...EST 1 310.2.1-05 Being a small, local grocery store chain in a major metropolitan area does not come without its challenges. In the recent past, national chains have been forcing smaller stores to close their doors. This coupled with local companies’ need to ensure that they are conducting their business having positive effects on social responsibility places a lot of focus on proper management. When making business decisions companies need to look at the broad spectrum of impacts that their decisions will have on the community, its employees, investors and its shareholders. (P.30, Business Ethics 2009 Update: Ethical Decision Making and Cases) Companies need to ensure that they understand the needs of their customers, quickly react to requests and maintain a positive reputation in order to be successful. Company Q has some improvements to make in order to thrive in the community and be able to compete with the emerging national chains. Recently Company Q chose to close two stores in areas where crime rates were higher within the city. The store closures are a result of consistent financial losses the stores experienced over several years. If the stores have consistently lost money over the years, we need to understand the reasons as to why. Company Q should have been able to understand the demographic of its customers in order to ensure that they had the correct product mix that would yield high returns. If Company Q was offering product not in demand it should...
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...EST1 – 310.2.1-05 Ethical Situations in Business Social Responsibility Organizations today are culturally and ethically responsible for doing what’s right, demonstrating good judgment in their day to day business activities with employees, customers with in the community and stakeholders. Organizational goals should not be driven solely on emphasis towards profits but more so on how business decisions impact society as a whole. Located in a major Metropolitan area Company Q is part of a small grocery store chain. After an evaluation of the Company’s attitude towards social responsibility three recommendations will be given in connection with how the company could enhance its position in regards to social responsibility. In accordance with Company Q’s decision to close stores in high crime areas will have a great effect on the communities where they conduct business. With this decision this may cause several hardships and disappointment for their customers. This does not display a very good attitude towards social responsibility. In connection with social responsibility, Company Q can aide and impact the lives of individuals with in the local communities by supporting local churches, schools and community centers. Churches, Schools and Community Centers play a major role in addressing the needs of individuals by providing a large range of resources that are very much needed. In connection the resources would also assist those that are less fortunate such as disadvantaged...
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...behave in an honest and law-abiding way. The staff must always demonstrate integrity and sincerity while maintaining exceptional professionalism. Rachael Consulting and its employees promote a healthy work environment by treating others with respect and equality. II. Our Mission Statement Rachael Consulting’s mission is to assist our clients in Management Consulting Services. Our programs and all of our staff here at Rachael Consulting are focused on helping you and your organization while maximizing performance. Our organization constantly strives to fulfill the needs and obligations of our clients. Rachael Consulting treats its clients as well as its employees with the utmost respect. III. Standards and Procedures 1) All employees of Rachael Consulting must abide by all local, state and federal regulations. This includes but is not limited to any certifications required to perform work duties. 2) The Code of ethics here at Rachael Consulting is strongly enforced. All Employees will read and sign a copy of the Code of Ethics. 3) Employees must participate in any required continuing work education courses. These may consist of on the job training courses, online education course, questionnaires, etc. 4) Any information regarding Rachael Consulting, its Client’s or its employees is to remain confidential. 5) Support, comprehend and value all aspects regarding Rachael Consulting’s diversity among culture, race and gender. 6) Gifts or commissions...
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...A1a. Sole Proprietorship A business that is owned by one single person is called a Sole Proprietorship. Advantages: Being able to make decisions without consulting a “higher-up,” or any sort of partner in business is one of the main advantages of the Sole Proprietorship. The ability to file the business under the exact identity as the owner is a second advantage of this business form. Disadvantages: Since the business owner is a single person, he or she has to produce the funds for launching and maintaining the business and its operations. Eventual reliance on loans can consume a sole proprietor and the owner can accumulate a lot of debt. The owner’s personal assets and earnings could be comprised due to the “unlimited liability,” facet of the sole proprietorship. The business operations could suffer too, since they rely on the capability of the business owner-which means that if the owner passes away, the business dies with the owner. Characteristics: • Liability: Since all of the business’s earnings belong to the sole proprietor, the owner runs the grave of risk of losing his/her personal assets. The business owner is solely liable. • Income Taxes: The owner of the business and the business itself are considered to be the same entity, the owner of the business reports expenses, loss, and income via schedule C and a standard 1040 tax form. • Longevity: The business will remain in operation until the owner decides to close it down permanently...
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...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...
