Free Essay

Radioshack

In: Social Issues

Submitted By mypatpat
Words 1646
Pages 7
RadioShack: Qualities vs. Qualifications

As a 1st year MBA student undergoing the recruitment process, I have constantly dealt with the dilemma of determining the fine line between lying and embellishing. Often times, given the scarcity of jobs, candidates are obliged to exaggerate their skills. With predefined skills and experiences that companies look for, previous job descriptions are modified to reflect the traits that are sought after. Furthermore, the MBA setting where people seek to switch careers further aggravates the issue. The only way to gain an edge over others would be to add activities and experiences that may either be exaggerated or fictional. It may be argued that it is not lying, but when drawing a line between truth and falsehood, it is definitely defined as a lie. Given such definition, David Edmondson’s case seems to be contradicting the practice that is widely accepted in the industry. We do not see people getting fired for exaggerating their previous experiences nor do we see one’s resume come into light after years of working in the company. Once in the company, employees are measured by their performance and credibility that they built while working in the organization. Mr. Edmondson’s case is counter intuitive to this idea as he was forced to quit even though his performance was stellar during his tenure. In order to determine the ethicality of the case, it is essential to look at two time frames – 1. Time when Mr. Edmondson joined RadioShack in 1994 2. Time when Mr. Edmondson got fired in 2006 – and determine the ethical controversies surrounding the CEO and the Board of Directors. As in any case, actions need to be looked at individually to determine ethicality. At the time of employment in 1994, Mr. Edmondson joined RadioShack through proper means. He was part of ADVO, which had direct working relationship with RadioShack that eventually brought him in. Before his joining, he was an established figure voted as Top 100 marketer in the U.Si. Given his sterling performance, RadioShack would have recruited him to the company. If such was the case, Mr. Edmondson would have been evaluated solely based upon his career rather than his education. The details of his joining ADVO are not available, but given his prominence, no one would have contended his past. Besides, his expertise had no relationship to his two degrees that he claimed he had (i.e. Theology and Psychology). As the position did not relate to any technical knowledge (i.e. engineering or accounting), the presence of such degrees would have not added any value. However, once the issue came to light, discussions evolved around his credibility without taking into account his service and achievements. Clearly, he made a false statement about his education, but how would this be any different than a person embellishing his/her resume making a misrepresentation of the role played? His act is viewed unethical, but given that many people exaggerate or embellish their resume, it should not be regarded as being unethical. Also, the issue of going back 12 years to determine someone’s qualifications is not common practice and especially not when the person added value to the company. The issues give rise to arguments and decisions were clearly split during class as to whether he should be evaluated on a mistake he made long time ago. In light of these issues and concerns, the ethical appropriateness does not seem to come from lying itself, but more in terms of the severity and the position of the person. Mr. Edmondson was unethical only to the point where his case was an extreme one. His tragedy may have been started when he joined RadioShack and in personal view, he seemed to be the victim of improper company controls. His public embarrassment may have been avoided if RadioShack had checked his background at the time of employment. With lack of control to screen candidates, Mr. Edmondson was let in without his qualifications being questioned. In such case, the company should also take the blame of being unethical by not checking backgrounds causing public humiliation in 2006. If they had checked academic backgrounds earlier on, the whole scandal may have been avoided and its shareholders may have not been affected. In turn, it leads to the questioning of the Board of Directors at the time for not establishing formal controls when their corporate motto evolved around integrity. Nevertheless, at the end of the debacle, the Directors were not accused of being unethical, but were depicted as victim of the fraud. If Mr. Edmondson were to be viewed as unethical, the Directors should also be considered unethical for not having a proper system in place to screen out the individual since its start. If lying is considered unethical, not performing proper due diligence to ensure proper individuals are selected should be considered improper and unethical. We see ethical issues were present since the inception of the debacle. Arguments can be made both ways, but clearly if exaggerating is not considered lying, Mr. Edmondson did not lie, but exaggerated his profile as he clearly attended 2 years of collegeii. The degree may not be the one he pursued, but he clearly attended college at a point in time. If this is considered unethical, the fact the company did not catch such fraud is improper and unethical in the eyes of the shareholders. Notwithstanding the start of the ethical issues aforementioned, it is worth mentioning his performance at the company to consider his qualities as a person and his value to the company. Clearly, Mr. Edmondson was a star at RadioShack rising quickly through the hierarchy and becoming CEO in 2005. This clearly reflects his qualities; high performing individual with formidable leadership. It was not his educational background, but it was the credibility that he built working at RadioShack that led him to where he was. His prominence can be alluded through his election as CEO during the company’s most difficult time where reorganizations were taking place. This not only shows the Board’s confidence, but also illustrates the man’s invaluable position within the company. Nevertheless, once the media attention was brought into questioning his qualifications, his credibility was vanished within days and it spread to the questioning of the credibility of the company. At this point, Mr. Edmondson quickly resigned pressed by the Board. Initially, the Board declared that it would stand by the CEO, but quickly turned around and requested his resignation. In this instance, it is clear that Mr. Edmondson acted in the most proper and ethical way possible – rather than prolonging the case to prove his innocence or find means to escape criticism, he simply took the hit and resigned. However, in my opinion, the Board did not act in the best interest of its shareholders. It is true that lying is a serious ethical offense, but given the timing of the incident (i.e. Mr. Edmondson was leading the reorganization of the company) and his achievements, they should have taken alternative means to deal with the issue. They mention that in order to keep the credibility of the company and its operations, the decision was inevitable. It is essential that they follow the internal code of ethics to ensure the policies are communicated down the company, but given his role as CEO, leading the company during difficult times, they could have found other means to chastise the CEO without reducing shareholder value. For example, in 2002, Bausch & Lomb’s CEO was caught for misstating his education, but rather than being fired, they simply took away his bonus and let him run the company. The Board clearly realized how crucial his presence was at the time and owing duty to its shareholders, approached the matter in the best possible way. However, when Mr. Edmondson was fired, the company’s shares fell 8%iii and ironically the replacing candidate did not have a college degree neither. Clearly, the result of the decision was at the expense of the shareholders, increasing the concerns over the new CEOs credibility to manage the reorganization. Their motivation was to reinstate the lost credibility by acting upon its internal standards, but in this instance, their action destroyed shareholder value making it an unethical move on their behalf. A more convincing approach would have been to reprimand him by taking his bonus or having him take courses in college to gain the degree as discussed in class. By doing so, he would still receive humiliation, but would not affect the operations of the company. As narrated above, the case not only deals with the actions performed by Mr. Edmondson, but also involves the Board of Directors. At the end of the spectrum, the losers were neither the ex-CEO nor the Board, but it was the shareholders. Clearly, this would have not happened if the company had proper controls to check for backgrounds. At the same time, Mr. Edmondson would have never been at the center of the controversy if he had not joined RadioShack. That being said, the fact that he lied on his resume may be brought as an issue, but with many people embellishing their resumes to distinguish themselves, I personally don’t think there is a difference. The only variation would be that he possessed the drive to rise through the hierarchy while other less successful individuals did not make it to main stream. Given this perception and practice in the industry, if we were to consider him unethical, a lot of us who embellish resumes should be considered unethical as well. Furthermore, it ultimately lies in the company and its Board of Directors to ensure effective controls are in place to ensure shareholder values are secured. Their level of standards could be rationalized by adhering to public standards, but their ethicality is to be determined by the level of service they offer to shareholders.

