...Unethical Business Practices From 1999 to 2006, John Mackey used the internet to post inaccurate information concerning one of his competitors. He was attempting to drive down stock prices, buy out his competitor thereby eliminating competition, and finally create a monopoly. Normally making business profit is not a bad thing. One technique is for a business to cut prices, thereby becoming more competitive -- a plus for the consumer. Another is when a company or CEO uses devious tactics or unethical means to influence the market for corporate or personal profits. According to a statement made by Brian Schactam from CNBC, “John Mackey used a pseudonym on financial message boards to bash rival Wild Oats as a bad business not worth its stock price.” Those inaccurate postings concerning Wild Oats caused their stock prices to fall and deterred other investors from buying the stock. That tactic is highly unethical. An article on Daily Finance blogging dated July 11, 2007 cites the following statements and sources made concerning Whole Food CEO: “John Mackey often criticized Perry Odak, Wild Oats' former CEO, who resigned last year. "While Odak was trying to figure out the business and conducting expensive 'research studies,' to help him figure things out, Whole Foods was signing and opening large stores in OATS territories," Rahodeb wrote in 2005. "Odak drove off most of the long-term OATS natural foods managers" and brought in executives who "didn't know too much...
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...involving resources and performance in internal and external environments It entails specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives. Recent studies and leading management theorists have advocated that strategy needs to start with stakeholders expectations and use a modified balanced scorecard which includes all stakeholders. What Is the Difference between a Policy and a Strategy? Policy is the spheres or scope within which decisions are taken by the subordinates in a company or organisation. Strategy is an action that managers and directors take to achieve one or more of the company's goals. The difference between strategy and policy is that policy is a set of guiding rules intended to influence decisions and actions that reflect agreed practice in terms of power while strategy is a high level of approach to an issue that is designed to deliver change by implementing policies. The major difference between Policy and strategy is that Policy refers to a guide to the thinking and action of those who make decisions while strategy is more of the direction in which human and physical resources will be deployed and applied with the aim of maximizing the chance...
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...Nike Inc. Nike’s Unethical Business Practices Nike’s Unethical Business Practices Love those Nike shoes your wearing? Have you ever thought how they were made, who made them, and at what price they were made at? I bet you probably don’t. I bet that you see those Nike shoes at the store, and think to yourself, “oh I like those shoes, I have to have them,” and then buy them. What you don’t know is that those pair of shoes you just bought were probably made in a third world factory by employees who are probably working in harsh working conditions. These factories are not owned and operated by Nike, but contracted by Nike. Nike chooses to locate the majority of their production in such countries because of the abundance of cheap labor. Nike contracts factories around the world in effort to get the best product for the cheapest price made, without concern for contracted factory employee. Nike has not been concerned about what goes on in these factories only that the product is made, because Nike is not in the business for Human Rights, they’re in the business of athletic shoes sales. The Ethical Dilemma Nike has been accused with human rights violations. The charges that were made against Nike include the following: the use of child labor in factories, unsafe working conditions including exposure to toxic chemicals and the use of machinery without the proper safety precautions, pay below minimum wage and forced overtime hours. The contracted factories Nike uses to produce...
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...UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES OF WALLMART AND NIKE INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., branded as Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's second largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own a 48 percent stake in Walmart. It is also one of the world’s most valuable companies. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51 percent of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the company rose from a regional to national giant. By 1988, Wal-Mart was the most profitable retailer in the US and by October 1989 it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Geographically limited to the South and Lower Midwest up to the mid 1980s,...
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...Week 5 Individual Assignment By Felicia Lattimore The SOX Act: Unethical Practices and Behavior in Business Accounting LAW/421 – CONTEMPOARY BUSINESS LAW September 6, 2014 Aretha Somerville Introduction Unethical decisions can ruin a business. Dishonest behaviors by accountants, such as falsifying financial statements, over-billing or misleading regulators, can tarnish a company's reputation, causing loss of customers, employees and/or revenue. In some cases, unethical behavior is also illegal and can result in fines and even jail time for not only accounting executives but management executives as well. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in 2002 in the wake of a series of high-profile corporate and accounting scandals. SOX introduced major changes to corporate governance and the regulation of financial reporting that affected both publicly traded companies and their auditors. Ten years after the passage of SOX, there has been a dramatic increase in financial statement restatements. This is due to statement issuers complying with SOX during their initial preparation. This trend has been attributed to improved corporate governance as a result of SOX. Although we have not seen restatements as large as those of Enron and WorldCom in recent years, it is not clear that SOX has caused a reduction in the number of restatements across all publicly traded companies. The number of restatements during 2007 through 2009 declined, but they remained...
