UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICE

Unethical Business Practice: The Coca Cola Company case

Unethical Business Practice: The Coca Cola Company case

Definitions

Ethics concerns about the different morals and values of an individual or society find desirable or appropriate (Northhouse, 2010, 379-395). However, ethics highlights and concerned with the virtuousness of individuals and their motives. Moreover, ethics is a system of rules or principles that guide people in making decisions about the right or unethical and good or unsatisfactory in a situation. A leader's values directly shape the values of the organization and the leader values are amongst the highest because the organization molds according to their value. Thus, in our case of Coca Cola it displays that the people mold according to the values of Coca Cola India leader and suffers the great notions related to ethical concerns.

Discussion

Ethical theories

Ethical theories can be divided in 2 broad domains: a company's conduct and its character (Northouse, 2010, 379-395). Regarding the organizational or leader's conduct the theories can be divided into two categories. Teleological requires assessing the behaviour based on the consequences or outcomes and comprises of three conflicting notions; Ethical Egoism, Utilitarianism, and Altruism. Moreover, according to the teleological theory, moral judgments must always be made from the consequences of the action measures on the basis of values and especially the performance of charity. The reference to the values and not values produced by the action or those who identify their consequences is so indispensable in the application of this theory that it presupposes, and cannot, but presupposes a theory of values (Brook, 2007, 431-440).

Teleological theories assume that the value of an action is good if the intended target and achieved, the intended purpose and got well implemented. It is; therefore, not only the intention or the will alone, but also the consequence of an act. So the question is whether there are universally justifiable goals of human action, which are good and should be pursued. Any teleological theory thus requires necessarily a theory of value. First the good gets defined (this is not necessary for deontological theories), then is the maximization of the good.

Ethical egoism holds that everyone ought always to do those acts that will serve his or hers own best self interest. The second set of theories regarding leader's character is called virtue based theories according to Griseri, 2010 are more geared towards recognizing an individual or organization by their fortitude rather by their actions. He has also highlighted that virtue is meant to be a feature of an individual that prompts them to act in a certain way. E.g. kindness is a virtue because it makes people more likely to act in a kind manner in the exact situation. Griseri emphasized that Aristotle one of the ancient philosopher that studied this theory, made clear that being virtuous represented a way of living your life (Braddon, Mitchell, & Jackson, 1997, 474-489).

Unethical Business Practices

Over the years there are various companies that display the unethical practices. While, the famous business ethics case in India started from the ...