Apple Ethics and Diversity

Founded the first of April in 1976 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple Inc. is one of the most recognized American transnational technology company. The firm is well-known for its designs and has developed and sold computer software, consumer electronics, and online services for decades. Initially beginning with the Mac personal computer, it has branches out to include various product lines including the internationally recognized iPhone smartphone and iPad tablet computer (O'Grady, 2009).

With a 2015 worldwide annual revenue over $233 billion, the firm enjoys a high level of recognition as well as brand loyalty (Wahlen, 2016). Most of this has to do with the company's consistent innovation, marketing, and organizational culture. Apple Inc. is a well-known company that has risen in the last few decades as being one of the top firms in the world. Its organizational culture remains the key factor to its success.

By implementing new strategies and policies that support and encourage change, employees effectively integrate and develop into an organizational culture that enables quick creativity and innovation. Such innovation can be seen in products like the wildly popular iPhone, iPad, and the recent launch of the Apple Watch. These products have put Apple Inc. on the map and have raised their brand awareness to a new level. While different companies have various requirements for their organizational culture, Apple has characteristics that make it fly above its competitors. These characteristics are: 1. Secrecy 2.

Innovation 3. Moderate Combativeness 4. Top-notch excellence 5. Creativity Secrets are important to a company's longevity. Part of Apple's successful operation is its ability to minimize theft of intellectual property or proprietary data. Steve Jobs was at the forefront of developing secrecy in the company's organizational culture. When Apple management hire employees, they agree to this secrecy as reflect in company policy, employment contracts, and rules. This is an important aspect of business operations and helps safeguard Apple from corporate espionage as well as the negative effects that happen from employee poaching.

It is known all over the world that Apple is an innovative firm. In fact, many regard Apple Inc. as one of the most innovative companies. Each employee is encouraged and trained to innovate in relation to individual work performance as well as via contribution of concepts to the firm's product development processes. The company's organizational culture enabled rapid innovation and allows such innovation to foster change, adaptation, and help raise brand awareness. Moderate combativeness is also a key feature of Apple Inc.

The late Steve Jobs combative approach to leadership led to employees facing challenges that guaranteed they had what it takes to work within the company. After Steve Jobs passing, and under Tim Cook's leadership, the company shifted from a combative approach to a social one exemplifying a moderate degree of combativeness. Balance is the aim for Apple. A fourth key characteristic, top-notch excellence, involves a policy of choosing only top-ranked workers. Excellence must be emphasized and only the best of employees can come and work for Apple Inc.

This helps the company remain highly successful and proves a valuable factor in their business. This is especially true for development and product design. Just like innovation, creative is highly prized in Apple. Employees are selected not just based on their skills and knowledge, but also their creative abilities. The company's organizational culture promotes creative in order to help solve and meet consumer and business needs. High creativity also allows for constant creation of concepts and policies that enable the growth of Apple.

Such growth has remained a constant for over a decade. The main reason for choosing a company like Apple Inc. its staying power. So many companies, especially technology-based companies have fallen to the way-side as new trends emerge. Apple Inc. has managed to maintain its success and popularity and has even led the trends. Such innovation and marketing ability is highly valued in any market. Businesses like Apple Inc.

do not exist and with the exception of Google Inc., very few companies have grown and continued to succeed at higher levels like Apple Inc. has. Along with being innovators, Apple Inc. has managed to help herald in a new era of social media. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have grown all in part thanks to the smartphone innovations brought on by Apple Inc. The iPhone began so many of the popular websites and apps seen today.

The iPhone is also responsible for the idea of people sharing their lives with everyone. From taking live video to taking pictures and video and posting them online, this whole new culture emerged from the iPhone. When a company does something like this, it is no wonder it would be at the top of any list. The company has been around now for over four decades and is stronger than ever. While most companies tend to die out or maintain their size, Apple Inc. has expanded.

They may have had some hiccups because of the tragic loss of their lead innovators (Steve Jobs), but they continue to spark interest and create trends thanks to their recent inventions like the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch spawned a whole host of imitators and new ways for people to check and share data. This just shows the level of adaptability and creativity Apple Inc. fosters. Along with their great product lines, they have some of the best marketing out there.

They managed to appeal to all demographics and create themselves into a luxury brand everyone wants. Body Apple Inc. has a long history of problems. In the last few years many of its problems revolve around the several suicides reported in Apple's China factories as a result of poor working conditions and worker abuse. Originally brought up and explored by various New York Times articles, the dilemmas the company faced in their China-based factories began in 2007.

"The paper said more than half of the suppliers audited by Apple have broken at least one part of its conduct code each year since 2007 and have even broken the law in some cases" (Moore, 2012). The iPhone, a prized and successful product line of Apple Inc., is the product manufacture in China that raised the biggest concerns. The factory conditions involved long work hours, hardly or no breaks, and little pay.

Several incidents of suicides where workers jumped off of the factory rooftops demonstrated what little control Apple had over its factories and over the working conditions there. Along with the suicides, a spate of poisonings and explosions occurred. "it found at least 90 factories were asking workers to work for more than 60 hours a week, the company's own guidelines, which are themselves significantly over the 40-hour limit imposed by Chinese law. Apple also found five cases of child labor at factories" (Moore, 2012).

