Best buy is a company that offers technology, products, and services. It is one of the leading companies in electronic sales. This company has over 1,000 locations worldwide and due to all these stores Best Buy seems to run into some type of conflict throughout the years. The two components of conflict, Task and relationship conflict all had influenced on how Best Buy dealt with the problems they faced as demonstrated throughout the lawsuits, conflicts with rival companies and trouble within the organization. Best buy being such a large organization is usually going to run into some conflicts. Conflicts are “when one party perceives another party has negatively affected or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about. …show more content…
This type of conflict was a relationship conflict “which focuses on interpersonal relationships” (Robins Judge, 233). It can also be stated as an intragroup conflict since it “occurred within a group or team” (Robins Judge 234). The interpersonal relationship was with Mark Thompson and Ernst and Young. In an article by the associated press it states Mark Thompson was on the board of directors for Best Buy from 2000-2004 when he decided to resign due to conflicts of interest. After Thompson had resigned there had been information that was released stating that Thompson had contact with Ernst and Young during 2002 to 2004 and was getting paid around three hundred seventy seven thousand dollars. The group that are affected within the group is Best Buy itself and Ernst and Young. At the time Ernst and Young was an auditor for Best Buy which is a big problem that is stated in their code of ethics handbook. In the handbook it states the conflict of interest occurs when you get improper benefits due to your connections to the company. Thompson violated the conflicts of interest by holding a second job with Ernst and Young while they conducted business with Best Buy. The handbook also states that anything that can be considered a conflict of interest must be disclosed to the company. As previously stated Thompson violated this by not disclosing the information to Best Buy. Best Buy was taken to surprise by this and ended the solution to this conflict was to drop Ernst and Young as their auditors. Best Buy had come out and said that the two companies came into agreement to part ways. This outcome proves that the relationship within the employees for a company like Best Buy is important to them because they want to be able to trust their corporate workers. The relationship conflict also shows specifically the ways some companies deal with conflicts within the
In 2003 misconduct of conflict-of-interest laws shocked the defense industry. Serious violations were committed at The Boeing Company by former top Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun who admitted to helping The Boeing Company obtain a $23 billion tanker refueling contract in exchange for an executive job at the company. While verbally accepting a position with Lockheed Darlene Druyun did not disclose her job negotiations with a Mike Sears a Chief Financial officer while overseeing aerial tanker negotiations between Boeing and the U.S. Air force. This non-commitment to ethical behavior and compliance gave Boeing a competitive advantage while bidding on the contract.
Arnold McClellan and Annabel McClellan were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with leaking confidential merger and acquisition information to their family overseas. The SEC claimed it was a multi-million dollar insider trading scheme. Mr. McClelland had worked in advising his clients in mergers and acquisitions for over a decade. Because of his position as the head of one of Deloitte’s regional mergers and acquisitions team, Arnold McClellan had access to highly confidential information.
Their logistics has several problems ranging from their inventory has an excess queue time and the turnover is very low. As for their sales which have been stated previously, has been slowly declining due to online competitors such as Amazon. Best Buy needs to take some sort of measure to differentiate themselves from low priced competitors like Amazon and increase their market share in those markets. The implementation of the “store within a store” for Samsung and Microsoft will need to be strategically placed in the store, maybe some possible rearrangement of the stores layout. If you have ever been in a Wal-Mart, you may have noticed the strategic layout.
Diworth, J. Perterson & Seligman, (2004). The Ethical Importance of Conflicts of Interest: Accounting and Finance Examples. Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 3(1), 25-40.
From a legal perspective, since Future Shop and Best Buy are two separate entities, Best Buy would not be responsible for any deficiencies if Future Shop’s assets are not able to cover their liabilities. However, such actions would further worsen the public’s perception of the company on top of the abrupt terminations of its employees. Thus, it is recommended that Best Buy still take on the responsibility as an act of good faith from an ethical perspective and to preserve its
The industry of BestBuy is Retail – Consumer Electronics. It occupied nearly all market share on traditional consumer electronics and appliances. While Amazon is retail tycoon, which sells dozens of product categories on its websites. Amazon also manufactures and sells electronic devices, like Kindle e-readers, Fire Tablets, Fire TVs and Echo.
