Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: PRODUCTION

Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: MARKETING

Ethical Issues in the Business or Corporate World: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

PRODUCTION

• In production, ethics is a subset of business ethics that is designated to guarantee that the production function or activities are not damaging to the consumer or the society. Just like the other ethics, there is a certain code of conduct or principles to be followed, however assuring that the ethics are complied with is often impossible.

• One of the most significant characteristics of the industry today is that there is a tremendous degree of interdependence between different business functions.

• Production cannot happen without marketing and sales, and marketing and sales cannot happen without production. In order to withstand the competitive world, corporations try to lessen the costs involved in production procedures. This cost efficiency is sometimes accomplished at the cost of quality.

• Poor procedures and technology are utilized to keep the expense down, this is especially true for small players who cannot afford economies of scale. Having said that, there are also instances of industry giants that risked on specific production processes. Cola companies are a good example.

• All the production processes are regulated by production ethics but there are specific procedures that are harshly dangerous or deleterious which need to be regulated continuously. The following are some of the examples:

1. New Technologies

• There are ethical dilemmas occurring out of the use of new technologies that are hazardous to health, safety, and the environment. Advancements of Technology like genetically modified food, radiations from mobile phones, medical equipment, among others, are fewer problems but are more of dilemmas.

2. Defective Services

• Defective services and products or products that are naturally harmful like alcohol, tobacco, fast motor vehicles, warfare, chemical manufacturing, and others.

3. Animal Testing

• Animal testing and their rights, or use of economically or socially disadvantaged people for testing or experimentation is another area of production ethics.

4. Ethics of Transactions

• Ethics of transactions between the company and the environment and nature that lead to pollution, global warming, an increase in water toxicity, and decreasing natural resources.

5. Dilemma of Ethics in Production

• There are certain procedures implicated in the production of goods and a small error in the same can lessen the quality harshly. In certain products, the danger is greater just like a minor error can decrease the quality and increase the threat associated with consumption or usage of the same.

• The dilemma lies in distinguishing the degree of permissibility, which in turn relies on a number of factors. Bhopal gas tragedy is one illustration where the poisonous gas got leaked out due to negligence on the part of the management and company.

• Many manufactures are usually involved in the production of the same good. They may use related or different technologies for the same. Establishing a standard in the case of different technologies is often very impossible. There are many other components that contribute to the dilemma. For example, the involvement of the human resources or manpower, the working conditions, the raw material used, and others.

• Social perceptions also establish a dilemma sometimes. For example, the usage of some fertilizer by cola companies in India that previously formulated a national debate. The same cold drinks which were consumed till that time became noxious at present because of a change in the social perception that the drinks are not fit for consumption.

6. Supply Chain Control

• It is impossible to know what every person at every factory is doing on a daily basis. The expectation is everyone is attending to the rules in exchange for a salary, and in most instances, that would be the case.

• But as a corporation has been globalized, and businesses have international factories manufacturing goods 24/7, ethical deviation raises its awful head. This does not mean that certain countries are less ethical than others, but the message becomes tainted as it makes its way from the useless corporate headquarters to a factory far away, and then down the rabbit hole to contractors and sub-contractors.

• Sadly, "do no harm" becomes "do no harm within a certain price range or as long as no one finds out."