Apple responded by publishing a highly detailed list of all its one hundred and fifty-six suppliers and joining the Fair Labor Association, becoming the first in its field to do so. In addition to these actions, they managed to communicate with and work alongside Chinese labor rights environmental groups and advocates, agreeing to permit external monitors within each of its suppliers' factories. One reason for the drastic working conditions are the tight deadlines and the increase demand.

Had Apple shared some of its profits with its suppliers, working conditions would have improved. When examining Apple's decision-making, it is important to see it through a different lens. Kidder's Checkpoints for Ethical Decision-making provides an in-depth look into the steps in making a decision. The ethical dilemma with Apple was complex. It involved low profit margins for their suppliers and high demand for product from Apple leading to long work hours for the employees of suppliers and what was perceived as worker abuse.

The dilemma involved suicides, poisonings, and explosions on the part of the employees that worked at the various factories that made iPhones for Apple. Some assumed the working conditions were terrible when in reality, they were (unfortunately) better than in other factories in the region. Nonetheless, the facts are, several suicides occurred due to stress and working conditions. Some issues could be alleviated through monitoring, which Apple began to do, while others involved sharing more of the profits generated with the suppliers.

If Apple had provided a bigger share of profit to lead to a bigger profit margin for the suppliers along with the monitoring, that could have helped the working conditions improve. By seeing what can happen when demand is high and the pursuit of profit is higher, Apple has learned the limit of what their suppliers' workers have reached. In the end, profit should not the be main concern of a company.

Profit is an important aspect to any business, however, so it public perception of a company and practicing and adhering to high ethical standards. The series of suicides, accidents, and poisonings shows what can happen when employees are pushed too far. Organizational culture and ethics are tied together with ethics being the learning of human behavior observed via a group of characteristic rules and standards as it pertains to ethical wrong and right and organizational culture as learned principles, beliefs, and traditions.

The marriage of the two creates a definitional that encompasses various things. .. ethical business culture encompasses for-profit organizations comprised of individuals working reciprocally with internal and external stakeholders. Though the objective of this study is to identify components of ethical business culture, from a holistic perspective an ethical business culture fosters an organizational environment guided by shared values and beliefs (Ardichvili, Mitchell, & Jondle, 2008, p. 445). Aside from what is ethical culture, leadership remains an essential and integral aspect of an organizations ethical culture.

Effective leaders are able to back and create an ethical culture within their respective establishments that embody, connect, and exemplify high role model ethical values by accentuating consideration to objective rather than financial, engagement with 'morality talk' and maintaining a long-term perspective of various key external relationships. Along with leadership, ethical culture is connected to an edifice that offers for likewise shared accountability and disseminated authority.

Furthermore, polices are in place like an ethical code of comportment that is specific, well expressed, clear, and voices expectations on practices and procedures in a cohesive and concise manner. Incentive systems also make up part of the ethical culture by clearly and deliberately tying behavior in relation with the code of ethics as well as the achievement of non-financial objectives in addition to financial results.

In reference to socialization in an ethical culture, there is reinforcement of the practice of standards within a mission statement daily, so conduct remains focused on fairness, community plus customer responsiveness, and issues of safety and health of employees. The decision-making process also plays a part and is planned to deliberate ethical consequences of business choices and not just cost-benefit examination alone. Earlier Kidder's decision making model was discussed relating to Apple's decisions over the supplier factory suicides. Another aspect of Kidder's theory are paradigms. They are: 1. "Truth versus loyalty 2.

Individual versus community 3. Short-term versus long-term 4. Justice versus mercy" (Kidder, 2009, p. 18). As Kidder states, such patters are not as significant as the concepts they reflect, meaning justice versus mercy. These four paradigms are central to the so called 'right-versus-right' choices everyone faces and are termed dilemma paradigms. Truth versus loyalty for example may involve a professional facing a dilemma where his boss asks him to keep a secret from a worker concerning layoffs. The worker approaches him and asks if he is to be laid off.

Whichever option he chooses, truth or loyalty, he makes the right decision. Individual versus community can also be explained within a scenario. A doctor has to deal with 4 patients that have HIV. He has workers that assist him that are unskilled in handling HIV. If he tells them, they might not assist the infected patients. If he does not tell them, he is respecting patient confidentiality. Either side is right. The next paradigm is short-term versus long-term.

A mother could be faced with a situation where she needs to spend time at home in order to help raise the children or spend time at work in order to be a better provider. Short-term family time can help build bonds with her kids. Long-term the money earned from her job could benefit her children when they attend college. Either side is right. The last paradigm is justice versus mercy. A woman is caught shoplifting in a store.

The store manager can either call the police to have her arrested or talk to her and try to understand why she would break the law. Either way, an exercise in justice or mercy is a right decision (Kidder, 2009). As Apple Inc. continues to grow and evolve, their ethical dilemmas have drove them to resolutions in 2012 and continue to in the present.