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...Anti Nepotism Is It Fair or Unfair Practice My short essay is about whether or not Anti-Nepotism is fair and morally unethical. The definition of nepotism stems from the Latin root word "Nephews" or "of family", to practice showing favoritism to family, close relatives, and advancing unqualified or under qualified family based on the family relationship. I really feel that this can be an unfair and unethical practice in ways that can violate a person's civil rights and this can be that loop hole to get away with it. The United States has the most lenient rules when it comes to nepotism, while Western society’s nepotism raises legal concerns. In many organizations there are family members who work for the same organization, whether they are directly supervised or at another branch which can contribute to conflict. I feel that when family members work to close together personal conflicts can interrupt business practices, jealousy of family members can even cause a company's demise. I feel that the family members will always get preferential treatment in hiring because they have someone on the inside, promotions will go through the normal legal process but in the end the family member will get the job, if there is a mistake that happened the punishment will not be as greater if another co-worker commits it. It is known that many companies are family owned and even successful, but at the same time when family members become of age to work, I believe the family member will...
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...E-commerce Name Instructor Institution Date Many businesses face a lot of challenges in their attempts to embrace e-commerce. As a matter of fact, some organizations have gone out of business for failing to embrace adequately e-commerce. For instance, Ecomum, an organization that provided maternity products and earth friendly mom products such as toys, ran out of business in 2013 for not embracing e-commerce. Furthermore, one of the marketing strategy used by the company was after sales services such as offering free delivery. However, this strategy contributed to the failure of the business. For instance, the cost of shipping the goods to the customers was very high thereby leading to losses. As such, one of the marketing strategies that Ecomum could have applied is embracing the social media such as Facebook, twitter or Myspace as an advertisement tool rather than after sales services. As evidenced, social media has become one of the best marketing strategies for various successful organizations worldwide (International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 2004). Organizational hierarchy involves structuring an organization using separate levels of authority and chain of command or between subordinate and superior levels of the organization. As such, every entity within the organization is subordinate to a single other entity. In addition, each functional areas such as marketing, finance or human resource, are each headed by different persons. Furthermore, marketing may not...
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...contained in the document, the manager’s reaction should the task is not accepted, higher managements point of view in such an action – do they tolerate or not, the legal consequences should the document be utilized, and the impact to the organization should the illegal act is found out. Also consider if this is a test of honesty for you – if you would accept to do the task. 4. Alternative Course of Action The alternative course of action is simply not to utilize the information. 5. Recommendation Competitors data obtained in an unethical manner, at worse illegally, is punishable by corporate laws. The recommended action is not to use the information. In most multinational companies a corporate compliance virtue is formed into each employee, wherein each decision made must be in accordance to what is legally right. Corporations with no established corporate virtue, had been fined, and at worst closed down due to unfair business practices. Sustainability of action should be kept as a core competency, wherein action taken at the moment should be beneficial to the organization in the long run. Short term advances are not worth the long term crisis...
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...Competitive Business Practices Empress Crenshaw Devry University The United States has several laws that are intended to further fair, balance, and competitive business practices. Do you think that such laws are effective? When climbing up the ladder to successfully own a successful business the drive that one has to succeed is strong. We drive up ideas and plans that will up do and outshine any competition that may stand in the way of success. The key to climbing to the top of market and taking out the competition is by standing within the guidelines, rules, and regulation of the law. The Federal Trade Commissions also known as the FTC are the ones responsible and in charge of upholding and enforcing fair business practices that essential protect those entering in the free market. According to the FTC website the Unfair Business Practice Act was passed by Congress in 1914 and has since been amended multiple times to protect consumers and business from unfair practices and unfair competition. (Unfair and Deceptive Practices) These laws ensure and protect consumers ensuring that businesses don't push out their competition with unfair practices such as false advertisement or shooting up the price of goods. The main two categories these unfair competitive business laws fall within and protect these businesses from being taken advantage of in such a competitive market would be pricing laws and advertising laws. Protecting Business from Unfair Pricing Practices...
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...Measuring the Effectiveness of Business Practice Laws Jennifer Torres Fuentes DeVry University Measuring the Effectiveness of Business Practice Laws In the world of business, laws that are intended to protect and ensure fairness amongst competitors and consumers have their ups and downs when it comes to how effective they really are. There are various policies and procedures that are put in place in an attempt to promote fair, balanced and competitive business practices, whose effectiveness suffers because of a lack of enforcement to their terms. Until society as a whole owns up to how badly we have reverted into unethical and demoralized behavior, the effectiveness of laws put into place to encourage us to practice socially responsible behavior will not be effective. When the needs of the many supersedes the needs of the few, only then will these laws, policies and procedures put in place to encourage socially responsible behavior being to have any real effect. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces federal consumer protection laws that prevent fraud, deception and unfair business practices. The Commission also enforces federal antitrust laws that prohibit anticompetitive mergers and other business practices that could lead to higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation. The Commission has enforcement or administrative responsibilities under more than 70 laws. They are grouped in three categories: (a) Statutes relating to both the competition and consumer...
