Operations Management Business Ethics Ethical Issues Impact

Operations Management

Business Ethics

Ethical issues impact business on multiple different levels, and sometimes businesses can find it difficult to make ethical or appropriate decisions. One recent headline-making case highlights how difficult ethical decision-making can be for real-life businesses faced with real-life scenarios. After an African-American waitress received a bill that had "None, Nigger" written in the tip line, she posted the tip on her Facebook page. She removed that post, but her father then posted it on Facebook. Her employer, Red Lobster, suspended her from work for this action (Lake, 2013). Her suspension caused a huge uproar and has probably resulted in the loss of customers for Red Lobster, making it clear that ethical behavior is a corporate issue that can affect a company's bottom line.

What the scenario also makes clear is that it can be impossible to predict the wide variety of ethical scenarios and solutions that a business might confront. For Red Lobster to have an established company policy prohibiting wait staff from posting customer receipts featuring customer names to social media seems like a wise ethical decision. Moreover, clearly Red Lobster's policy was not aimed at protecting customers who use racial epitaphs against their staff, but to protect customer privacy in credit card transactions. However, in this scenario, Red Lobster was confronted with an overriding ethical issue; does it have an ethical duty to protect its servers from racial slurs by customers? Furthermore, should an employee confronted with racially hostile treatment in the workplace be prevented via the company's ethical rules from sharing that experience? Red Lobster may have had an ethical and legal duty to protect her, as a racially hostile environment may violate some federal laws; but it is also impossible for Red Lobster to predict all possible types of discrimination an employee may experience from a customer (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2013). While I do not have any solutions in this scenario, I think it is a perfect example of why a company needs ethical rules.

Business Processes

There are four important business processes that can help determine the success or failure of a business: strategy development, product development, systems to produce goods and services, and order fulfillment. Each of them fills a critical need for a business, and the four processes work together to ensure a successful business. Strategy development because "strategy defines how an organization chooses to compete with the framework dictated by the external environment" (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). In other words, strategy serves as the blueprint for the company. Product development is also important. Without product development, a business would have no established means of generation ideas and plans for the services and goods it provides to consumers (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). Systems to produce goods and services are critical because, the best ideas in the world cannot become profitable and drive a successful business if the business does not have the means of producing them. Order fulfillment is important because customers are seeking products and services; being unable to purchase them will drive many customers to choose other businesses.