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Q1.Both legally and ethically managers have duties of service, obedience & loyalty to their employer. These

require them to obey lawful & ethical orders to exercise reasonable care in the performance of duties to put

the employers interest ahead- justify the statement for alcohol industry with appropriate theories/models

that you have learned.

Ans: Managers indeed have considerable amount of legal and ethical duties towards their employers. According

to Milton Freidmans arguments managers are agents of their employers and their responsibilities are to maximize

the employers profits. Managers are hired as representatives of the employers and they run the organization on

their behalf. The managers are obligated to work for the wellbeing of their employers and ensure that their

business objectives are met.

According to Freidman should devote organizational resources to pursue increased profits so long as it stays

within the rules of the game and engages in free competition, without deception and fraud. This means that

managers are free to do whatever it takes to maximize returns for the owners while abiding by the rules and

regulations set by the government.

This theory also applies to managers in the alcohol industry as well. Now the alcohol industry is one of the many

industries that are frequently faced with questions of legal and ethical issues. There has been significant amount

of argument regarding rules, law and voluntary codes of practice in the industry. Managers need to acknowledge

that the alcohol industry is a very volatile industry. Minor issues can change into industry altering phenomenon.

Managers are required to be very careful in their decision making and resource utilization so that their activities

are not questioned.

Any unlawful or unethical act from the manger directly affects that employers image and puts the entire business

at risk. Referring back to Freidmans argument managers must take care of the employers image and business

reputation as any hamper to these could hurt the companys profitability. And since managers are obligated to

stay legal according to the theory, they must run the business accordingly.

The alcohol industry has always been questioned regarding the negative impact it has on society. Under aged

drinking, side effects of drinking, damages to the human body from alcohol consumption, etc. are some of the

usual critics that companies in this industry face. Society expects more social responsiveness from this industry.

However trying to do additional activities for benefitting society would not be the best use of the companys

resources and neither would it bring in more profits for the employers. On the other hand not doing so would

come back to haunt the managers in terms of pressures from the government and society. Thus managers need to

bring the operations of companies in harmony with the expectations of the society.

Managers need to carry out their activities so that they are able to fulfill their obligations to the employers and the

expectations of the society. Managers can refer to the stakeholder alternative model for this purpose. The model

states that businesses should consider all those who are affected by its operations before making any decisions.

Organizations should look to benefits everyone who may be involved with the company. Furthermore the theory

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decision making and should be enforceable on everyone in the organization. All decisions should be based on

what these rules say. All organizational activities should compliment these rules. Managers must ensure that all

decisions made are in harmony with these rules and does not violate any of the principles that defines that rules.

And when followed properly, ethical decision making in the tobacco manufacturing industry becomes very much

possible and the maximum number of people are benefitted.

CSR for tobacco manufacturing industry today have become more of a required activity rather than an expected

one. This is due to the negative perception developed for the tobacco industry due to years of questioning their

products and its outcomes. Companies in the industry use CSR to give back to society and to make up for the

damages it causes.

When formulating CSR, the first area to observe is the organization itself and its employees. It is highly crucial

that the employees working are motivated to work for the organization and give their best effort for its wellbeing.

Being responsible towards employees always lead to positive returns in term of better performance, loyalty,

obedience and service. Therefore internal CSR would include:

Annual paid holidays and leaves.

Employee recognition ceremonies.

Company sponsored sporting events.

After employees comes the customer. Keeping customers happy and content can lead to more than just increased

profits. It leads to goodwill and image building, customer loyalty and sustainable development. Therefore CSR

directed towards the customers cannot be undermined.

CSR aimed at the customers include:

Larger caution labels on cigarette packets.

Sponsoring social and charity events.

Aid in community development.

Q3: If you were a production manager of tobacco manufacturing firm what actions would you take to

improve ethical decision making-explain.

Ans: As a production manager for a tobacco manufacturing company my task is to make sure that products are

made according to government rules and regulations, no harmful chemicals are added, proper content is used and

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company resources are properly utilized. The task is very crucial as any deviations may lead to serious

consequences for the company. For example if the tobacco content is increased in the cigarette sticks that lead to

intoxication it would be a violation for the rules set for the industry. As a result the owners would have to pay

massive fines which would be followed by damaged image in minds of the customers and employees.

So the urgency of the production manager being ethical is very crucial. And thus in order to demonstrate ethical

behavior I would propose using the justice model and NORM for ethical decision making. Developing a NORM

would allow employees and managers to refer something when in a dilemma. The NORM would state out what

actions are acceptable by everyone in the company and that everyone is mandated to display such actions. For

example the NORM would state out that no one should contaminate the recipe of cigarettes even if it might

increase sales.