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Radioshack

...Raul Rosado, Lymarie Stuart, Vivian Garcia MARK 511 Raul Rosado, Lymarie Stuart, Vivian Garcia MARK 511 Plan de mercadeo: Radioshack Universidad Metropolitana Plan de mercadeo: Radioshack Universidad Metropolitana Trasfondo de la compañía RadioShack está en el mercado desde hace más de 90 años, siendo un icono y obteniendo reconocimiento y el patrocinio de parte de los consumidores por todo el mundo. Enfoque: Brindar al cliente: * la combinación de una variedad de productos cuidadosamente seleccionada, no perdiendo de vista el enfoque de tienda especializada. * Un servicio altamente personalizado que permite estar a la vanguardia del mercado de la electrónica. Con que cuenta RadioShack: * Más de 34,000 socios, * Una red de distribución amplia que incluye 4,700 tiendas operadas por la compañía en los Estados Unidos y México, * 1,500 centros de teléfonos móviles, * 1,100 distribuidores, * Capacidad de anticiparse a las necesidades de los consumidores * Este a hecho de esta entidad un pionero en el campo de la electrónica. * Responsable de productos de primicia que incluyen: * La apertura de la primera sala de Exposición Audio de la nación en 1947; y * La introducción de la primer computadora personal de producción masiva * TRS-80 – 1977 Que ha ofrecido a lo largo de la historia * 1986 – comenzó en a ofrecer teléfonos móviles en Estados Unidos convirtiéndose en uno de los primeros minoristas...

