Along the way I am trying to finish the Bachelor Degree I started in 1985, 5 classes to go, currently taking an HR one – but thought a few of the papers were good enough to place in my little historical world of writing..
Question 1: Do you feel that it is possible to develop a universal set of ethical standards for business, or do you believe that cultural differences make universal standards impractical and/or impossible? (15 marks)
It is not possible at this point in human existence to have a universal set of ethical standards, In general even trying to have a universal set of ethical standards throughout a province or country is difficult. I also do not think it would be in humanities best interest, while yes it would simplify some things, we would lose the benefit of diversity. It is that exact diversity that helps us continue to improve and prove to ourselves where we are wrong and need to shift our paradigms and evolve.
While it can appear that there are 7 universal moral rules found around the world (Curry, 2018) those values focus more on interpersonal relationships then on business relationships. Ethical standards for business take into consideration many elements that hold their roots outside of the definition of business, but have a substantial impact on the ethical decisions that must be made. Differences in religion, clan kinship, castes, racism, gender equality and many other aspects impact business.
The purpose of a business is not solely to generate wealth, but also a responsibility to the public interest and the planet (Open Text BC, n.d.). As such the varying conditions in the country a business is operating must apply to the geographic and socioeconomic conditions that guide their ethical decisions. For example, while in most families in North America have the privilege of allowing children to have a roof over their head, food on the table and complete an education, that is not the same in many third world countries has been on the increase and jumped 10 percent in 2012 (McKenna, 2012). If we were to enforce upon countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia that no child labor, the children would be put into a worse situation of starving, unable to pay for medication when sick. Solutions for both the geophysical and socioeconomic situations to bring those countries on par with first world countries is required as a first step, and unfortunately I don’t foresee that occurring anytime soon.
However if North America chose to assimilate the Japanese tradition of gift giving (Donaldson, 1996) into their culture, which falls under of the core human moral values of returning favors, they may find it benefits their corporate relationships leading to better appreciation of others. There is a value in gratitude as a business strategy, as it not only leads to sustained growth over time, but can lead to a stronger company and relationships with staff, partners and customers (Martyn Bassett Associates, 2016).
Question 2: Do corporations have a right and/or a responsibility to influence ethics in the countries in which they operate? Defend your position. (15 marks)
This is not a yes or no questions, as it depends on each individual situation and what ethics we are discussing, and again the geophysical, socioeconomic and culture of the country they are in. And this is not even a country question, but also impacts local cultures in their home countries. As cultures in the hills of North Carolina coal towns and those that live in Los Angeles will vary greatly, the same questions and considerations must be taken into account.
In the situation with Levi Strauss with the Tan Family (Donaldson, 1996), had the Tan family had their facility in a first world country attempting to influence the ethics of the country would not be in the best interest of the staff working. Only because it was a reverse situation and Levi refusing to allow humans to be mistreated by, North American standards and their corporate standards, we support it. The same goes for their situation in Bangladesh, hopefully other corporations using child labor follow suit. Policies that can help improve the quality of life from a socioeconomic view point for those they employ should be encouraged as long as they are built in accordance with understanding the cultural environment they are working in. It is easy to stay they have a responsibility to attempt to make those kinds of positive changes and It would be nice to state it is a right of Levi Strauss to make those changes for the children that were under 14. However without understanding the butterfly effect of other companies and if there were downsides in the effects of the those living in the geographic vicinity that worked in other factories, it’s hard to determine. Being that they did receive praise from the Bangladeshi government and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association set aside funds to assist with this I will assume it had mostly a positive outcome that outweighed negative consequences (Levi Strauss, n.d.).
But other areas that have a global impact are more clear cut into what ethics must be brought forward due to their massive impact. An example of that is the polio vaccine in areas of Asia and Africa. Due to concerns about genocide, race extinction through sterilization and racism, conspiracy theories and suspicion make eradicating the disease difficult (Warriach, 2009). Facing severe religious opposition by fundamentalists result in failure of immunisation programs, with radical groups such as the Taliban denouncing the vaccinations as American ploys to sterilize Muslim populations and that it is against the will of Allah, much like North American religious fundamentalists against medical treatment for their children when ill.