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...In the business world, unethical practices are wildly used as an easy way to success in a business, but ethical business practices can be used by businesses to maintain their integrity while being successful financially and in other business aspects. An example of a successful company that has had much favourable outcomes from incorporating ethical practices is IKEA. IKEA was founded in 1943, and since then has been striving to implement ethical conduct. IKEA has demonstrated ethical conduct by its efforts in striving to be environmentally friendly, remaining true to its ‘no bribes’ policy, and its strict rules on child labour. IKEA’s success can be a model by other businesses. Many companies involved with unethical conduct usually face the consequences of their actions in the future. Although the company may be fooled by immediate and positive results from their actions, many have failed because of immoral decisions. Some examples of these failures are bankruptcy, or decrease in customers. Ethical business practices can have a more positive and even long-term impact on a company than unethical business practices. As a company, IKEA prides in itself for delivering affordable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly goods. “The company is doing pretty much everything it can to make its products, and stores, as energy-efficient and sustainably produced as possible as part of its program of ‘never-ending improvements’.” IKEA has implemented many strategies to achieve this...
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...Consumer Protection Act 1986: After liberalization of economic policy, consumer goods have flooded the market as never before. Both foreign and India companies are introducing new products and brands with glossy and fancy packing as the middle and lower income groups are taking loans to-Companies still do not pay attention to the quality of their products and also do not value customer satisfaction. Very often a customer may get taken in by a misleading advertisement making tall claim as to the high quality and after-sales service. The consumer may discover later that the goods purchased by him are not up to the claims made by the manufacturer. Companies are not willing to invest in efficient after-sales service so long as their sales keep increasing. Newspaper columns can be seen to be full of complaints and many companies do not care to rectify the complaints. To enable the consumer to have his right to a deal, the consumer protection Act was passed in 1986. The Act promises to rectify all that and make accountant both the manufacture; s and providers of service. It provides for toe setting up of quasi-judicial bodies at district, state and national label for quick and inexpensive redressal of consumer grievances. Three groups-the consumer, registered voluntary consumer associations and the central and state government is covered by this facility. In case a group of person is seeking similar redressal, a class action suit can be filed or may be treated as a public interest petition...
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...January 1, 2012 8:52 PM Chapter 44 Lecture Note # 1 by Spring Walton Note edited by Spring Walton on 01/03/2012 08:07PM Chapter 44 Consumer Protection I. Introduction Consumer law issues include those of contracts (including UCC sales), torts, crimes, and product liability, often acting as a backup to the failures and shortcomings of those other areas of the law. All of them provide some measure of consumer protection, yet none stand alone as being complete. They are interdependent and, as such, students must be aware of the big picture of consumer protection. This chapter covers the fourth major set of venues within a quadripartite of remedies available to a wronged or injured consumer. First, there is criminal law. Victims of consumer fraud and similar offenses have always been able to seek state-supported sanctions against wrongdoers. This venue may provide some ephemeral satisfaction for the victim and may even, at least temporarily, protect society from further harm. But criminal law does not truly make the victim whole. As a matter of fact, most of the miscreants convicted of consumer fraud are also judgment proof, i.e., they have no assets from which civil judgments can be satisfied. The second area of consumer protection is found in tort law and the permutations of intentional tort, negligence tort, and strict liability. These remedies can and do provide meaningful substance to civil correction of wrongdoing...
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...country, they will look at the political stability of the country which will determine whether they open the store or not. Great Ormond Street is also affected by political stability. If the country has good stability, Great Ormond Street will be able to get funding for their charity and hospital. Also if the country is stable, people will have more money to donate to GOSH. If the country is unstable, it will affect the decisions that the charity makes. Government support Government support means the way the government helps out the community by giving their support in order to help others. Things such as funding come from the government to help businesses grow. Tesco isn’t really helped out by the government as it is a well-recognised business that has established itself to become one of the most successful food stores in the UK and the world. The government will hardly ever fund Tesco as they are a multi-billion pound company. The government tend to only help Tesco out with planning permission for new stores. When Tesco want to open a new store it has to go through the government...
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...accounting firm, Ernst and Young, were hired to audit code compliance by making spot checks at Nike factories. In that audit was information concerning Nike factory conditions and how the workers were being mistreated. The audit claimed that Nike workers in Southeast Asia were exposed to toxic chemicals, subjected to physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, forced to work an illegal excess overtime at minimum wage, and suffered poor hygiene. Nike, trying to save their company spent many years claiming that these accusations were false. However, when people compared claims from Nike to the audit, they found some of the details to be inaccurate and/or misleading. Marc Kasky, a California resident and activist, sued Nike for unfair and deceptive practices under California's Unfair Competition Law. Kasky alleged that Nike made "false statements and/or material omissions of fact" concerning the working conditions under which its products are manufactured. Nike filed a demurrer, contending that Kasky's suit was absolutely prohibited by the First Amendment. The California Supreme Court dismissed the case as “improvidently granted.” However, late in 2003 Kasky and Nike announced a settlement. In return for Kasky dropping the case, Nike agreed to give $1.5 million to an industry-friendly factory monitoring group. Analysis Kasky, in my opinion, was correct and had good intentions when he sued Nike. He wasn’t in it for the money, instead he believed in human rights and he advocated for change...
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