Words: 1624 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Radio Shack Summary

...Radio Shack Corporation; 2013 Annual Report Summary Principles of Accounting I/ XACC/290 August 17th, 2014 Radio Shack Corporation; 2013 Annual Report Summary Radio Shack Corporation, headquartered in downtown Fort Worth Texas, was founded in 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts by Theodore and Milton Deutschmann (Radio Shack Corporation, 2014). A company started with a specific mission of serving the needs of radio officers aboard naval ships, has over the years grown into a leading distributor of electronics. According to Radio Shack Corporation (2014), they are a “multifaceted, multibillion-dollar electronics retailer with more than 27,000 associates, and a vast retail network that includes more than 4,000 company-operated stores in the United States,  over 270 company-operated stores in Mexico, and approximately 950 dealer and other outlets worldwide” (An unexpected beginning). Recent years however have been tough for the electronic retail giant, and this is clearly evidenced in their recent financial statements. In fact, facing delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, and not even having enough cash to close stores, Radio Shack faces a very uncertain future, and must take drastic action to survive. Radio Shack’s 2013 annual report is highlighted by a summary from the CEO, Joseph Magnacca. In his opening discourse he discusses how difficult 2013 was, and in fact mentions that Radio Shack has struggled for several years to find its place in the...

Words: 910 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Radioshack

...1. Explain whether RadioShack Corporation had more sales revenue or collected more cash from customers during 2010. Why? Show computation. (Challenge) RadioShack had $4,473M in net sales for the year of 2010. After the expenses were deducted from net sales, RadioShack had a net income of $206.1M. It collected $569.4M from cash and cash equivalents and $377.5M from accounts and notes receivable. Adding the two assets equals a total of $946.9M collected cash from its customers in 2010. The results show RadioShack had more sales revenue than the collected cash it received from its customers in 2010. 2. Investors are vitally interested in a company’s sales and profits and its trends of sales and profits over time. Consider RadioShack Corporation sales and net income (net loss) during the period from 2008 through 2010. Compute the percentage increase or decrease in net sales and also in net income (net loss) from 2008 to 2010. 2008 –Sales $4.224M, Income $189M, Percentage Revenue 4.5% 2009 – Sales $4.276M, Income $205M, percentage Revenue 4.8% 2010 – Sales $4.378M, Income $206M, Percentage Revenue 1.6% Which item grew faster during this two-year period—net sales or net income (net loss)? Net income had an increase of 8.4% over the two years but net sales only had an 3% increase over the two years. Net income had a sizeable 8% increase between 2008 and 2009 but slowed down between 2009 and 2010 with only a 0.4% increase. Sales had a 1% increase between 2008...

Words: 371 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Radio Shack Case Study Apology Letter

...Julian Day CEO Radio Shack Corporation Ft Worth, TX October 27, 2010 To: Radio Shack Team Member Dear Valued Team Member: I would like to apologize to you for the insensitive manner in which we relayed the difficult news of your layoff from Radio Shack. Over the past three years, Radio Shack has seen some difficult days. Our revenues and earnings have fallen, our competition has increased and leadership has experienced large turnovers. Earlier this year we announced a cost-savings plan of closing stores, consolidating distribution centers, updating inventory and reducing overhead costs to help improve our long-term competitiveness in our industry. Unfortunately, as announced in our August 10 memo and subsequent team meetings, many of the overhead savings are realized through a workforce reduction. We know that such life-changing news is never easy to receive, but we admit our insensitivity for relaying such news in the impersonal form of an email. You deserved to hear this in a face-to-face meeting. We want you to know that we value your time at Radio Shack and are appreciative of your hard work and commitment to making Radio Shack a successful company. As you are going through this time of transition in your life and career, we would like for you to know that we are available for assist you. Please contact your direct supervisor if you are in need of a reference and Human Resources for any questions related to your severance package. Again, I offer my utmost apologies...

