Ethics and Leadership - Research Paper Example

? Ethics and Leadership Introduction In the year 1995, Kathie Lee designed clothes that were exclusively available for sale at Wal-Mart of US. According to a survey conducted by the labour and human rights organisations, it was learnt that several workers, employed by Kathie Lee’s Global Fashion plant at Honduras, a developing region in Central America, were teenage girls ageing below 14 years (Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, 1996). Furthermore, they were required working for long working hours from 7:30 in the morning to 9:00 at night due to the rush in completing the orders. Apart from the minors, pregnant women were also recruited for such long shifts of work on a daily basis. These minors and women worked at night shifts for more than 15 hours, on their feet. However, after working in a malicious environment in globally renowned fashion plants, the base earnings of these workers were not much higher. Majority of the workers who were women earned US$17.18 a week that was recorded as an average of US$74.45 a month. Certainly, the mere earnings were not sufficient to provide at least 50 per cent of the basic cost for a poor family in Honduras (Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, 1996). Based on this aspect, the objective of the paper is to analyse the scenario in which the company had to agree with such unethical behaviour and if there were any initiatives taken by the company to avoid the situation. Two theories and cultural perspectives will be used to review the children exploitation issue faced in Kathie Lee’s Global Fashion Company. Ethical Issue Identified The ethical issue concerning the employees of global fashion plant was that the owners and management of the company were observed to render insignificant consideration to think about the volatile effects due to their actions. The leaders of that plant were observed to lack in terms of awareness regarding ethical managerial conduct that states the minimum behaviour required from them towards the employees. The code of conduct can be classified as Deontology which can be defined as actions that are in accordance with moral principles or certain rules. It further states that rules or principles are derived from rationality that is justified to each and every employee (Etzioni, 1991). In Kathie Lee’s fashion plant there were various rules which directly created a negative impact over the working environment of the organisation inhibiting the moral conscience of the leaders. For instance, the women workers were asked to raise their hands for taking permission to use the bathrooms that were kept locked. They were allowed to use the washrooms two times a day only, once in the morning and again in the evening. Furthermore, the women were searched physically as the company prohibited from bringing any snacks that could stain the garments. The employees were also tortured mentally to work faster and produce as much apparels as possible within a limited working hour. It was observed that in eight man-hours, a group of sixty five women stitched nearly eight hundred pairs of Kathie Lee pants (Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, 1996). Thus, it can be observed that the process performed by the management at Kathie Lee’s plant violated the standards of human and labour rights in its Honduras plant where they made the workers work more than the standard time specified by the labour organisations, only to meet the orders demanded by Wal-Mart. The ethics imbibed in the behaviour of the superiors play an imperative role while motivating or maintaining a happier working environment. It can specifically be described as a character trait of a human-being that is required to flourish and lead a healthier life which can also be quite beneficial to facilitate a productive working environment encouraging employees to participate in the overall growth of the company (Hindman & Smith, 1999). Thus, a leader of an organisation should possess virtuous skills in their behaviour towards the subordinates. In the case of Kathie Lee’s fashion company, the leaders or the supervisors possessed just the opposite character trait required in an organisation. Reports revealed that physical punishments were imposed on the workers who were observed to depict disregard or disobey the organisational rules. The employees were literally abused by their supervisors to force them to work faster and produce greater number of clothes. Furthermore, there were no maternity leaves for the pregnant women; rather, they were asked to work in the pressing department where they had to work on their feet constantly for 12-13 hours a day. Apart from that, the teenage girls were also sexually harassed by the managers during the working hours. Moreover, the company neither had a health care unit nor did it pay for sick leaves or any vacation which also violated the human rights act (Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, 1996). It is in this context that the employees were forced to work in the plant as the economy of Honduras mostly consisted of poor people. It was then regarded as one of the economically backward countries in western hemispheres with 65 per cent people living Below Poverty Line (BPL). Moreover, the country was also lacked in having employment opportunities as in major parts of US (U.S. Department of State, 2011). It has been noted that various ethnic