Ethics or the moral philosophy is the type of philosophy that majorly includes the proper systematization, defending as well as recommending the various concepts of correct or incorrect conducts (Mason 2017). There are three most important and significant areas of analysis in the ethics, which are Meta ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. The Meta ethics majorly concerns about the theoretical meaning or reference of the several moral propositions along with the procedure that truth values are eventually determined in the phenomenon (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). The second important and noteworthy area of analysis is the normative ethics that substantially concerns about the practical means to properly determine the significant moral courses of actions (Miller and Blackler 2017). The third or the final distinct area of analysis is the applied ethics that concerns about the fact that any specific individual or person is permitted or obligated to complete his or her task in any particular situation or any typical domain or activity. The code of conduct is stated as the set of rules of regulations that outline the social principles, proper practices and even the religious rules as well as responsibilities of a person (Steinbock, London and Arras 2013). It is extremely vital for all persons to protect the business and make it successful.
The following report outlines a brief description on the ethics and codes of conduct for understanding the ethical issues in the businesses in Australia. Two distinct case studies are undertaken for this purpose; that are the case studies of One. Tel Limited and 7 Eleven Ethical Scandal. Various issues were faced by these two organizations and hence the problems were related to ethics and codes of conduct. Moreover, the various important concepts like good as well as bad, justice as well as crime, virtue as well as vice and right as well as wrong are properly defined with this ethics. The ethical features are also dependent on the moral psychology, value theory and even the descriptive ethics. A proper comparison would be provided between these two case studies with proper details.
Ethics solely deals with the major study as well as justification of various moral beliefs. This is the part of philosophy for human beings to decide which is right and which is wrong. Morality or ethics has come from the social rules and inhibition from society (Slade and Prinsloo 2013). The three parts of ethics, which are Meta ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics, are subsequently responsible for the proper identification of justified moral judgments, attempts of right actions and application of ethical theories in life for the individual. The decision making process becomes quite easier with the help of this ethics and the person gets justice easily (Gunn and Taylor 2014). There are few theories of ethics and as per one of such theory, it judges the situation or person on the basis of the utility of the situation or person. If the person or situation is providing maximum utility to the society, it is termed as ethical in nature. Professional ethics is responsible for providing proper guidance to interact within the professionals for serving one another as well as the entire society. These codes are present for all professionals and in all businesses for undertaking ethical actions (McKee 2013). The ethical codes are moralized codes and are much consistent for applying them to the profession, without any requirement of the extensive interpretation. Each and every organization has their codes of ethics for the successful maintenance of the responsibilities for taking any decision regarding their safety, welfare as well as health of the public and even disclosing the factors for endangering the environment. The conflicts are avoided easily and the employees could become honest and realistic (Miller and Blackler 2017). However, there are certain situations, where the professionals are unable to avoid the several unethical situations and individuals in their business and hence various ethical issues take place within the business.
The code of conduct can be stated as the distinct set of rules and regulations that could outline the social principles, religious responsibilities and rules and the various practices of any specific individual (Mealer and Jones 2014). These are values, rules, standards and principles for guiding the basic decision, system and process for any particular organization to either contribute to the welfare of the company and key stakeholder and even respecting the correctness of the individuals, involved and affected by the major operations. The common code of conduct is present in every organization for their employees that is responsible for protecting the business and then informing all the staffs of the expectations of the organization (Harriss and Atkinson 2013). This is considered as one of the major requirement for the business to form a document that consists of all the vital information for the employee expectations. The ethical culture is created as well as maintained by the presence of code of conduct within the company. The organizational leaders are responsible for creating this particular culture so that ethics could be manifested within the behaviour and attitude (Nijboer et al. 2013). If an employee is following the organizational code of conduct, the organization could even take legal actions against him or her.
One. Tel was a group of telecommunications companies that was based in Australia. Amongst them, One. Tel Limited was publicly listed and was established in the year 1995. They wanted to create the youth oriented image for selling their mobile phones as well as internet services of One.Net. The target market of this particular organization was the youth generation (Grinbaum and Groves 2013). One. Tel Limited became the fourth largest telecommunications organization in Australia, having the largest share market. However, this popular and significant telecommunications organization collapsed in 2001 for facing several financial losses and crises that they were unable to pay off. Although, there were various other reasons for their failure, one of the major reason was the lack of professionalism, ethical conduct and professional code of ethics.
