Wgu Est1 Task 1

EST 1 Ethical Situations in Business

Task 1

Company Q’s attitude toward social responsibility is biased in favor of profit over the benefit of the customer stakeholders. Company Q closed two stores in areas that may need the grocery store’s services, and began offering higher-margin items in other stores. Company Q did not use social impact to determine whether or not to close the stores. In addition, rather than offer a range of affordable, health conscious, organic food regardless of profit margin, Company Q decided to limit their offerings to high margin health conscious and organic foods. Doing so technically satisfied the customer demand, but did not earnestly fill the need.

Closing the stores impacted the employees and customers negatively. Former employees are now without jobs to sustain their families. Customers now must look elsewhere to less convenient stores for grocery options. Employees and customers are stakeholders in Company Q’s business, and their needs were not fully considered. If we define social responsibility as taking actions that maximize positive impact while minimizing negative impact on stakeholders, then Company Q is guilty of doing just the opposite.

One way to improve the company’s attitude toward social responsibility would be to improve security in the stores. They could invest in security equipment or hire additional security personnel to prevent theft. Such improvements might increase the profit of the store. Preventing store closings and profit impact would result in a net positive impact on profit as well as social responsibility while encouraging stakeholders to comply with the law. The presence of security monitoring and personnel could allow increased profit that would drive confidence in Company Q’s ability to continuously provide a needed service.

In addition, Company Q could donate money to community non-profit groups. By doing so, Company Q could improve their social responsibility response by...