Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
Do the Right Thing
MINDS ON
Where Do You Stand?
In 2006 Junior Achievement and Deloitte conducted a worldwide teen ethics survey. The interactive below will allow you to consider the questions and compare your responses to students from around the world:
survey
Ethics Today Task
Scandals are not new to the corporate world, but they have certainly taken centre stage in recent years. Since the beginning of the 21st century, business ethics has been an integral component of most business school curriculums, but there has been some debate lately as to its validity. Can business ethics really be taught? Aren’t ethics something that is ingrained in us from an early age? Aren’t unethical decisions a natural consequence of a business’ quest for profit?
Read the blog article below:
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Interview an adult about their workplace. Discuss the ethical culture of their workplace environment and how that information is shared and instilled in the corporate culture. You will probably want to make a list of questions before conducting the interview.
ACTION
Ethics
Ethics is a complex concept that deals with the idea of what is good, what is bad, and what is moral. It is the underlying framework for much of what we consider acceptable behaviour between people. Businesses, like people, are expected to follow a certain code. Especially in larger organizations, business ethics determine policies for environmental issues, social responsibility and human rights.
Global Business Ethics
Some businesses choose to write down a clear list of their values in order to reduce the chance of any of these conflicts arising. This Code of Conduct creates guidelines to help employees make acceptable choices. However, when operating internationally, many Canadian businesses find that the ethics we live by here in Canada may not necessarily be the same in other countries. This problem may lead to more ethical dilemmas.
There are two different methods of examining ethical issues in a global context:
| Ethical Imperialism | Cultural Relativism |
|---|---|
| The belief that there are certain universal truths or values that are standard across all cultures. If something is wrong in one country, it is wrong in all countries. | The belief that a culture's different values should be respected, as the ethics of one culture are not better than another. |
| One set of values for all cultures.
Right and wrong are the same in all cultures. |
Values are dependent on the culture.
Right and wrong depend on local values. |
| “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do at home.” | “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” |
Consider the following ethical dilemmas raised when conducting business in other countries. If possible, work with a partner or group to determine the ethical issues presented by these scenarios and to identify appropriate solutions.
Ceramic Tile in China
You own a ceramic tile company and have decided to open a factory in China to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
The average hourly wage is $1.36 and employees generally work 12 hours in a day.
Expanding into Mexico
You are a manager with a large corporation seeking to expand into Mexico. Government officials have offered to provide you faster access to store building permits in exchange for some "under the table" cash.
This is a common practice in Mexico. You know that the sooner you can open your new locations, the sooner your division will start to turn a profit and this will reflect quite favourably on you personally.
Melons in Honduras
You are a manager with a Canadian grocery store company. Your company has traditionally sourced its melons from Honduras, although Mexico is becoming a competitive alternative.
In order to remain profitable, Honduran companies have started to cut production costs. They are doing so by paying their female employees minimum wage with no overtime pay and forcing them to work 12-14 hour workdays, seven days a week. This work is seasonal and lacks long term security, but women are more than willing to take on the contracts because they have limited options.
Clothing Plant in India
You are an American plant manager for a multinational clothing company. Your company owns a clothing plant in India that is located beside a river.
The common practice in India is not to treat the wastewater from your plant. Meanwhile in the United States you are required to treat your wastewater, which leads to cleaner water and increased costs.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are the individuals or groups that have an interest in the organization and are affected by its actions.
Primary Stakeholders directly affect the company and its profit. They benefit when the company is well-run and suffer when the company has missteps.
Secondary Stakeholders have an impact on the company, but do not directly influence its success or contribute to its profitability. They can indirectly affect the organization by taking actions to make it difficult for the organization to succeed or by supporting the organization’s efforts.
Identify each of the following groups as either primary stakeholders or secondary stakeholders by dragging them into the appropriate areas of the diagram below.
stakeholders
Corporate Social Responsibility
All businesses have a responsibility to serve the needs of their stakeholders, but an increasing number of businesses are taking their responsibility further by seeking out ways to address global issues and ultimately make the world a better place.
A company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy supports its core mission and extends its responsibilities and commitments to secondary stakeholders and other members of society. It fosters organizational actions that affect society as a whole: environment, communities and people. (The Saylor Foundation)
Here is a visual representation of an organization’s levels of corporate social responsibility. Click on each step in the pyramid to learn more about the type of responsibility.
resp
CONSOLIDATION
ethicsMatch
Evaluating CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility plays a major role in today’s world. Many companies worldwide devote significant resources to social responsibility. Pressure from “global citizens” has made the idea of corporate social responsibility a competitive advantage. Many consumers will purchase goods and services from an organization they believe to be a good corporate citizen. This has forced corporations in many industries to be accountable to society as a whole.
In meeting their four types of responsibility (economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary), an organization may choose to adopt a strategy of corporate social responsibility that falls anywhere on the spectrum illustrated below:
Resources:
- Margraf, Bert. “Legal and Ethical Issues in International Business Expansion.” Chron, 2017.
- Ontario Business Educators’ Association. “Issues of Ethics and Social Responsibility." 2012.
- Saylor Foundation. “Stakeholders and Corporate Social Responsibility.”
Learning Goals and Success Criteria
Learning Skills and Work Habits