Ethical Dilemmas in TechFite-Dellberg
- Corporate Policies
- Policy A – the policy strives to ensure better pay and increase in the number of working hours to aid workers in securing full-time employment.
- Policy B – To promote fairness in the workplace by providing bonuses to all the employees and not only the top executives to uphold equality.
- Policy C – Ensure the community involvement aligns with the company standards and accomplish the commitments made to the Dellberg community. TechFite-Dellberg will conduct meetings to allow employees to participate in the decision making process to aid community events.
A1. Rationale
The first policy is crucial for the company’s ethics and culture. As it focuses on becoming a great place to work, appreciating the employees though workplace promotions is a paramount strategy. The second policy brands a company the goodwill of promoting workplace equality, which values all employees despite the positions they hold (Sharma et al., 2018). Incorporating the third policy supports the company culture, which encourages employee empowerment and engagement in corporate decision making. Further, the company acknowledges active involvement in the communities of their presence.
A2. Ethical versus Legal Issues
Ethical issues entail the concepts of respect and honesty and are those that impend the well-being of people. Legal matters involve equality and safety and deal with the state and federal laws affecting business. While ethical issues dictate the business moral values and expectations in upholding human dignity, legal issues entail enforced laws that promote individual responsibility. Ethical and legal issues may interlace, but unethical actions are not always illegal (Sharma et al., 2018). For instance, appreciating some employees and leaving others out who have the same output is not illegal, but it is unethical. For example, in the case of TechFite, massive bonuses are provided to the top executives. This case is not unlawful, but ethically, it might be the cause for the hour cuts of some employees. In this regard, the issue of morality is ethically undermined.
A3. Ethical Issues in the Scenario
A major ethical challenge involves the demotion strategy used against employees in terms of hour cuts from full time to part-time. In this consideration, the probability is that the excess amount pays the bonuses to the top executive at the expense of the other employees. Such initiates financial constraints to the employees and their families. The company also brands itself with a bad reputation in the new home – Dellberg, regarding employee dissatisfaction. The other issue regards the failure to undertake the company’s commitment to the community. Based on the scenario, the company is not funding the local youth leadership development programs as promised during presentations to the Dellberg city council. Still, the company has not invested in rebuilding Dellberg’s city.
A4. Purpose of the Ethics Officer
The ethics officer is responsible for creating and enforcing ethical guidelines in the organization. They also develop strategies to assess the effectiveness of these guidelines and methods of reporting anonymous behaviors (Sharma et al., 2018). In promoting compliance with ethical rules, the ethics officers reward the adherents and punish the violators of these guidelines.
2. Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) defines a company’s practice of integrating sustainable development to its business model, to promote social accountability to its operations and the public (Lins et al., 2017). CSR entails developing a reputation with its employees, stakeholders, and the community at large. Tech-Fite had the opportunity to indulge in CSR by participating in rebuilding Dellberg city through the development of infrastructure, although it failed. The company’s failure to sponsor community events also humiliated its role in CSR.
B1. Community Reputation
Tech-Fite desired to aid youth leadership programs. This could benefit both the company and the community. For instance, the youths could develop as potential managers of Tech-Fite in the future, while others would grow into responsible individuals in society (Ferguson, 2017). As indicated, Tech-Fite focuses on becoming the best place to work. In this case, rewarding the employees with more hours and benefits would attract competitive labor who would support its development goals. Further, this would indicate corporate social responsibility, and Dellberg citizens would thrive on supporting the company, as it aids in the growth of the economy. Also, the company had promised to rebuild the city using greener resources. However, the promise was not fulfilled, which would pose as a means of building a brand image.
B2. Course of Action
To address the first issue, Tech-Fite could send top executives to the youth programs to exhibit real-life scenarios. Providing scholarships to the potential leaders who face financial constraints would also pose as an ethical action. The second issue could be addressed by cautiously cutting down the executive bonuses to aid in rewarding part-time employees. After effectively controlling the budget, the company could rebuild the city into a greener place as an approach to address the third issue.
B3. The course of Action: Explanation
The cause of action to the first issue exhibits social responsibility whereby the company shows concern for its people and the public. The second is an ethical concern since ti strives to make the employees happy. The measures to equalize the pay gap increases a sense of belonging to the employees. Environmentalism is exhibited in the third cause of action whereby Tech-Fite aims to help in greener development of the city. Such entails the preservation of valuable natural resources like air and water.
References
Ferguson, H. (2017). Building an online academic community: Reputation work on Twitter. M/C Journal, 20(2).
Lins, K. V., Servaes, H., & Tamayo, A. (2017). Social capital, trust, and firm performance: The value of corporate social responsibility during the financial crisis. The Journal of Finance, 72(4), 1785-1824.
Sharma, A., Khandelwal, U., & Agrawal, R. (2018). Addressing Workplace Values in the Organization: Learning from Different Perspectives. International Journal of Business Ethics in Developing Economies, 7(2), 9.