Ethical Situations in Business

EST-1 Task 1

Many people believe that businesses are obligated to have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, in order to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations or companies seek opportunities to be socially responsible while also making a profit for its shareholders. Company Q, a local grocery store chain recently closed two stores in high crime rate areas of the city because they constantly lost money. After years of requests and demands from customers, all of Company Q’s stores have now offers a limited amount of healthy and organic products, all of which are high profit items. It was suggested to Company Q by the area’s local food bank to donate day old food and goods and the board of directors declined. Company Q’s choice to throw away excess food rather than donate in fear of employee theft can be considered socially irresponsible.

According to the USDA (2014), more food reaches landfills and incinerators than other materials in our everyday trash, making up twenty one percent of discarded municipal solid waste. According to Coleman-Jensen (2014), One in six people in America are facing hunger and forty nine million Americans are struggling to put food on the table daily. To know this information and still prefer to throw away goods is not only wasteful but socially irresponsible. Let’s examine what Company Q can do to amend their attitude toward being socially responsible. Company Q is concerned that if it begins to donate its excess goods to food banks then employee theft might increase. It is true that approximately 32% of thefts in retail are committed by employees. However, there are several measures Company Q can take to ensure that their employees do not steal the excess goods, but the following three will be the most beneficial.

1) Company Q can consider installing or upgrading their security. Employees will be less inclined to steal if they know that...