The main reason identified for the significant failure of the organization of One. Tel Limited was their failure of information technology systems (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). Four distinct principles were identified for the professional codes of information technology, which are privacy, accuracy, property as well as accessibility. The ethical codes and the professional codes of conduct is extremely effective for the proper and perfect creation of the professional members not just in the correct manner, but also in their duties and the implications of the works, they are doing for the subsequent application of information technology. Three distinct ways are present, by which the professional codes could be quite useful for the organization of One. Tel Limited (Roberts 2015). This organization of One. Tel Limited have eventually and subsequently lacked all of these three ways in their organization to reduce the several issues. These three distinct ways for the professional codes of conduct and ethical codes are as follows:
iii) Another important and noteworthy way, which is being identified in the case of One. Tel Limited for understanding the ethical codes as well as the professional codes of conduct is to properly assist the respective professional bodies for resolving all types of breaches within the codes by the member professionals (Noddings 2013).
However, this organization of One. Tel Limited did not have any one of the above mentioned identified ways and hence they were unable in using their professional codes of conduct for resolving the various issues.
According to the ACS codes of ethics, there are six specified factors of the primacy of the public interest, the enhancement of the quality of life, honesty, competence, professional development and finally professionalism (Fromm 2013). As per the primacy of the public interest, the interests of the public or the customers of an organization is to be kept on top priorities, even above the interests of the company. However, for organization of One. Tel Limited, they were not considering the primacy of the public interests and hence they were not being able to fulfil the requirements or demands of the consumers. The second ACS code of ethics is the enhancement of the quality of life, which depicts that there should be an enhancement in the quality of life for all of them, who are subsequently affected by the organization (Frank 2013). However, in the case study of the organization of One. Tel Limited, they were not striving the quality of their work in the business and hence were not being able to resolve the various ethical issues in the company. The third significant ACS code of ethics is honesty. Although this organization of One. Tel Limited, tried to maintain honesty in their organization, they were unsuccessful in maintaining their honesty in the representation of knowledge, skills, products and services (Peters 2015). Hence, the products or services, provided by them were not completely ethical in nature. This particular feature brought them major dis balance within the company. According to competence, the organization of One. Tel Limited was not working diligently as well as competently for the stakeholders. Various decisions were undertaken by the owners of the company, without even taking any consult from the other stakeholders and especially the customers. Hence, the ethical issues came into account (Crane and Matten 2016). The fifth ACS code of ethics for this case study of the organization of One. Tel Limited is professional development, in which the intended individual should enhance the professional developments and even the staffs of the company. This One. Tel Limited were not being able to enhance the professional development for both the organization and their staffs. Finally, the last code of ethics is the professionalism, in which the integrity of the society is to be properly enhanced and the staffs should respect one another (Niebuhr 2013). The integrity was not at all maintained in this organization of One. Tel Limited and hence they had overcome various ethical issues.
These ethical problems or issues that were present within the organization of One. Tel Limited were quite problematic for the entire information technology industry as the compliance is problematic, only when the membership of the professional bodies were the requirements here (Sorokin 2017). The professional codes of conduct were not followed by the organization of One. Tel Limited and hence law breaching took place. Moreover, self regulation was yet another significant issue of their failure. The voluntary self regulation is possible only when the practitioners were aware of the Codes of Conduct and Ethical codes for proper understanding. The entire work culture of the organization of One. Tel Limited was not at all supportive of the Codes of Conduct and Ethical codes and thus they faced these issues and their company collapsed in the year of 2001 (Nussbaum 2013).
7 Eleven Inc is a popular and significant chain of convenience stores that has its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. They have branches in various parts of the world and one of their largest segment of business is present in Australia (Durkheim 2013). This chain of convenience stores was called the Tote’m Stores and in 1946, it was renamed as 7 Eleven Inc. The most significant product and service of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc is Slurpee drink, which is a partially frozen soft drink and Big Gulp beverages. Moreover they even make other private brand products, fresh made daily sandwiches, coffee, salads, dairy products, financial services, fresh fruits, juices, energy drinks, product delivery service, hot as well as prepared foods, bakery items and many others (Keown 2016). In spite of being such promising and important organization, 7 Eleven has faced major issues regarding ethics and professional codes of conduct in the Australian business in the year of 2015.