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...Robert Moelich Student ID # 000348292 rmoelic@wgu.edu EST Task 1 Company Q’s current attitude towards social responsibility. Company Q is a small grocery store chain located in a major metropolitan area. They have recently closed stores in higher-crime-rate areas of the city. Also, after years of requests from consumers, they have started offering a very limited amount of health-conscience and organic products, which have very high profit margins. A local food bank asked company Q for donations of day-old products and company Q’s management declined deciding instead to throw the food away. The management team cited worries that they may lose revenue due to possible fraud and stealing by employees who might say they are donating the food. It is clear by company Q’s actions that their current attitude towards social responsibility is basically non-existent. Company Q is highly concerned with profit margins and not concerned about having a positive affect within the community they are serving. This type of attitude creates a negative perception of the company by both the customer and the employees within the company. This could be causing both loss of business and low employee satisfaction, which can lead to multiple problems. Recommendations. Closing stores in high-crime-rate areas shows that company Q has overlooked the potential value of those areas. Instead of closing the stores, company Q could establish a crime watch organization. Company Q could...
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...Ethical issues in Business EST 310.2.1-05 In today’s business realm stakeholders should be mindful of the impact of social responsibility within organizations. Company’s need to look for opportunities to maximize positive images and reduce negative images within society regardless of the size of the company. The benefits of being socially responsible can create shareholder capital as well as other opportunities for stakeholders. Company Q’s concern for social responsibility has been steadily declining for years. Their behavior lacks concern towards the primary stakeholders’ expectation of profit with tangible and intangible resources. This is seen in the way the company treats the customers, investors and suppliers. For example, the company has been passively dealing with the criminal activity within their community, causing the loss of products through theft and decreased revenue. They are experiencing a declining number of paying customers as a result of not being able to have a safe shopping experience. The company self-reports this fact by closing two stores due to constantly losing money in these high-crime areas, essentially enforcing their lack of concern for the job loss to their employees and suppliers. Their harsh attitude towards the primary stakeholders is evident in the lack of trust toward the employees and the blatant disregard to the customer’s request for certain quality/specialty products over the past few years. Furthermore, their poor management...
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...ignoring the needs of the stakeholders in the neighborhood, shows that they are out of touch with current standards and expectations. High crime neighborhoods are often low income neighborhoods; the same neighborhoods that most need a grocery store. The decision to close the stores in these neighborhoods show very poor corporate citizenship by Company Q and could cause further decline in sales in other stores as community citizens will likely make another choice when having to travel for their shopping. Overall Company Q seems to lack a current policy of corporate social responsibility and behaves thoughtlessly in respect to the people that need them most. Part B Company Q could easily improve their attitude toward social responsibility. 1. Company Q could reevaluate their decision to donate the day old food products to the local food bank. The company could put a policy in place that would ensure that fraud and theft by employees could not be covered up under the guise of donating. Company Q could place trusted employees in charge of this program, where all donated products were...
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...Typically businesses start up with a primary goal of earning revenue – to have the company profits exceed the cost of doing business. Small, local businesses are particularly susceptible to losing customers to large, corporate companies who often force these smaller companies out of business. Does this goal to make money and/or the susceptibility of being put out of business by a larger company excuse a small, local grocery store from filling its social responsibility? No, quite the contrary. It is becoming increasingly apparent that many consumers are basing their decisions not only on the items being provided by a company but the amount of “good” or perceived good a company is doing in their community. Under the theory that social responsibility helps determine if a company is successful, let’s examine Company Q’s attitude toward social responsibility. Company Q recently closed down a couple stores citing that these two stores have been consistently losing money. It must be noted; however, that both stores were also located in higher-crime-rate areas of the city, which may cause the community to speculate about the real reason the stores were closed. Could it have been the fear of the neighborhood itself that caused Company Q to decide to close those two stores? The closing of these two stores could suggest that Company Q is more interested in profits and revenue rather than providing a much needed service to the community. In addition, Company Q’s customers have been requesting...
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...In today’s business world social responsibility is a very important piece to success. A company needs to make profits of course, but providing a good value product, secure employment, and giving back to the community that supports them, are all key to a successful venture. The perception of the public needs to be positive in order for a company to gain their trust and support. In this situation, it is clear by the poor choice to throw out the food rather than donate it to the local food bank, that company Q clearly has absolutely no social responsibility at all. Once news of their lousy decision spreads they will lose whatever community support they may have had. It appears that company Q is motivated purely by greed, without any social conscious nor trust of their employees. Whether it is from lack of knowledge, plain cold heartedness, or both, it will weigh heavy on their companies future. Lack of community involvement, irresponsibility, and pure disregard for building relationships will be looked upon very negatively and damage not only customer relations but shareholder relations as well. While there are a lot of competition and challenges for small business in today’s economic world, there are also a lot of opportunities to stand out by giving back to the community which in turn will provide a positive environment. Part B: Company Q needs to go back to the drawing board and create a strong code of ethics that outlines provisions for social responsibility. Putting...
