake in a particular situation. Studies in specializing in business ethics lay a lot of emphasis on two main perspectives of ethical theories including teleological as well as deontological theories. Deontological originates from rule and act perspectives. The rule deontological states that people need to abide by the predetermined ideals, whereas the act deontology suggests the ability to act in ethical ways as the best behavior. Thus, the deontological theory generally describes the idea of moral responsibility in business ethics (Mendonca and Kanungo, 2007).
On the other hand, teleological theory has extensive classifications, however, there are few in the study of business. These includes, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, as well as ethical egoism. The teleological theory theories as ethical frameworks apply the concept of moral decisions in making the right standpoints. Teleological theory demands that actions are moral, especially when made with the intention of benefiting the greater good.
Ethical Perspectives Used
Businesses encounter a number of dilemmas more often and as such, they need to assess their own risks in ethical ways in order to determine the manner the company should be operated. Given that people are not teleological or deontological in their ways, the values of what is right or wrong must be fully emphasized. In the case of PepsiCo, the company made a decision in order to do what it considered was reasonable. This contributed to the classification of the source of the company’s bottled water. Besides, the teleological concept to addressing the issues attributed to PepsiCo product and water bottling business has also contributed to the company’s emphasis on social obligation in its ethical approach to doing business (Mendonca and Kanungo, 2007). 
Tradeoffs in Ethical Decision-Making
Business must not only aim to be socially responsible, but also must focus on ways to pleasing their stakeholders (Chonko, 2005).  Whenever making decisions in efforts to integrate ethical decision-making int...