In the year of 2015, various exploitations were exposed for the organization of 7 Eleven Inc. They were accused for not paying enough wages to the labours. As per one of the popular and significant newspaper, these exploited staffs were the international students mostly, who were forced to work for longer hours by the organization of 7 Eleven Inc (Moor 2017). The visa condition of these students clearly state that they should work for only 40 hours per fortnights. Since, these students were the easier targets of the franchise operators, they even made them sign a contract in this purpose. The international students were working for extra money to manage their expenses and it shows that the complete work structure within the organization of 7 Eleven Inc was absolutely flawed and hence the Australian business of 7 Eleven Inc got the chance of making profit by simply underpaying their staffs and employees (Dewey 2016). The head office of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc had claimed that all the stores of Australia were paying legit wages and this particular issue of underpayment was done by only the marginal store partners. The payrolls of these students were being looked as well as monitored by the company and the franchises and hence an administrative supervision was provided here. They even claim that the distinct issue of under payment did not enhance the profits and were allowing the wrong practices in the organization of 7 Eleven Inc (Critchley 2014). All the franchises of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc were trained for running the stores for making the profits and hence an unethical culture was being followed.
The ethical codes as well as the professional codes of conduct were not followed in this particular case study of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc (Gatens 2013). The Australian business of this popular and significant organization has eventually marginalized the issue by simply suggesting that there are only few numbers of franchises, who were the main culprits of the under payments and hence the head office would ask them for penalties (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). There was a major ethical dilemma within the business and moral ethics. Since, this ethics is the proper adherence as well as obedience of law, it was not present here. Moreover, this ethics implies that what is right and what is wrong. As per the professional codes of conduct, the behaviour of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc was not at all ethical, since the concepts of personal honesty as well as organized frauds were properly checked here (Lin, Abney and Bekey 2014). Moreover, they did not show any virtue of honesty here for their personal and business ethics.
Their choice of the practice of under payments could be eventually explained by the help of two distinct ethical theories. These are the utilitarianism theory and subjectivism theory (Trevino and Nelson 2016). As per the utilitarianism theory, the situation or individual, who is responsible for paying as well as providing maximum utility to the society or organization, is solely termed as ethical in nature. This depicts that the maximum good or utility should be promoted for each and everyone within that society or organization (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). In this particular case study of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc, the various international payments were not getting proper payments for their works and hence were the victims of illegal wage system. They were working really hard in the company, however were not being paid properly by the respective management of this organization of 7 Eleven Inc (Bennett 2016). Hence, it is not at all providing any utility to the business and rather is exploiting the students to the fullest. Thus, this case study of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc is absolutely unethical in nature. The second theory of ethics is the subjectivism theory, which states that the moral judgments are to be made for only expressing the personal feelings and desires. Hence, only the personal requirements and desires are considered in this specific ethical theory, which is a major act of selfishness (Critchley 2013). Here, in this particular case study of the Australian business of 7 Eleven Inc, they have only considered about their profit by paying less to the international students and hence they were completely illegal and unethical. This business of 7 Eleven Inc was legally entitled for paying unfair wages to these students and their staffs and only fulfilling their personal gains and desires. The case study of the organization of 7 Eleven Inc, can also be explained with agency theory, in which it is explained that the business of 7 Eleven Inc has only emphasized on the maximization of profit, since they think that it is the business rule (Fraser 2018).
The under payment of this organization of 7 Eleven Inc had lead them in getting exposed that how they were using as well as exploiting their employees or the international students for working more (Crane and Matten 2016). They only focused on three major factors, which are as follows:
iii) Another significant reason for this case study of ethical issues and professional codes of conduct in 7 Eleven Inc is the lack of rules and regulations for the creation of awareness in the organization and hence monitoring the business operations.