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...Social responsibility is business ethics that represents standards, norms, and expectations that reflect a concern of major stakeholders, such as consumers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, competitors, and the community. Lack of social responsibility opportunities is hurting Company Q’s business and its image and they don’t seem to care about it according to the given situation. The community’s perception of Company Q’s business has changed since Company Q threw away the day-old, high margin products when the area’s food bank asked for a donation. It was a slap in the face. For a small local grocery store chain that is going through a financial issues, they are not in a place to be ignorant or have a poor customer service. In today market, having good customer service and quality products are the key factors for successful businesses. In company Q’s case, they are failing at both, especially when they don’t even have the support from their own community. It is probably a good thing that they closed two of their stores in higher-crime-rate areas of the city because being in a higher-crime-rate areas would drive their customers away even more so. Even though Company Q can care less about the social responsibility, maybe we can still recommend few pointers to help them improve the business. First, Company Q needs to understand that their manager doesn’t have the best interest in the company. I believe that the company should either let him go or let him know that they would...
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...We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill. There are four levels of social responsibility—economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Socially responsible companies must uphold these elements by behaving ethically and with sensitivity. Being socially responsible has a positive impact on society, business and development as well as contributing to bottom line results. Studies have shown a relationship between social responsibility and profitability and have found that it contributes to employee commitment and customer loyalty. In this scenario Company Q is not upholding its social responsibility and seemingly defined by pure economics which is portraying the business negatively. Company Q is a small local grocery store in major metropolitan area. Two of their stores have closed in high crime areas due to loss of revenue; however, there may be a direct correlation between the management’s lack of engagement and understanding of the communities’ wants and needs forcing the store closures. Company Q had opportunities to improve its reputation and customer satisfaction, but chose to operate from only a financial standpoint. After years of requests from customers, all of their stores began offering a very limited amount of health-conscious and organic products—all of which are high-margin items. The Company appears to be acting without social responsibility for its customers and stakeholders with this behavior. One action...
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...EST1: 310.2.1-05 Part A: In the given information of Company Q, they have demonstrated a lack of social responsibility and appear to have made decisions based solely economic responsibility. In order to determine if they made the proper decisions in closing the stores, we need to know what steps and actions were taken to make a profit. As a chain of stores, it is also important that they looked closely at what ramifications would result in closing the stores. These would be economic impact of laying people off, distance to the next store, profit/loss from the physical property, and public image. Company C also hurts their public image by declining to donate day old products. They cite that they are worried about employees stealing the items instead of donating them. The issue here is trust of employees who they depend on to run their stores and interact with their customers. Company Q has a responsibility, ethically, morally and socially, to provide the best customer service to the community. They need to make sure that they tend to all of these responsibilities. Part B: Company Q needs to develop a plan to make a positive impact in their communities through Social Responsibility. One of the first steps would be to work on employee engagement through teams or committees committed to establishing procedures for donating to the food bank. They could even sponsor a food drive to support the food bank. Another step would be to promote the health-conscience items and...
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...Company Q is a small grocery store chain. Being in an industry that is constantly overrun by large corporations can prove to be extremely challenging and cause a company to become extremely profit driven. I think that this is exactly what has happened in the case of Company Q. A successful organization is one that finds balance both internally and externally. Company Q seems to be lacking this balance within the organization and their decisions and actions support this. I feel that these recent situations should be seen as a learning opportunity for Company Q, as it is obvious that they are not very developed in terms of social responsibility. If different measures had been taken, Company Q could have prevented some of their recent store closings and also been more open to the idea of helping with the community food bank. While I can list a myriad of possible reasons for the company’s current situation, the focus here is social responsibility and how it can be improved. Company Q is more focused on their profit margin than their social obligation within the community. In order for a good balance to take place Company Q needs to make sure that the community, customers, stakeholder and employees are all kept satisfied. I think that the first major issue that Company Q needs to address is their market and sales research. If the company had to close stores in unprofitable areas then there was obviously an incorrect assessment of the needs in that particular area. Maybe the stores...
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...Social responsibility serves to act as the conscience of business. Businesses can have a tremendous impact be it positive or negative. A solid attitude toward social responsibility ensures that impact is constructive. As both a District Sales Manager and General Sales Manager with AT & TY Advertising Solutions for 5 years, I gained an intimate working knowledge of how integral a healthy approach to social responsibility can be to community, productivity and employee moral. Company Q has an approach toward their ethical duty is lacking in several respects and leaves much to be desired. On the other hand, social responsibility does not override good business decisions. Following a history of customer requests, Company Q began carrying organic and healthy option products. A responsible grocer has an obligation to provide its customers with the option of food that is healthy and nutritious. It does not have to be the only product, but it should be available given the level of obesity poor nutrition induced disease in the United States. Organic products are grown by strict guidelines that eliminate the use of most chemical agents. This seemingly would not only be healthier for their clientele but one would think it to be better for the environment, thus having a positive impact on both community and local ecology. Since these products are also high margin products it is not only responsible, it is profitable. The more of these products they carry the more they will sell and in turn...
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