groups reside in Honduras where a possibility of having a multi cultural socio-economic environment is evident. Furthermore, it has been observed that the culture is more or less influenced by the neighbouring North-American and European cultures. The US too comprises of various cultures owing to its vast demographical area and increasing migration rates (This is Honduras, 2009). Another aspect of cultural conflict can be identified as the gap between two cultures, i.e. the culture of the host country and the home country. Contextually, communication gap can be a factor aroused due to the global cultural differences. It is in this context that the professionalism shown in the multinational organisations in US was vastly different compared to Honduras (Adler, 1983). Thus, the treatment received by the employees of Kathie Lee’s Honduras plant, was because majority of them were women and children, which was largely discouraged in US working environment. The pay scale too ranged to be lower due to the economically underdeveloped environment of the country compared to US. Although the country was influenced by the American and European cultures, the offerings completely mismatched between Honduras and that in these two countries. Discussion The issue mostly aroused within Kathie Lee’s plant due to the eagerness of the organisation to complete the orders of Wal-Mart surpassing its abilities. For instance, Wal-Mart stores required huge amount of clothing to meet the customers demand in US and internationally. Thus, the Company insisted in sewing majority of the clothing from Honduras as the cost of making a pair of pants were comparatively lower than in that of US. The managers forced the teenagers to work overtime along with the other employees that restricted them from attending night schools developed especially for working children as a facility provided by the government of Honduras. Moreover, the company insisted on employing young people aged between 16-17 years old as they felt that the older people would not accept the abuses or physical punishments or even will be energetic to satisfy the work pressure (Harvard Law School, 2012). Therefore, children exploitation occurred as Kathie Lee’s fashion company did not desire to incur huge costs to make ordered supplies with the motive to incur less production cost and generate higher profits. A visit conducted by North Americans from a US organisation revealed that the workers had insisted them to inform Kathie Lee regarding the abuses faced and subsequently end the unpleasant treatment. However, the owner was informed to be unwilling to listen to the matter. Intervention from the owner would have meant that the issues raised were being addressed formally. This could have led to the reduction of women and children exploitation issue and maintenance of a healthier environment in the working place. Furthermore, the ill mannered behaviour of the managers could have been stopped by taking corrective and punitive measures. Moreover, the owner could have decided on a larger pay scale that would have enabled the employees to feed their families properly (US Department of State, 2011). Conclusion The tremendous hardships faced by the women employees in the Global Fashion plant in Honduras had attracted the US labour and human rights organisations to act on their woes. As a result, the reputed organisation took initiatives to let the owners know how employees were treated by their managers in Honduras plant. However, the characters and moral values possessed by the managers were remarked as not upto the standards. In a healthy professional atmosphere, abuses and physical punishments are not part of the working environment. With reference to the above discussion it can be stated that Kathie Lee, through her leadership, could have avoided such issues while developing and implementing the strategies by focusing on the consequences in terms of cultural as well as ethical issues likely to be raised in the long run. It tends to be the moral responsibility of any organisation to provide a healthy working environment to its employees who are often termed to be the lifeblood for its existence. References Adler, N. J. (1983). Cross-cultural management research: the ostrich and the trend. The Academy of Management Review 8 (2), pp. 226-232. Etzioni, A. (1991). Reflections on teaching of business ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, 1 (4), pp. 355-365. Harvard Law School. (2012). Children found sewing clothing for Wall-mart, Hanes & other U.S. & European companies. Retrieved from http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/NLC_childlabor.html Hindman, H. D. & Smith, C. G. (1999). Cross cultural ethics and the child labour problem. Journal of Business Ethics, 19 (1), pp. 21-33. Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. (1996). Children exploited by Kathie lee/Wal-Mart. Retrieved from http://www.globallabourrights.org/alerts?id=0246 This is Honduras. (2009). People and culture. Retrieved from http://thisishonduras.com/People_and_Culture.htm U.S. Department of State. (2011). Bureau of western hemisphere affairs. Retrieved from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1922.htm#econ Bibliography Corlett, J. A. (No Date). An international philosophical review. The Journal of Ethics. Seufert, S. (No Date). Cultural perspectives. Retrieved from http://sciltest.unisg.ch/seufert/docs/cultural-perspectives.pdf Read More