Est1 Task 1

Ethical Situations in Business – Task 1

Company Q, a local grocery chain, has negative views towards its employees and community. Company Q is located in a major metropolitan area. Two of their locations were located in high crime areas. These stores were consistently losing money, and eventually closed. Sadly, with a closure of a few locations, many jobs were lost. Now Company Q can focus its efforts on profitable locations. Closing their locations due to it consistently losing money has affected their opinions of the community.

For years now, the community has been requesting that Company Q offered more health conscious foods, such as organic products. They recently starting offering a very limited amount of these high-margin products. The county food bank asked Company Q if they would donate any of these day old products. Due to their negative view of the community, they declined. They decided they would rather throw the day old product away, then donate it to the county food bank. The management team didn’t trust that its employees would donate the product. They assume that the employees would commit fraud and steal the produce for themselves, rather than donate it. Company Q would rather have the food go to waste then take the chance that an employee will steal from the company, even though the product was being thrown out anyways.

When company Q throws away their expired food, they lose a profit. They only make money if the food had sold. They are better off throwing it away, then risking their employees stealing the food. If the employees steal the food, then there is no need for them to buy these products at the store for their families. Financially, it would be better to throw food and hope that the employees shop at their store. However, this isn’t socially responsible. There is never going to be a perfect solution to prevent employee theft. The benefits for the business to be socially responsible can outweigh the potential financial loss of...