Best Buy’s decision to consolidate Future Shop's business brought out many issues and questions regarding the legal processes and the future of Best Buy as an effective organization. In our report, we have addressed your concerns in regards to the termination of employees, structural and cultural changes to the combined business, the motivation of current and retained employees, and the various legal considerations in relation to the key stakeholders.
It makes sense for Best Buy to worry more about Wal-Mart, which is getting more involved in electronics retailing, and less about Circuit City. The competitors are a diverse lot today, and for them to continue to grow they're going to have to get much better at everything they do and define themselves in clear ways. Best Buy's plan is to revamp its stores according to the types of customers they serve. A strategy previously mentioned, customer centricity, focuses on targeting five prototypical customers, all of whom have been given names: "Jill," a busy suburban mom; "Buzz," a focused, active younger male; "Ray," a family man who likes his technology practical; "BB4B" (short for Best Buy for Business), a small professional employer; and "Barry," an affluent professional male who's likely to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a home theater system. Their most current focus is on a "Jill" based store, the soccer mom who has money to spend but typically hasn't a clue of where or how to find products in the store. According to the data Best Buy has collected, Jill shops a few times a year, usually twice at an electronics store, but she usually spends a significant amount.
It was stated in an article in the March 2008 Tribune Business News that, “Although the relationship did not directly violate Boeing's code of conduct, the board determined that there were
To make matters worse, when Andersen found problems in the financial statements, they didn’t make corrections due to a conflict of interest. The concern was that if Andersen brought these problems to light, Enron would walk away and cost Andersen millions of dollars in the long run. Andersen contemplated dropping Enron as a client, but did not follow through with it. Because the audit and consulting was done at the same firm, it clouded Andersen’s judgment. Andersen employees in Houston began shredding documents and therefore brought obstruction of justice charges that destroyed the firm.
1.) What does the Institute of Supply Management code of ethics say about financial conflicts of interest?
As the U.S. economy has slowed, bringing consumer spending down with it, nearly every retailer has felt some pain. Best Buy has managed this crisis better than its most similar competitors, considering that the slowdown all but killed Circuit City and CompUSA. Nevertheless, Best Buy’s stock fell 16% from December 2007 to February 2008, and has fallen another 12% since then, while low-cost retail leaders such as Wal-Mart have benefited as consumers seek out the lowest possible price for everyday necessities. Best Buy’s
WorldCom acquired Arthur Andersen as the independent external auditing for the company. As WorldCom grew after the merger with MCI, Andersen began to invoice less than they should have. The charges were defended as an opportunity to prolong business with WorldCom. (Kaplan and Kiron, 2007). This is an immediate red flag for a company. Where were the ethical practices of the independent auditor? If the auditor has no ethics, how can one possibly be assured that the company is performing its intended function appropriately? The board of directors should have immediately been informed of Andersen’s practices and made a decision to confront Andersen’s practices and possibly obtain new independent auditors.
When we read the new OBM case application in chapter 5 we understood many new things about company ethics and responsibility. In this case we were introduced in a true story of RadioShack Corporate Company. The story is about company’s CEO David Edmondson and his fall as a chairman of it. He lied about his educational background that helped him to take the CEO-seat from Len Roberts. One of the first signs was marked from the newspaper “The Fort Worth Star Telegram” who reported a huge article for him. After his hiring as a new CEO the company lost its positions and the result was that share price dropped to a 3 year low level. Mr. David Edmondson neglects the Company ethics and than he was fired. The strange part
Conflict is a situation where a potential development of one person or group has been blocked by another. I would think that the most widely used definition links a conflict situation to a disagreement or misunderstanding between two or more parties. One of the obstacles that teams encounter is trying to remain focused on jobs objectives, balancing the workloads, learning each other while adapting to the team. I was part of a team that had every element we thought that was need to succeed we planned and drill everyone know there job and did it well. Half way through the project we realized that even though we had all the elements to succeed we were still falling short of our goal. After rethinking our plan, we concluded that we were missing the right leadership and lacking in communication. I have found that you learn more about dealing with conflicts when you experience them first hand it teaches you life lessons on staying focused on your goal.