Pharmaceutical companies have both a right and responsibility to try to overcome these obstacles and influence the culture and ethics to help build a vaccination program within the local communities that will help at a minimum build heard immunity. Steps have been made, as there has not been a case seen of type 3 since 2012, and type 2 in 2015 (Belluz, 2019). Type 1 still remains at large in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with militants going so far as to attack workers and the security forces attempting to assist (The College of Philidelphia, 2018).
They are attempting to make progress in the battle and have gone from in 1,000 people a day in 1988 becoming infected (Warriach, 2009)to a yearly to 176 in 2019 and 134 year to date in 2020 (Polio Eradication, 2020). The various companies such as Unicef, Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft and other companies involved have the right to help protect humanity on a global basis and a responsibility due to the outfall a massive resurgence would bring, much like Covid-19, but with life long disability for many.
Part B
Amazon
Corporate Social Responsibility, the hot topic buzz word of the last few decades. While it first came to light in the 1800s (Thomasnet, 2019), the concept as we know it has been taking shape since the 1950s. In the 1970s the concept began to become more prominent and the concept of a social contract (Thomasnet, 2019) was introduced by the Committee for Economic Development. Some aspects may be required by law, such as protecting private information, other aspects are voluntary. The BDC defines it as Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a company’s commitment to managing the social, environmental and economic effects of its operations responsibly and in line with public expectation (BDC, n.d.)s.I
The way we think of CSR is changing, keeping step with the way our world changes. These changes brought forward by the institutionalization of the internet into our lives, and the globalization we are experiencing. Transforming at the same speed is the way we shop, evolving from the stores similar to Piggly Wiggly in 1916 (Farrell, 2020) to Amazon with same-day delivery to your desk. With this change there is a double-edged sword; as the influence of big box stores and quick delivery is convenient and can often help find things you didn’t know you needed, it is also causing huge culture shifts that many view as negative and are asking the government to help curtail what they view as an antitrust problem (Schiller, 2016).
To help overcome some of this, Amazon viewed it was finally the time that it would be required to implement a CSR program, however, this was not in place until August 2014. Some feel that this long delay since going public in 1997, shows that this was, and likely still is not, a priority for Amazon (Dudovskiv, 2020). While it is filled with a long lit of things that appear to assist with fitting CSR goals such as their career choice program, being committed to meeting the Paris Agreement 10 years early, and their Amazon Smile program, below the surface there are signs things are not as they would seem.
In Sep of 2019 hundreds of employees walked out of many of their offices and warehouses as part of a global climate strike (Peltz, 2019). As Amazon expands local communities and small stores are being hit hard and forced to close. It is predicted now that 100,000 retailers brick and mortar stores may close by 2025, as Covid-19 has accelerated the growth of online shopping (Murphy, 2020). It is estimated that , Amazon has grown their square footage of fulfillment space by 178 million since 2009.
Trying to understand the full scope of stakeholders involved on a global basis is near impossible as it touches almost everyone in a first world country. From the courts, mom and pop stores, Canada Post, WCB, the consumer who orders, Google who supplies the search results, those involved in the tech world coding for search engine optimization, our local transit systems which take staff too and from their stores to the most basic employees of Amazon, Jeff Bezo’s and the shareholders in Amazon.
In looking at the three types of ethical reasoning, and analyzing some of the issues involved we first look at utility. Like many large corporations, there are things that are ethical and unethical from both a personal and business point of view. However, these quite often must be measured to ensure that the net benefits do not exceed the net costs for a community or country. Although this can be difficult to measure, if one can take a step back from their personal views, a balanced understanding of the pros and cons can usually be seen to make a determination.
Some of the costs involved, such as the impact of greenhouse gasses, the close of the small business, can be hard to determine. As the goods would have to be delivered from their original point, and people would be driving many individual vehicles to stores. Would people have found another online location to order form instead of Amazon? It’s the same struggle as trying to determine if mass consumerism drives mass consumption, or does mass consumption drive mass consumerism. There is no denying we are a consumption-based society.