While many technological companies do not have to improve working conditions for their employees (especially overseas), it is often in the best interest for any company to make some effort in improving working conditions in order to get a better product/service and ensure a good public image and positive brand recognition. Nike Inc. was bombarded for years for their sweatshop ties with regards to their sneaker manufacturing. Apple Inc. has to tread carefully in how the public perceives their brand and their products.

Working conditions that employer employees is not something most often required by law, especially in foreign countries with little to no labor unions in place. However, when employees are provided with more worthwhile tasks coupled with job satisfaction, this can lead to augmented job satisfaction, performance, and output. "Employees work most productively when they participate in the control of their tasks, when they are given responsibility for an autonomy over their assignment, and when they are treated with respect" (Weiss, 2014, p. 42).

Apple sought to improve working conditions in the factories most affected by a grueling work schedule by making the findings public in February of 2012 via the Fair Labor Association. Apple Inc. made a public promise to "hold its supply chain accountable for appropriate, safe working conditions. Apple has said that if the companies manufacturing its products do not measure up to its labor and human rights standards, it will stop working with them" (Weiss, 2014, p. 42).

By making revealing the findings publically, they shame the suppliers and hold them more accountable for the treatment of their employees. The American-based company Apple Incorporated established its global reach via production and distribution of cell phones, computer-based software, personal computers, and online services. Considered to be the second biggest information technology organization by revenue in front of Samsung Electronics, its ending quarter in 2014 and then in 2015 showed just how big Apple Inc. has become. Employing nearly 100,000 permanent full-time employees, it has over 500 retail stores across 17 countries worldwide.

Along with the physical stores, Apple also has its online base like the iTunes Store and Apple Store. With its mission statement integrating innovation into its repertoire of products and services, the company also seeks to provide customer and stakeholder satisfaction across the globe. In order to achieve this, the company embraces corporate social responsibility. "These have included use of underage labor at 10 facilities, dangerous working conditions at two facilities, falsification of audit materials at four facilities, and bribery at one facility" (Klein, 2011).

By making supplier reports public and supporting innovative design the companies is applying social change on different levels. "Great design results in more use and better outcomes and is urgently needed areas such as assistive devices for the aging, bicycles and alternative transportation, and renewable energy" (Klein, 2011). Along with making supplier information public, Apple also does a great job of making their CSRs easy to understand with short sentences and they reveal information in a variety of ways.

One for example, is the ERR or Environmental Responsibility Report (Wolf, Issa, & Thiel, 2014). In their reports, they address climate change, renewable resources, finite resources, carbon assurance and review statements and their environmental health and safety policy statement. This is not to say however, that they will completely change how things are run. However, they are making the process that much more transparent lending to improved social performance. Global citizenship means identifying with a 'global community', meaning identity transcends political or geographical borders. Apple Inc.

has transcended its American headquarters and become a worldwide brand. It has reached many countries with billions of people recognizing Apple products and purchasing them. The company has achieved the goal of becoming a widely recognized brand. With such high level of recognition comes social responsibility. They have proven to be more socially responsible since 2012 with Foxconn. They are also trying to be more transparent with their variety of reports made publically available each year. Along with these actions, they have increased worker pay as well as reduced overtime.

They also assemble their Mac Pro-in America. These small steps may just provide the framework for other tech companies to follow through and become global citizens that impact society in positive and ethical ways. With global citizenship comes ethical diversity. Tech companies are known for being primarily white and male. Apple in the last three years has strived to change that by increasing their hires of women, ethnic minorities, and disabled employees. Although they are making changes each year, the changes are small with percentage rates increase by tenths.

The report, released over the weekend, reflects Apple's 72,494 U.S. workers as of August 1, 2015. It shows that 8.7% of employees were black and 11.8% were Hispanic, compared with 8% and 11.5% in 2014, respectively. Employees of Asian origin saw the biggest gain at 17.4% in 2015, up from 16.3% the previous year (Mihalcik, 2016). If Apple is to make its company more diverse, it needs to increase hiring of different groups by a larger percentage. Conclusion Apple Inc. has improved albeit not as much as it could. The improvements are several.

The first is it has improved some working conditions in the various supplier factories they use for their products in China. They did this by making supplier lists public, increasing wages, and monitoring activity within these factories. This is a major step. They could have simply let it go and continue their business like other tech companies did. However, they chose to approach it from an ethical perspective and made decent choices towards a more ethical outcome.

The problem lies in their desire to continue maintaining high profit margins and not sharing those profit margins with their suppliers. The reason for the bad working conditions is because of the reduced profit margins on the suppliers' end. Apple makes so much money. They could afford to share some of that profit. The next step they have taken is to improve transparency. This means greater social responsibility by providing making their reports public.

Their annual reports provide consumers and professionals with the information they need to see what Apple Inc. does in their global operations. This is an important step in delivering ethical performance. Another is they have tried to increase the diversity within their company. They have hired more women, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. However, the hiring rate is still practically the same and white men remain the vast majority. Overall, the company has been ethically transformed.

It still has a long way in reaching a level of transformation that satisfies certain ideologies, but it's on its way there. In the end, their transparency,.