Ethical Issues in Business Companies - Case Study Example

Business Ethics by Business Ethics Task Two Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company 2.1 Pfizer pharmaceutical is a company that is known all around the globe for manufacturing and selling of medicines.In the modern world, companies are being criticized not only on the amount of profit that they make, but also in respect of the kind of principles. This has made business leaders to exercise virtue obligations to all the people and the environment at large. One of Pfizer objective is to make drugs available at low prices. Pfizer also seeks to have legal considerations all around the world when it comes to testing their products. T heyare moving along with their objectives by meeting the needs of the society by making sure that they can participate in making the world be in a good health state. This practice is being improvised by building partnership with other communities, and this plays a big part in strengthening the health systems. Pfizer has all have their site set at increasing the access of medicines as well as work out to be able to develop solutions to most health challenges that are affecting people at the moment and in the future. They are also working to increasing the kind of support service that they offer to their clients. They for instance offer insurance counseling, co-pay help as well as providing medicine for free and these are the kinds of issues that they also want to emphasize on. If they don’t offer such services, their clients might be made to search for better services elsewhere. They have been victims of unethical issues, and this saw them pay up to $60 million all in the aim of settling bribery charges (2012). Pfizer should always keep track of their employees by increasing the security making sure that there is minimal bribery going around the company. 2.2 In an organization such as Pfizer pharmaceutical, the shareholders of the company relation real determines the relation of the organization with the rest of the bodies attached to the organization. The shareholders want the company to be able to maximize the profits made so that the organization can be of high value and this is work that will be done by the stakeholders. The needs that the stakeholders want may affect the organization in a positive or in a negative way. When the employees demands high salaries or demonstrate pushing for improvements of standards, the organization is made to stretch to the best that they can so that they can get back to work. This is unethical of the employees Because there should be agreement between the parties involved. To Pfizer pharmaceuticals make sure that the customers, suppliers, and employees get their fair share of the amount so that their minds can be all focused on the job that they are doing. All this may sometimes get to be a disadvantage to Pfizer but they have to do it so that the employees can be able to get the best out of the customers. Consequentialism is one of the main factors that really affect Pfizer. Consequentialism is a state of being faced by a decision to make, and this leaves the one to take the best decision that is morally right. When a patient is sick and diagnosed with a certain problem and the medication given to him/her does not help improve the condition, it leaves questions that are directed to the company. One objective of the company is to be able to make the profit but the company has to look at how the profit comes. For instance, Pfizer can make big profits by paying the workers badly, taking advantage of the sick people, highly pricing their medicine but after all, one question stands, is it morally right? The image of a company is important and this is another consideration that they need to look at (Ferrell 1997). Generally, employees should be focused on goal achievements and this will enhance their personal growth and goals. The supervisors of Pfizer should also advocate on making sure that the programs and goals are effective. Some of the programs that Pfizer are looking forward to achieve is Global Health Fellow Programs. Task Three MARKS & SPENCER Company 3.1 M&S is a company that has been in the UK for 129 years and their service delivery to the people remains goods in all aspects. These have made them to be named as one of the most ethical companies in the world and one my wonder why it is so. M&S is able to accomplish all these due to the kind of goals that they have set to achieve. Being a moral agent, they have done the best to be ethical to the people. A moral agent is a person who have the ability to acting with reference of whether the action is right or wrong. Moral agents have the capability to cause harm to other people intentionally. These means that M&S have the ability to cause harm to a very big number of people but their goals remain a clear picture of how ethical they are for they aim at serving the people no matter the age, gender, religion, colour, marital status, originality, level of disability, political opinions and the hours that you require their good and services. Since the start of the business, the employers and the employees of this organization have all been working to achieve five principles (Pinnington 2007).The five principles are the ones that help the to be able to so ethical in a way that they are recognized worldwide. One of them is value; they make sure that the items that they sell of high value and this makes the people believe in them and be ready to engage themselves with them. They also pay a lot of attention on the quality of goods and services that they offer. In terms of goods, they make sure that they get to sell goods that are of the best quality to their customers and this makes them win more and more customers. On the part of services, the employees are well trained to offer the best services to the customers and this is a key secret that makes them win the wide range of their customers. The employees are ethically upright which a value is that all of them are made to show to the world (Langford 1995).They are also keen on innovating new kinds of strategies to make their workplace better and to make sure that their company is always ahead of the others and that they are up to date with the technology advancement in the world. The last core value that they work with and that they all follow is trust. For any company to be able to gain its customer, make them loyal to the business and make them to always want to come back to the company day after day, the company must be able to gain the trust of the people because they are the key to the development of the company. For a company to gain this trust, the goods they sell and the employees serve as the main principles to make the customers trust the organization/company. 