The justice model would act as a supporting theory for the NORM. It would help in the development of the

NORM. The NORM should be made in such a manner that it does not violate anyones fundamental rights while

also stating out acceptable behavior that would enable the organization to operate ethically and profitably. A key

point in making NORMs is to make sure there is considerable amount of transparency that allows employees to

know about the NORMs and agree to them freely.

Q4: To what extent does an employee working for a firm retain a zone of personal privacy not subject to

invasion by the firm because of business necessitates- explain using NORM as ethical rule.

Ans: When working for an organization an employee working for a firm may experience somewhat limited

personal privacy. When working for an organization employees may be faced with emergency situations that

requires others to trespass into their personal zone for sorely business necessities. However the violating ones

personal privacy is not always justified as business necessity.

Organizations can lay out scenarios and situations that are considered as emergencies and then design NORMs

that all the employees freely agree to abide. The NORMs would permit personal privacy invasion only on those

circumstances. For example if an employee is on leave and a document is urgently needed from his computer in

his office. The organization can design it NORM that would make it right for someone else to go into his office,

turn on his computer and retrieve the document. Now in this case two issues are to be looked at very carefully

when NORMs are being made.

First is what is considered as an emergency that requires breach of personal privacy. The motives of the breach of

private zone should be valid. Organizations should clearly state out what is considered as emergency in the

workplace and under what circumstances the organization can invade ones personal zone. Pointing out emergency

situations are half the task. Everyone in the organization needs to acknowledge the situation as serious and

important enough to allow others to invade their privacy. Their acknowledgment needs to come from free

consent. The organization should also demonstrate considerable amount of transparency in formulating the

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emergency situation action plans so that employees are aware of the NORMs of the organization and freely agree

to those.

Secondly it is very important that when someones privacy is being breached care must be taken to ensure no

other information or items are being looked into besides the ones that are needed for the emergency situation. For

example when retrieving the important document, care must be taken to make sure that only the particular

document of interest in retrieved and nothing else. Other files and documents that are not related to the situation

should not be tampered with. Organization should place attention on this issue so that ones personal information

is not leaked for the sake of an emergency. It is the responsibility of the organization to protect the employees

personal privacy zone and personal information.

Hence NORMs should be made to allow organizations to invade personal privacy zone during emergency

situations keeping in mind not to tamper with any other information that is not related to the situation at hand.

Therefore employees can get a degree of privacy while working for an organization and in case of any breach they

would be aware of it and fully agree to it.

Q5: Where customers and clients are concerned: Trust is at the heart of this stakeholder relationship- do

you support the statement? Explain using Deontology as ethical rule.

Ans: For any relationship to be healthy and prosperous trust has to be displayed from all the parties involved.

Trust builds the foundation of the entire relation and allows it to grow. For businesses trust is the key for

sustainable growth. Organizations need to earn the trust of the customers and vice versa. Without trust neither will

the organization use its resources properly to generate benefit for the customer nor will the customers have faith

in the organization and would be reluctant to use their money to purchase benefit from them.

When a customer trusts an organization it a sense of safety is formed in the mind of the customer. He would not

be reluctant to listen or try out what the organization has to offer knowing that the organization is working for the

best interest of the customer. Organizations also need to recognize this and make sure that they maintain this trust

customers have on them. They should keep work best to keep operations transparent and clear to that all their

activities are visible and no doubt is built in the minds of the customers.

Now when it comes to ethical theories deontology supports the concept of trust a lot. Deontology states that

ethics is based on the notion that people have the duty to always obey moral rules, regardless of any positive

outcomes that can come from breaking them. Deontology proposes people are free to choose to accept certain

constraints and decide what is right by looking at the nature of the act itself. Some establish specific rules - keep

your promises, do not kill etc. - and some follow Kant's categorical imperatives or God's commandments. They do

not examine consequences as a rule and they sometimes find themselves in very difficult situations.

In short deontology says that even if doing something may lead to negative outcomes one should not break the

moral codes and rules that they follow. Now two rules of deontology include do not deceive and keep your

promise. These are rules are generic to all business and are what helps to build trust. For example suppose a

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securities company that deal with share market follows deontology. Now the company finds out that a customers

investment in shares was not profitable. Now as per deontology the company should inform the customer about

the loss rather than try to hide the fact and try to move the investment somewhere else to recover.

Now even though hiding the fact and moving the investment might bring profits for the customer, it would break

the moral rules by which the company operates. It would be deceiving if they did not inform the customer. And

should the customer find the fact out from some other sources he would perceive and being deceived by the

company. And thus would lose all trust on the company and eventually would stop doing business with the

company.

