Ethical Challenge One of the most complex ethical challenges facing for-profit organizations today is balancing their goal of being socially responsible with their obligation to shareholders to earn a profit. Firms generally hire executives to increase profits. No matter how much good a firm does in its community, if it doesn’t have a healthy bottom line, the executive may not be seen as a success. This is not unlike a college football coach who makes sure his players graduate every year, but consistently has a losing record. Odds are he won’t remain the coach very long, even though he does a number of socially responsible things. Executives at privately held companies have the right to make socially responsible decisions that might sacrifice revenue. Executives at publicly held companies have to answer to their shareholders, who expect profits and share prices to grow. Marketing executives at public companies frequently face situations that force them to choose between responsible action and the bottom line. Please use the ethical decision-making framework to answer the following questions:
4
Ethical Challenge
One of the most complex ethical challenges facing for-profit organizations today is balancing their goal of being socially responsible with their obligation to shareholders to earn a profit. Firms generally hire executives to increase profits. No matter how much good a firm does in its community, if it doesn’t have a healthy bottom line, the executive may not be seen as a success. This is not unlike a college football coach who makes sure his players graduate every year, but consistently has a losing record. Odds are he won’t remain the coach very long, even though he does a number of socially responsible things.
Executives at privately held companies have the right to make socially responsible decisions that might sacrifice revenue. Executives at publicly held companies have to answer to their shareholders, who expect profits and share prices to grow. Marketing executives at public companies frequently face situations that force them to choose between responsible action and the bottom line. Please use the ethical decision-making framework to answer the following questions:
1. Assume you are a shareholder in a publicly traded retail firm. Would you want that firm to raise pay rates for its employees to stay on pace with the inflation rate, even if doing so would drive product prices up and profit margins down? Explain your answer.
2. Assume you are a shareholder for a manufacturing company in a small town far from your home. Would you be willing to trade polluting the environment in that one town for an increase in firm profits? Explain your answer. If the CEO of the company decided not to pollute the environment and profits decreased as a result, how should the firm
3. Assume you are a shareholder in a publicly traded beverage company. Would you support the company's plan to advertise to children even if its beverage is unhealthy for children? Explain your answer.
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 4 steps