3.2 M&S as a company has been able to handle their employees with much respect. They have been able to achieve employee involvement and employee empowerment. Employee empowerment is a strategy that sees employees being able to make decisions about their jobs. This in the beginning shows that the employee is held with this kind of high respect and that the company appreciates and recognizes their presence. This makes the employee have that extra power to serve the customers well as employee empowerment makes employees own the work that they do and also to be able to be responsible for the results of their actions. Employee involvement is also the participation of employees in deciding how work will be done. This kind of unity of the employees has made M&S be ethical enough to be recognized. In M&S, the workers have over 180 goals to achieve by 2015 and this has made them work hard to be able to attain their wish. The employee work under a plan which they call the "Plan A" which acts as a way of uniting the workers and making their goals known by all. The Plan A is through that through the employees and the suppliers to inspire the customers who will later on inspire their communities to make innovative things that will help to improve the and get to act with integrity. The company also gives each and every employee a chance to prove their worth and show what kind of value that they can and to the company. The competition in M&S for opportunities also plays a part in making the employees work hard and most of all ethically (Crane 2007) Task Four Shell 4.1 Shell is a company that produces, sells and distributes its product that is oil to the world. For the shell to operate, it requires people and land so that it can be able to manage its activities. These activities get to interfere with the environment by affecting the health, safety, lifestyle, security and economic development of the communities. The community tends to take advantage of the situation that Shell find themselves in. When Shell gets and sees a site that can be of importance to them, the site is usually occupied by communities. These communities get to be given an opportunity to be moved to a different place so that the company can be able to establish themselves and be able to start their activities. The communities get to take advantage of the situation and demand money to facilitate all their needs as they are moved. These gets to affect the company as they get to specify land and be able to take care of ownership processes. They get to finance the building of the new houses for the people and also be able to pay the community for the relocation. This being not enough and the companys construction is done in a way that the discharges such as gas are well directed away from the people. Mostly, the areas are not in the best of the infrastructure and the company gets to ahead to make sure that such requirements such as roads, electricity and water are all at their disposal before they get to officially start. Shell especially in Nigeria has been also faced with conflict issue between different communities. The delta is one of the best examples of the conflicts that take place in Shell companies. Such fights get to distort the reputation of the company and this makes the Shell be always in the court trying to solve issues arising from the conflicts. Back to the companies compound the employees themselves get to steal from the company that causes the company to contribute more on the materials that are used to process their products. Also, accidents that occur in the refineries such as burns that affect the employees also make the company spend more as they try to cater for all the accidents. The theft, the conflicts of the communities even after being reallocated all is examples of the unethical issues that affect the shell. 4.2 Conflicts of the communities are the main problems that affect Shell. After the reallocation of the people of certain communities, Shell should take a step and be able to employ the people in their company as this would help to reduce the rate of unemployment. This will help Shell to create the good relation with the community as this is a way of helping them. The employee would be accountable to the activities that go on in the company. After the employment of the employees, Shell can now get the opportunity to train the employees on the duties to be undertaken as well as making the employees know the main objectives of the company. After the objectives are all known, goals also should also be made and this will make the employees be committed to the company. The training will help to shape their attitudes as well as making them know the required ethics in sales and marketing. Shell also should be able to form communication strategies that would enable the employees to be able to air out their views to the company officials and avoid instances of whistle blowing which may provoke the rest of employees to demonstrate and such demonstrations would be a threat to the company as their competitors may take it as an advantage to destroy their reputation. (Bowman 1998) 4.3 All the problems that face Shell are caused by unethical behaviors by the employees and the communities around the company. The easy way out is to ensure that the people can behave in a moral way is to formulate laws. Ethical codes are mostly used by the management in situations that moral behavior’s come to counts. Shell can overcome the behaviors of the employees and communities by setting rules (laws) that will govern them when one act unethical, a rule will already have been bent and the employee will be forced to take charge of the consequences. 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