Since, they only focused on their profits and due to the lack of professional codes of conduct and ethical codes, this popular multi national organization suffered major losses and negative publicity in the existing market of Australian businesses (Trevino and Nelson 2016).
The above mentioned two case studies of One. Tel Limited as well as the Australian business of 7 Eleven Inc were termed as unethical and have faced several ethical issues within the company, since they were unable to deal with their existing ethical issues or problems (Holian and Coghlan 2013). For the first case study of One. Tel Limited, they had not followed any one of the ACS codes of ethics and the professional codes of conduct and hence have suffered some of the major and serious financial issues and crisis within the business. This has led them to the failure or complete shutting down of the business in the year of 2001. On the other hand, the Australian business of 7 Eleven Inc organization had paying illegal wages to the international students and were forcing them to work for longer period of time. They were highly exploited in this case and were termed as unethical (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). This particular exploitation even was turning them to such a condition that they thought of closing their Australian business for some time. As a result, negative publicity took place for the business in worldwide and the organization many of their employees and customers.
Although, both the case studies of Australian businesses were unethical, there are some differences present. A proper comparison between these two case studies are as follows:
|
Key Factors |
Case Study 1: One. Tel Limited |
Case Study 2: 7 Eleven Inc (Australia) |
|
1. ACS Codes of Ethics |
The ACS codes of ethics were not followed here. The six codes of ethics of the primacy of the public interest, the enhancement of the quality of life, honesty, competence, professional development and finally professionalism were proven to be not followed at all and hence were termed as unethical (Holian and Coghlan 2013). |
The few ACS codes of ethics were not followed here. Although, they did not violate all the rules, the four major codes of ethics of honesty, competence, professional development and professionalism were not followed here (Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick 2014). They did not respect their employees and hence were termed as unethical. |
|
2. Professional Codes of Conduct |
In this organization of One. Tel Limited, they did not violate all the professional codes of conduct. Only they did not consult with each and every stakeholder of the company and took decisions. |
None of the professional codes of conduct was followed in 7 Eleven Inc. They did not consider their employees as the staffs and forced them to work more with less payment (Mealer and Jones 2014). This was absolutely unprofessional in nature. |
|
3. Ethical Theories |
The two ethical theories, which would have been helpful for understanding the case study of One. Tel Limited are deontology theory and virtue ethics (Slade and Prinsloo 2013). These theories provided the framework that what errors and flaws were present in this company. |
The two ethical theories, which would have been helpful for understanding the case study of the Australian business of 7 Eleven Inc were utilitarianism theory and subjectivism theory. Both of these theories demonstrated that the business only thought of their profit and not of the employees. |
|
4. Result |
As a result of these ethical issues, the organization was shut down and there was no scope of improvement and re-opening. |
As a result, this business of 7 Eleven Inc suffered several queries and issues and even faced negative publicity in the market (Steinbock, London and Arras 2013). |
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that ethics is one of the most important and significant requirement for any business or organization to provide a proper framework to the specific business. The ethics and morality are utilized within the organization and these two even includes reasoning in the business. Hence, it is the moral philosophy that provides the ethical viewpoints. There are some of the major principles present in ethics and the complexities are avoided by the involvement of ethics and moral philosophy. The significant essence, consequences and determinants of ethics within the human actions are the first factors of human and ethics interface. The main determinants of the ethics occur from the sources from where these ethical standards arise and these determinants are religion, laws, knowledge, society, time and individual. The consequences of the ethics can either be positive or negative. The positive consequences are safeguarding the society, creation of credibility, satisfying the basic human requirements and even feeling good. The negative consequences are loss of trusts, corruption, crimes and many more. The ethics along with the aesthetics subsequently concerns about the matters of values and hence allows an individual to be ethically and morally correct. Several significant questions related to the human morality are properly resolved with the help of ethics. The code of conduct is the collection of values, principles, rules and standards of behaviour, which could guide the processes, systems and decisions of the organization in such a manner that could contribute to the betterment of the stakeholders and also respect the rights of every constituent affected by the operations. The above report has clearly explained the ethics and code of conduct for the ethical issues in the Australian business with two case studies of One. Tel Limited and 7 Eleven Inc.
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