ETHICS – DAY 1
Have students pick up a “Bellringer Activity” from the tray on the front filing
cabinets. Fold them in half and turn them in – no names.
Allow 15-20 minutes for them to finish their Career #1 Article Review and submit
via Chalkup.
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Each of you will have a colored sticker on your desk by your monitor this is "YOUR" color. Take 7 minutes and see what you can find out
about the following people -- what companies they have started, any
philanthropy efforts, etc. Just read so you can share
Blues - Oprah Winfrey
Yellows - Chad Hurley
Greens - Mark Zuckerberg
Reds - Steve Jobs
Allow 7 – 10 minutes for them to research. Then have the following class discussion
on the importance of making money for the small entrepreneurial business:
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Who can tell me what an entrepreneur is? Person who starts his or her
own business with the hope of earning a profit
Why are entrepreneurs driven to make money? Money keeps the
business going; necessary to pay the bills, buy supplies, rent/own a space,
etc.; support of the entrepreneur, employees and their families.
Can you tell me what ethics are? Standards that help determine what is
good, right and proper.
So something is ethical if it upholds the standards of ethics.
Businesses face many ethical decisions. Some are driven by greed and make
unethical decisions. Let’s look at a few of those:
1. Toyota ignores safety concerns: Toyota made a huge and unethical failure in
2010 when they basically betrayed their promise as a company by ignoring
safety concerns and delaying recall investigations just so they could save a little
money. After confronted with safety concerns regarding faulty breaks and
sticking pedals in 2009, Toyota said that phasing in side airbags saved $124
million, the cost of what it would have taken to recall and fix vehicles. They also
stated that delaying a rule for tougher door locks saved them $11 million. Despite
being ordered to appear before Congress and provide an explanation for their
unethical handling of the situation, Toyota didn’t seem to think it was such a big
deal. “We can win back the customer’s confidence; we are doing a better job,”
said senior Toyota. But it seems that they were only sorry after they got caught
— it was almost an entire two years before Toyota got called out on this unethical
practice after a few deaths and even more complaints about their unsafe
vehicles. Their failure to be honest got so bad that they were even accused of
hiding evidence in hundreds of rollover and death cases.
Were the decisions Toyota made illegal? Were they unethical – why? Car industry is
built on trust. Consumers trust auto makers to produce a product that is safe to drive. By
ignoring the complaints, Toyota betrayed the trust of their consumers.
2. Apple - Everyone wants an iPhone and no one really cares if it were made by tiny
child slaves who are forced to work in dangerous conditions, inhaling cancerous
vapors, for 10 hours a day, seven days a week. But as beautiful as their products
are, the production side of their business is a dark, horrific and unethical one.
Apple manufacturer Foxconn is like hell on earth. Conditions at this plant are so
miserable that “anti-suicide nets” had to be installed beneath the windows after a
whopping 17 employees leapt to their deaths in protests of the horrific things they
had to endure on a daily basis. Living quarters like tiny college dorms in a
gigantic beehive type factory, each crammed with bunk beds. Exhausting hours,
humiliating discipline, unreasonable workloads, and pressure to reduce overtime
resulting in lower paychecks are some of the conditions employees endure. The
controversy began in 2006 and is still happening today. And while Apple has
made efforts to branch out and use some different manufacturers to produce
their products, unethical Foxconn is still their go-to company. Besides using
Foxconn, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak claimed that Apple was engaging in
unethical tax practices by utilizing an Irish tax loophole to avoid paying billions in
taxes on international sales.
3. WalMart - another huge company accused time and time again of being
downright evil. Labor unions, community groups, religious organizations,
environmental groups and WalMart customers all have one thing in common:
they hate the way WalMart does business. First there is the issue of predatory
store placement. When WalMart enters a new town, it’s almost guaranteed to
eradicate all of the small businesses in the surrounding areas. How are mom and
pop shops supposed to compete against WalMart’s absurdly wide selection and
ridiculously low prices? Besides destroying local businesses, WalMart insisted on
opening a superstore only two miles down the road from a historical site in
Mexico, and the construction of the WalMart parking lot revealed small artifacts
beneath the surface during digging. Who cares? Not WalMart. Then there’s the
whole “trying to drive competitors out of the market with unfairly low prices” thing.
WalMart has actually been sued for what’s called predatory pricing, or
intentionally selling a product at an unreasonably low cost to drive out the
competition. Walmart won one of these three cases but settled out of court for
the other two. And let’s not forget the public outcry and outrage surrounding the
poor treatment of WalMart’s employees. They’ve been notorious for providing
wages so poor that full timers still have to reply on food stamps and welfare just
to get by. And working conditions, as described by many of these harrowing firsthand accounts here, paint a grisly image of non-investigated sexual harassment
in the work place, denied sick leave, reduced working hours and a vehement
opposition toward anyone who wanted to work in a union. In response to the
outcries of employee horror stories, megalomaniac WalMart simply requested
that employees send in happier stories instead. A pretty creepy and cold
response from a company responsible for the well-being of thousands of
employees. WalMart is vehemently anti-union.
4. Monsanto - Monsanto has, time and time again, been named the world’s most unethical
company by many including Action for Our Planet and other eco-friendly publications.
Monsanto began what seems to be their plight against humanity in the 70s, when they
created toxic chemical Agent Orange for use in chemical warfare in Vietnam. The effects
of Agent Orange were so horrible and devastating that half a million children were born
with debilitating birth defects due to exposure and Vietnam residents continue to suffer
the poisonous effects today. Monsanto has since moved on to GMO foods, and owns
over 95% of seed patents today. Which means that any farmer accidentally growing
unlicensed seeds that have accidentally blown over into their fields are subject to
lawsuits, and Monsanto has not hesitated to aggressively sue small farmers, including
one 80-something year old man. Recently, confidential Monsanto reports detailing the
company’s cutthroat tactics for squashing smaller competitors and controlling the seed
market have been exposed. Besides being voted the most evil company in the world year
after year for their unethical practices and borderline illegal business tactics, a great
debate over the safety of GMOs rages on, with Monsanto going as far as to shadily
discredit dissenters via fake online profiles.
Play the devil’s advocate. Ask them about illegal actions vs ethical actions.
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Explain that being ethical in business doesn’t always guarantee you
financial success; in fact, making ethical decision can have what can
appear to be unfavorable consequences. Consider this situation – a
company is selling T-shirts, and they discover a spelling error on the
shirt. If they company makes the ethical decision not to sell the flawed
T-shirts, they will lose the thousands they spent, but imagine the result
of selling the shirts with the error, and how many angry customers they
would have had? Losing money is painful for nay business, but loss of
customer support and trust is much more difficult to recapture.
Remind them of the state football championship of several years ago –
our players and coaches ordered a state championship ring costing
several hundred dollars and when they were delivered, Penney was
spelled wrong. The company had a decision to ignore the complaints or
remake the rings – they remade the rings.
Discuss the following question – Why do ethics matter????
Think of yourselves as young entrepreneurs. You’ve just started your
business and things seem to be going ok – you are squeaking enough profit out
of the business to make ends meet. I need 4 volunteers.
Hand each volunteer a different Entrepreneur Choice Card and allow them time to
read their scenario and think about their decision.
Ask each volunteer the following questions?
What is the most ethical decision?
What would you do – why?
Then ask the class to help make a like of short- and long-term consequences if
unethical decisions were made.
Find another unethical business practice. In Word or Google Drive, copy the
URL where you found the unethical business practice and tell me what makes
this practice unethical, has their business suffered (why or why not), and what
should have been their decision or response?