Business Ethics

Discussion Board 1 Case Study

Business Ethics

Ramona Alexander graduated near the top of her class in the Liberty University MBA program, and she was recruited by several national companies. One of those companies was Next Step Herbal Health. Next Step manufactures and sells various herbal products, health foods, and health supplements. It was recently featured in Forbes Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Ramona was invited to attend a weekend-long “Get to Know Us” event at Next Step’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington with all expenses paid by Next Step. She eagerly accepted the invitation.

While sitting in the Lynchburg, Virginia airport awaiting her flights to Seattle, Ramona decided to do some online research about Next Step. Most of the articles touted the great financial results the company was producing. One article talked about how Next Step sent researchers around the world in search of new organic sources. Another article contained an interview with Next Step’s founder and CEO talking about the CEO’s “mission” to create a healthier America and about the company’s industry-leading ethics code.

Another article, however, mentioned how the founder and CEO had a pattern of starting new businesses, building them up and then selling them at a huge profit before moving on to something else. There was also an article that talked about how Next Step was a big contributor to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and various progressive causes.

Ramona also came across a “gripe site” that accused Next Step of various questionable business practices, such as forced purchase tie-in agreements with its distributors. This practice required distributors to purchase set amounts of products with payment in advance, regardless of the distributors’ actual sales. It also required distributors to purchase set amounts of less popular products if they wanted to purchase the more popular products. The site argued that these practices had helped drive many...