Assess Ethical Communications

Assess Ethical communications

Lourdes Rojas

MGT5026-1

Anthony Muscia, DBA

10/12/2014

Case 1:

A clothing manufacturer produced a T-shirt emblazoned with a ferocious red and blue eagle beneath the words “American Made.” However, a small label inside revealed that the shirt was made in Mexico. In response to complaints that the slogan was deceptive, a company spokeswoman said that “American Made” referred to the actual person wearing the shirt, not the manufacturer.

Answer:

From the given case, it is clear that the T-shirt emblazoned with the wording "American Made" is misleading. These emblazoned indicates that these T-shirts were made in Mexico and not in America as indicated in the T-shirt. A consumer can understand the message that is deliberately communicated to them directly. American made indicates that the T-shirts are made in America, which is not true. But according to the company's spokesperson the term "American Made" referred to the person who is wearing it and not about the manufacturer that is unethical.

Made in America or American made indicates only about the product manufacturer and not about the consumer. It can be considered deliberate misleading information provided by the company as a manufacturer they must be familiar about the terms and their meaning. According to Guffey and Loewy's seven ethical guidelines, telling truth is one of the important ethical behaviors (Guffey & Loewy, 2015, p. 26). Ethical business communicators will not intentionally make those statements that are not true or deceptive to the consumer. But the term "American made" is a deceptive statement which was made by the company.

Next ethical problem was in labeling the opinions. According to the company, they mentioned this statement indicating that it will be worn by an American, so we used the term "American made". It is just an opinion from the company in order to convince the customers that they are not unethical and did not speculate any wrong...