Analyzing the rights of many stakeholders including employee and third party rights which have long been a concern with Amazon. It was recently identified that Amazon executives used privileged third-party seller data to determine which of the company’s label products to launch (Varshney, 2020). As well it has made exclusive deals with Apple to take away the ability of small retailers to continue selling their products (Statt, 2019), although it is a private company, does it have a right to exclude a competitor if it will serve them better? In most stores we would say yes, however many people hold Amazon to a different standard.
Employee rights have also been a concern, even before COVID-1,9 many reports have been made that employees under pressure to work faster are held to impossible expectations and complaints are not taken seriously (Sainato, 2020)Concerns have been raised that the recent increased of $2 per hour was done to stave off the workers becoming unionized, which was being considered (Schoolov, 2019). Since Covid-19 many additional reports have been brought forward with increasing health concerns and exposure with the quotas set for them (de Montigny, 2020).
Justice – Amazon has come under fire many times for not distributing fair shares from a variety of forms. These include failure to pay their fair of taxes in numerous countries, several accusations of anti-trust violations. However what is fair in the business world? There is nothing wrong with being number one, as long as you don’t cheat to get there. Canada being a socialist based country view fair very different than the United States, and to hold Amazon to a Global Standard based on our socialist standards is not “fair or just” either.
Aristotle said “equals should be treated equally and unequal’s unequally”, perhaps this is what is happening with Amazon. Unfortunately for the first time in history the world is globally-connected, and we are seeing the impacts of that for the first time and it is pushing us to feel uncomfortable as a society and wanting to seek the comfort of what we knew.
However, I think most would agree, it would be nice if the proper share of taxes was paid instead of finding loopholes, and to save the subsidies for the smaller businesses. But then again that is my own perspective based on the company I work for, and the taxes I pay, if I was a shareholder in Amazon I’m sure I’d be ok if I was profiting from the outcome.
The Utilitarian method is the most helpful in evaluating the ethics of Amazon and both it’s cost and benefit to society. Analysis of Corporate America requires a normative method to understand the consequences of good and bad for their actions and impact on the environments they are working in. Yes, it can fail to take into account the considerations of justice and rights, but the matters that surround these topics are focussed quite often in relation to an anti-trust, WCB, employment laws, the right to repair acts and similar struggles that are better left for a court to decide. As of June 11, 2020, Amazon is again facing another set of anti-trust cases, the outcome in the EU should be interesting, and may determine a future course for first world countries and their relationship with Amazon (Satariano, 2020)
I am not one of those on the Amazon or online ordering bandwagon, the only things ordered online are when in receipt of gift cards, stores were closed during Covid-19, or it simply is not possible to find locally. Brick and Mortar stores closing, bringing death to many of the benefits of a small-town community (Schenke, 2017), risking the chance that many small rural towns may have to close up and become ghost towns. As many of those stores provide necessary items to prevent having to travel 150 miles, and an added income to households in financial crises.
For myself, living in the lower mainland, it will mean less community selection and the inability to browse through a store to find something that is “just right” to potentially having to settle due to frustration of online searches, where the sponsored items are pushed into your face instead of what you searched for (Molla, 2018). Ultimately less of my money will be going into supporting my local community stores, and likely less on material things.
To me, these are important things, as that $20 I spend on a set of dish towels at the local shop may be supporting a cashier in a small store. They may be a single mom trying to make ends meet and put themselves through school, or immigrant who is here on a refugee visa and working to support themselves in a better life and helping their family to know the same privileges. I currently have a choice of where my money goes and who it supports, as we move to an all-online, I lose that choice.
Those same small brick and mortar stores lead to first jobs for teens, help children learn the basics of business interaction, and supporting and buying local helps to ensure the local economy stays strong. It is often common that a person may pay more for an item online, then locally, as Amazon can at times provide an inaccurate view of how much consumers may save (Thomson Reuters, 2017). While some may choose to pay a price for convenience, they will continue to support their sponsored items in advertising over simple search results (Molla, 2018).
