Business Ethics

Answer the following questions about the quotes: 

“Purposefully enticing children in advertisements to buy and eat junk food like Cheetos is unethical, because children are at the age where they focus on their pleasure and what they consider fun. Issues like what could be harmful or what could hurt wouldn’t occur to them to consider or take the concerns seriously leading to more and more children gaining more weight than they should. A possible solution is to add a word of caution or something at the end of the ads or on the bags/boxes of Cheetos. While it wouldn’t stop children from wanting/buying them, it’d at least give them multiple warnings of the consequences. From a young age, children learn to be conscious of their image, weight, and actions.” 

1. Is this an ethical issue or a legal issue?

2. Is the issue debatable? In other words, dumping toxic waste is not really debatable. We can pretty much all accept that is wrong. A good ethical issue is where you can see both sides and the “right answer” is not exactly always clear.

3. Who is being affected by the ethical issue? How? Is this information present?

4. Has the ethical issue been resolved in some manner? In order to serve its purpose, the issue must be not yet resolved. Otherwise, there is no point to offering a solution.

“An ethical issue that I would like to propose is human resource management. This area consists of ethical employee management and compensation. Most employees these days work “at will” for the company and fear of losing their job. One example would be the Wells Fargo scandal that consisted of unethical sale practices due to management goals for sales. The sale practices were accounts being opened by associates without customer’s permission to reach the employee’s quota. Management were forcing quotas on employees and if not met, employee would be terminated. When employees reached out to human resources for assistance of the issue, they were disregarded and in some cases terminated. Companies should not force employees to be unethical in order to keep their jobs.”

1. Is this an ethical issue or a legal issue?

2. Is the issue debatable? In other words, dumping toxic waste is not really debatable. We can pretty much all accept that is wrong. A good ethical issue is where you can see both sides and the “right answer” is not exactly always clear.

3. Who is being affected by the ethical issue? How? Is this information present?

4. Has the ethical issue been resolved in some manner? In order to serve its purpose, the issue must be not yet resolved. Otherwise, there is no point to offering a solution.