Ethical dilemmas occur in all types of business throughout the world. Due to recent scandals and events, ethics is playing an even larger role in big business. The evolution of ethics in business is helping to form new standards to help new businesses navigate the ethical landscape and get started off on the right foot. Facebook, Wal-Mart, and Apple have all encountered and overcome multiple ethical dilemmas. This case study is an in-depth analysis of those ethical dilemmas including characteristics of the unethical behavior, reasons the unethical behavior occurred, and what could have been done to prevent these ethical issues. The ethical dilemmas encountered by Facebook revolved around privacy issues for their customers. Facebook leadership
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According to Stanwick (2016), “ethical egoism allows self-interests to play a role in the actions of the individual as long as there are also positive benefits to others.” The actions of Facebook were only self-serving with no regard for the greater good of their members. Although, there were not established regulations for social media because it was so new, Facebook was still obligated to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy standards. However, “it appeared market growth was the focus of Facebook’s strategic actions.” (Stanwick, 2016, p.368) Additionally, according to Wal-Mart’s website, the company purpose is “If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.” (Walmart, 2016) That solidifies the fact that Wal-Mart is an ethical egoist corporation that believes that they are doing good for society while behaving unethically. Conclusively, Apple’s constant quest for high profit margins at the expense of anyone or anything and with no regard for others is irrevocable evidence of this teleological framework. The leaders of all three organizations were clearly focused on their own self-interests and justified their actions by believing that their decisions also had positive benefits …show more content…
All of these leaders behaved as if they were in stage two to Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. This stage outlines that “the individuals interpret the rules to determine whether they are beneficial to themselves. If the rules serve the self-interest of the individual, the rules will be followed” (Stanwick, 2016, p.128) Zuckerberg showed he was in this stage by ignoring privacy rules because they did not comply with Facebook’s strategy. Additionally, Wal-Mart only followed the employment laws that were beneficial to the company with no regard for others. This was evident in the lack of pay for overtime, lack of breaks, insufficient health benefits, and discrimination of their employees. Furthermore, Steve Jobs did not find any benefit to himself or the company to change the working conditions in the outsourced plants. Therefore, he didn’t enforce the code of conduct with the suppliers or improve the working conditions. In fact, that would have been detrimental to Apple’s goal of maximizing profit margins and stakeholder value. However, the new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, appears to be on stage three of Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. This conclusion is evident with Cook’s new philosophy of being more open and releasing supplier responsibility reports. Cook’s transparency shows that he has mutual respect for others and he does what society expects
According to Stanwick (2016), “ethical egoism allows self-interests to play a role in the actions of the individual as long as there are also positive benefits to others.” The actions of Facebook were only self-serving with no regard for the greater good of their members. Although, there were not established regulations for social media because it was so new, Facebook was still obligated to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy standards. However, “it appeared market growth was the focus of Facebook’s strategic actions.” (Stanwick, 2016, p.368) Additionally, according to Wal-Mart’s website, the company purpose is “If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.” (Walmart, 2016) That solidifies the fact that Wal-Mart is an ethical egoist corporation that believes that they are doing good for society while behaving unethically. Conclusively, Apple’s constant quest for high profit margins at the expense of anyone or anything and with no regard for others is irrevocable evidence of this teleological framework. The leaders of all three organizations were clearly focused on their own self-interests and justified their actions by believing that their decisions also had positive benefits …show more content…
All of these leaders behaved as if they were in stage two to Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. This stage outlines that “the individuals interpret the rules to determine whether they are beneficial to themselves. If the rules serve the self-interest of the individual, the rules will be followed” (Stanwick, 2016, p.128) Zuckerberg showed he was in this stage by ignoring privacy rules because they did not comply with Facebook’s strategy. Additionally, Wal-Mart only followed the employment laws that were beneficial to the company with no regard for others. This was evident in the lack of pay for overtime, lack of breaks, insufficient health benefits, and discrimination of their employees. Furthermore, Steve Jobs did not find any benefit to himself or the company to change the working conditions in the outsourced plants. Therefore, he didn’t enforce the code of conduct with the suppliers or improve the working conditions. In fact, that would have been detrimental to Apple’s goal of maximizing profit margins and stakeholder value. However, the new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, appears to be on stage three of Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. This conclusion is evident with Cook’s new philosophy of being more open and releasing supplier responsibility reports. Cook’s transparency shows that he has mutual respect for others and he does what society expects