Ethics Assignment This case study analyzes the experiences of Courtland Kelley at General Motors (GM). Courtland Kelley a third generation GM worker put his job on the line by pushing the GM managers and executives to fully respond to the safety issues found while working as a safety inspector at the company. Kelley along with his supervisor Bill McAleer first discovered the issues while auditing GM cars at rail yards across the country, a spot check of vehicles before the cars were cleared to be delivered to the dealers. McAleer was taken off the audit as a result, who subsequently sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in favor of GM. The judgement only increased Kelley’s …show more content…
According to this framework ethical/unethical decisions are controlled/moderated by three independent variables, which are individual factors, significant others in an organizational setting, and opportunity for action. According to Ferrell & Gresham the three variables can be further categorized into individual and organizational contingencies. Individual factors like attitudes, knowledge, values, and intentions are assumed to be interacting with organizational factors, such as significant others and opportunity factors to influence an individual involved in an ethical/unethical dilemma. In the following paragraphs we will analyze how these individual as well as organizational factors interplayed in Courtland Kelley’s situation at GM. Based on the individual factor construct of the framework it is assumed that knowingly or unknowingly an individual may use a set of philosophical assumption as a basis for making ethical decisions. The philosophical assumptions about ethics are divided into two basic types – teleological and deontological (Beauchamp and Bowie 1979). We can assume that Courtland Kelley exhibited teleological behavior
Ethics is the guiding force in any respectable organization. With a moral compass, especially in the leadership of organization, a company can become compromised and fall into a quagmire of legal issues, a tarnished reputation, and devaluation of company stock if it is a publically traded company. In pursuit of examine my own ethical lens I will analyze the ethical traits of an admired leader, my own traits as exhibited in the Ethical Lens Inventory, and how I make a decision concerning a particular ethical dilemma.
The issue of ethical decision making has become more important in recent years for a variety of reasons. An understanding of ethical decision making in organizations is more significant to the development of organizational science. Managers engage in decision-making behavior affecting the lives and well-being of others. The individual responds to an ethical dilemma with cognitions determined by his or her cognitive moral development stage.
Another limit to ethical behaviour at McDonald’s might be training and discipline within the company. For example, if an experienced employee was selected for a course or was offered a promotion, another employee might find it unfair and discriminative. Similar situation could possibly happen when it comes to discipline, for example a manager would treat employees making the same mistake differently and favour one person more than another. If any of the employees made an official complaint about any of those, it could lead to publicity’s hesitation and bad relations between employees within the company and its suppliers.
A multitude of factors influence unethical decision making and behaviors such as employment, dissatisfaction with wages and benefits, etc. In the case of Crestview, it is the organizational culture of getting the job done at any cost, which encourages disregard for ethical considerations in the interest of achieving outcomes (Holzer & Schwester, 2011).
My first article that I ran into for my research on a business with ethical issues is the famous clothing line Calvin Klein. Calvin Klein is well known to have a fashion line of high quality clothes for men and women. The reason why I think his practice is unethical is because they are using sexually act and messages in ads to promote their brand of clothes. According to Armstrong, Kotler, “marketing system uses cultural pollution in commercials to interrupt people 's minds with messages of materialism, sex, power, or status.”(2017, Pg. 498) Calvin Klein has tried to sell their clothing line by input sexual explicit text message through ads and media to draw in buyers. In the American Marketing Association
Discuss what is meant by the term “customer orientation”. Illustrate with examples how companies demonstrate their customer orientation by reference to at least two elements of the marketing mix.
Top managers develop long-range plans, called strategic plans that define the company's overall mission and goals. Strategic planning focuses more on issues that affect the company's future survival and growth. To develop strategic plan, top managers also need information from outside the company, such as economic forecasts, technology trends, competitive threats, governmental issues and shareholder concerns.
This document represents The i-Fusions Consultant’s Report on BRITA. The company’s current business situation is analysed and various options for action considered. The report aims to identify a clear marketing strategy for Brita in order to address the current issues facing the company the associated falling sales.
In this week’s case study, a small profitable company (PPI) of 50 employees is facing problems with annual safety audits from its legal counsel. Although, PPI has had no accidents in years submitted to their insurance company, their lawyers contend that the violations that auditor uncovered can be used against PPI in litigation. PPI’s president and manage acknowledge attorney’s concerns, the contend that the audits are necessary to make improvements at the plant.
1. Using the sites and write a brief summary of the code of conduct for marketers especially focused on mobile marketing. Do you think this information can be better communicated to consumers?
In an industry overwhelmed with fraud and corruption, Martin Marietta was ready to revamp their reputation to become an ethical company. This concept catapulted a decade of creating, developing, and tweaking an ethics program. Martin Marietta's goal was to maintain a work place with "descent people doing quality work" (page 1). But with this idea came a series of difficult challenges the company needed to overcome. Martin Marietta arose to the challenge and executed an elaborate ethics program. The programs successes were hard to measure at best. A SWOT analysis was designed to reflect upon all aspects of the ethics program. A case study was used to discuss Martin Marietta's
In this paper, I have researched to find out how this grant empire has become and remain so successful. I found out that one of the reasons is because it has been able to maintain the goals and standards that its owner, Mr. Sam Walton has built it upon. Even after his death, Wal-Mart continues to expand and grow in other countries. Wal-Mart is considered one of the top ten global companies today. Mr. Walton’s main goal was to sell products at a low price so that people could live a better life. Another reason is because Wal-Mart uses certain market mix strategies such as the four P”. These strategies, price, promotion, product and place.
Courtland Kelly was working for General Motors (GM) as a head of the nationwide GM inspection program and later as a quality manager for Caviler. Kelly was a proud third generation employee and enjoyed working for GM. During the course of his employment, Kelly found several flaws with the vehicles and reported them to his colleagues’ and supervisor but no actions were taken. After several fail attempts on brining GM’s attention to their faulty products, Kelly sued GM on 2002 and 2003, but both the case were dismissed. Although the management was aware of these defects, anyone who raised concerns were discouraged or shut down. U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas writes in his reports that “Group after group and committee after committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly” (Higgings & Summers, 2014). Everyone one knew about the issues, but they failed to take an action to correct it (Higgings & Summers, 2014).
If a frog is thrown into a pot of boiling water, the frog will kick, struggle, and fight to get out of the water. If a frog is put in a pot of room-temperature water and the heat is slowly turned up, you end up with frog soup. The frog will not even know what hit him. Workplace ethics are as invisible in submersion in organizational culture as the frog in gradually boiled water. When the corrosion finally grows to the avalanche that Enron saw, it often grabs everyone by surprise-just like the frog that finds he's boiled. (Ross, William; Robertson, Diana, 2003)
Often regarded as a leader in the multinational marketing industry, United Colors of Benetton continues to face the challenge of effectively marketing clothes across racial, cultural, and religious borders. Renowned for using social issued-themed pictures to promote its brand, Benetton has strayed from traditional marketing techniques to provide customers with an idea of the many issues that plaque societies from continent to continent. This unique approach has been met with extreme emotions, and people have both praised and damned the Benetton advertisements. Although the advertisements often are considered controversial, photographs that feature such images as human suffering and sexual organs continue to