Even if small vendors attempt to sell online, they can quickly be undercut by larger distributors and buried alive by sponsored ads over ones that more effort has been put into by individual business owners (Molla, 2018). In 2019 Amazon new guidelines limiting all but the largest companies and specially authorized providers to sell Apple Products (Statt, 2019). In an odd juxtaposition, one of the requirements to become authorized Apple refurbished products requires a physical retail space for customers to enter. This not only cuts into the income of those in the local community for the wages earned, but as people become more and more accustomed to Amazon as the only option, their awareness they can obtain refurbished items at a lower cost dwindles.
Vancouver is set to become Amazon’s unofficial HQ2, possibly employing over 10,000 people with a total of 1.13 million square feet (Kenneth, 2019). This will make it the single largest corporate employer in downtown Vancouver. Paired with this opening it’s first purpose-built office building will create an additional 152,000 square feet of space dedicated to Amazons needs.
As of June of 2019, Amazon employed approximately 2,300 workers (Korstrom, 2019) in the Vancouver area, as such they are one of the larger local employers. Their warehouse positions create jobs for those with low skill sets, immigrants, and other marginalized workers that may have little opportunity elsewhere. Amazon also provides transportation for these workers from the Scott Road Skytrain Station, reducing the need for long bus rides and emissions from individual vehicles from each employee.
Amazon also has implemented the career choice program (Amazon Staff, n.d.), allowing staff who have been employed for one year to obtain assistance with education in the career path of their choice, as long as it’s in a high demand category according to the sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The program covers up to $12,000 in tuition, textbooks, and associated fees over four years.
As Amazon increases its demand, it puts greater pressure on Canada’s resources, several negative factors will happen. Some of which being fewer taxes being collected (Willow, 2019), the large impact on our countries environment, and the substantial increase in the number of packaging materials. The fact that they reduced packaging by 15% which avoided 305 million shipping boxes in 2017. Even with our good intentions of recycling, China implemented new rules for imported cardboard, resulting in a lot of material still ending up in the landfill (Nguyen, 2018).
As consumers grow to understand items can be quick, easy, and disposable they will also increase their consumption of new items. Choosing these over refurbished as the way they are presented makes it seem like the return on investment for the cost is not worth it for the previously used item. Resulting in its disposal in its deprecated state, encouraging more electronic waste disposal (Statt, 2019).
Amazon also reduced a customer’s choice of product, by banning the sale of some competitors that hinder their ability to make a profit. If the obstacles, such as those they had with apple, can be overcome they are open to selling the product again.
Many corporations being pushed to use Amazon for sales are also now exposing much more of the sales data and trade secrets to Amazon. Who once they have that data can use it to exhibit a greater influence on their algorithms (Statt, 2019).
During Covid-19 response, Amazon is keeping a running press release site (Amazon, 2020) listing the various ways they are helping Canada make its way through the pandemic. Listing things such as donations to charities, safety measures installed to protect their workers and combating price gouging on mandatory health items. They have also taken steps to increase pay during the crises and provide paid time off to those impacted (Day One Staff, 2020).
Amazon believes it can use it’s purchasing power to create more opportunities for renewables and is striving to power its global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy. If their wind farm in Texas is sustainable, along with their solar rooftop program, we may see similar expansions to Canada. These steps may see a reduction in the increased demand for these resources with their growth (Murray, 0218)
Amazon is also a leader in cloud-based storage providers, offering reliable, secure backups, for Canada’s diverse businesses and tech companies. Commonly knows as AWS, it allows application providers and vendors to quickly and securely host applications, which is scalable and cost-effective (Amazon, n.d.). As data servers can produce a massive amount of heat, Amazon has taken this an additional step and uses a district energy system that allows them to use the waste heat to heat their other buildings (Murray, 0218).
Amazon, like most big corporations, brings with it a double-edged sword. Both benefiting the communities they exist in, but also bringing drawbacks. Which side of the fence you sit on, simply depends on your own personal ethics. Amazon, much like Google, is here to stay for the time being, as they have a sustainable competitive advantage, it bets on growth to create new revenue streams such as AWS, Amazon Prime and other projects (Cohan, 2018). Where they will lead in the next 10 years we do not know, but it will be interesting from ethics and corporate sustainable view.
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