Duty to serve: organizational responsibility and public service

¶ … Duties of Different Types of Organizations

All modern business organizations have legal and ethical service duties and responsibilities (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). Legal duties and responsibilities are established and defined by statutory and case law while ethical duties and responsibilities are established and defined by industry standards and codes as well as by those maintained by specific business organizations. To a certain extent, certain ethical duties and responsibilities are also recognized by statutory and case law, irrespective of industry or organizational policies and philosophies.

In many respects, the particular service duties and responsibilities of organizations depends on the nature of their work or services (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). Consumers naturally expect that all organizations will adhere to both legal and other ethical duties. The more important those services and the more potentially harmful noncompliance with those duties is, the more consumers expect all legal and ethical duties to be upheld.

Legal and Ethical Duties of Restaurants, Grocery Stores, and Hotels

Generally, restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels do not have well-defined ethical duties or responsibilities beyond their fundamental ethical duty to abide by all of the legal and regulatory standards applicable to them as a matter of law. In principle, all legal and regulatory obligations also give rise to ethical duties to whatever extent compliance with those laws and regulations is dependent on good faith (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). In that sense, every legal duty is also an ethical duty if that legal duty is capable of being violated without much chance of discovery.

For example, if legal regulations require restaurants and grocery stores to keep their refrigerators below 42 degrees, those establishments also have an inherent ethical obligation to comply with any law that is intended to protect consumers. Similarly, both restaurants and hotels have an inherent ethical duty not to violate applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, or any other classification recognized by law. The reason those legal responsibilities generate ethical responsibilities is precisely because compliance with those laws depends largely on good-faith compliance in circumstances where failure to do so could be concealed (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008).

Naturally, there is also some overlap because some legal duties (such as the duty not to sell or serve spoiled food) would also be ethical duties irrespective of legal issues. Others, (such as specific refrigerator temperature requirements) would not necessarily also correspond to ethical duties if the purpose of the law (i.e. avoiding food spoilage) could be accomplished even at slightly higher temperatures. In theory, organizations have no ethical duty not to discriminate by race (etc.) unless those duties are defined by law. However, a very strong argument could be made that there is indeed an ethical duty to treat people equally even without any such laws specifically mandating it.

Legal and Ethical Duties of Hospitals