On the other hand if the organization did reveal the fact to the customer, then a more healthy relation could be

formed. The customer would know that the company is not hiding anything from him and is also a very ethical

company. The customer would feel he is transacting with an ethical company and thus the level of trust for the

company would increase thus benefitting all the parties.

Q6: It is difficult to monitor and control the behavior of managers and employees when a firms divisionsand branches are separated by oceans or continents- explain using Ethical Relativism as ethical rule.

Ans: Organization with overseas operations always faces the problems of controlling and monitoring their

employees. Although technology has made communication better and fast constraints still remains. The cultural

differences, time zone differences and work practice differences all come into play when dealing with overseas

employees.

The above mentioned differences can all be categorized under relativism. The theory says that right and wrong

are function of the moral teachings of each particular society. An act is right when it is approved by the social

group to which one belongs.This philosophy allows people to mutate ethically as the culture, knowledge, and

technology change in society. Conventional ethical relativism supports the view that the truth of moral principles

is relative to cultures.The culture or society becomes the highest authority about what is right for each individual

within that society. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in another. If

ethical relativism is correct, there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for reaching

agreement on ethical matters among members of different societies.

On the other hand there may be the case that some moral beliefs are culturally relative whereas others are not.

Certain practices, such as customs regarding dress and decency, may depend on local custom whereas other

practices, such as slavery, torture, or political repression, may be governed by universal moral standards and

judged wrong despite the many other differences that exist among cultures. Simply because some practices are

relative does not mean that all practices are relative.

Now when ethical relativism is related to overseas employees it provides a broader view of the difficulties in

controlling and managing employees. In case of overseas employees, everyone comes from different cultures,

race, religion, society and background. They all received different moral teachings and have different beliefs.

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Some of their cultural values and teachings might not match with those of the organizations. Some might even

contradict. It is in these instances that problems arise.

The organization might expect something from it employees but the employees may do something completely

different. For example an organization might expect all its employees to show up at work right on 9am in the

morning. But employees in overseas location may come from societies where people are very lazy and takes time

to do everything. For them showing up on work right at 9 am might be quite difficult as it is in direct

contradiction with their cultural teaching.

Another example may include an organization that promotes workforce diversity in terms of gender. However the

location where the organization is located may have a very male dominated society. Therefore the male

employees may have difficulty working with female employees who are considered as their equals.

Now in both instances the employees are correct according to the moral teaching they received from their culture

while the organization is also correct on having its own culture and values based on international standards. And it

is in this situation where the problems arise. Employees are confused and cannot abide by the organizations laws

and frequently relate back to their own cultural teachings leading to poor performance. The organization is also

faced with the problem on bringing employees cultural beliefs into synchronization with its own making the entire

process of controlling and monitoring very difficult.

Q7: Analyze the given experiences using ethical theories.

Ans: The case presented has numerous areas where ethical theories can be implied and where ethical obligations

and responsibilities have been violated. The first issue to look into is the long working hours. Employees are

being made to work for hours that are long past there official working hours. When employees joined the

organization they signed in knowing the job would be from 9am to 5pm. But clearly that is not the case. And

when trying to protest employees were called unprofessional.

Now if the situation is looked from Friedmans theory that states that managers are agents of the owners and are

obligated to maximize the employers benefits. So if working for extended hours can lead to profit maximizations

then the theory stands and the act is justified. But on the other hand managers and employees are faced with the

problem of role conflict. Employees also have families and social lives and those also need to be looked into.

People cannot simply remove everything else and solely work for the organization. Making employees work

several hours with disregard for their work-life balance is irrational and unethical from the organizations side. The

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References

1. Ethical Relativism n.d. Retrieved March 8, 2011 from http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/ethical-relativism-

faq.htm.

2. Ethical Theory- Deontology n.d. Retrieved March 8, 2011 from

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cogito/Gr11/deontology.html.

3. Velasquez, M, Andre, C, Shanks, T & Meyer, MJ n.d.,Ethical Relativism. Retrieved March 8, 2011, from

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/ethicalrelativism.html.

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Bibliography

1. Hansson, O & Palm, E 2005, The ethics of workplace privacy. Retrieved March 8, 2011, from

http://books.google.com/books?

id=B9uMfL9zuj4C&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=NORM+and+workplace+privacy&source=bl&ots=6Y

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Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=NORM%20and%20workplace%20privacy&f=false.

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5. Stakeholder Modeln.d. Retrieved March 8, 2011, fromhttp://www.alanfkay.com/successes/stakeholder_model.shtml.

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