Words: 285 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Radioshack Marketing Issues

...MKTG 445 March 23, 2015 RadioShack Over the last 20 years, RadioShack has seen a decline in sales, market share, and overall popularity. The plummet in stock is astonishing, as it went from $78.50 in 1999, to $2.66 in 2013; and they are now valued at only $270 million as an international retail chain. In the last few years, they have faced stronger competition and continuously fail to target a niche market. This means that they have not established a group of people to market to, or a certain set of products in which to successfully sell them. Being in the electronics industry is always dangerous because of the varying worldwide trends they see, and RadioShack made a big mistake by attempting to meet the wants of “all” electronics customers. Instead of carefully targeting a niche market, RadioShack has attempted to offer the same products as, and compete with, global giants such as Apple, Best Buy, and Amazon. RadioShack began as a store that sold a large variety of radio equipment, accessories, spare parts, testing gear, and technician tools. With the constant change in technology and demand for it, they went away from their roots and something went terribly wrong. They decided to drop the idea of being an “old obsolete radio store” and attempted to shift into the 21st century, yet if you ask a millennial what they buy at RadioShack, the most likely answer is “nothing”. RadioShack attempted to adapt by bringing in cell phones, computers, and hi-tech consumer electronics...

Words: 840 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Radioshack Case Study

...Implementation of Change The very first step to instilling major, dramatic changes across the board, is, of course, to establish a sense of urgency among top management and the whole organization. RadioShack needs to here the most blunt, truthful information about their organization; they’re obsolete, slow to adapt to change and are on the verge of total eradication from the business world. This leads to the next step: when other leaders, who values the organization in general, witness the legitimacy and truthfulness behind the intentions of the change agent, they develop more of a cohesive bonding with the change agent because their values and objectives are now of the same: the revival and survival of the organization. With this newly formed...

Words: 491 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Radioshack Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

...Business Law 2 Professor Rose July 22, 2015 RadioShack Nearly 94 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts RadioShack was founded on February 6, 2015. It is one of America’s oldest retailers that specialize in electronics. The retailer survived the Great Depression by branching out to the mail order economy. During an economic downturn, RadioShack was purchased by Charles D. Tandy for $2.3 million dollars in order to avoid bankruptcy. Throughout the 70s and 80s, RadioShack thrived, as it was the first to offer a cellular phone and satellite dishes. At its peak, RadioShack operated over 7,000 retail stores in the United States. However, in the late 90s RadioShack’s parent company, Tandy Electronics sold its computer business which...

Words: 768 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Radio Shack

...RadioShack’s Woes Jonea Brown American Public University System Abstract This paper explores the recent difficulties RadioShack Corp. (RadioShack) has experienced pertaining to organizational culture, job design, job satisfaction, and employee policies. RadioShack’s difficulties were gathered from current and former company employees that were questioned about their experiences. In addition to discussing the trials that RadioShack has experienced, the paper will suggest a solution to get the company’s culture back in line with their mission statement as well as the corporate vision. Topics including employee motivation, supervisory leadership training, and workplace enhancement will be examined. The conclusion will analyze the steps that RadioShack needs to make improvements and ultimately how successful they could be. The analysis will be based on financial reports and independent employee interviews performed by the author on location at several local RadioShack locations. The opinions of the employees varied on many of the different topics but the overall opinion of the company’s culture and practices was very poor. RadioShack’s Woes RadioShack is a familiar name in the American electronics retailing industry. They operate nearly 5000 stores across the country and deal in the highly competitive consumer electronics segment. The brick and mortar based retailer has experienced limited success in battling their “big box” competitors like Best Buy, H.H. Gregg...

Words: 2905 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

E-Commerce Essay

...E-Commerce Project Liberty University Online Busi-424 Since the early 1995 when commercial use of the web began to take off, E-commerce has transformed and impacted the way the businesses and consumers shop forever. Before the rise of E-commerce the only way to buy and purchase products was through your standard brick and mortar store and if you wanted to order products that were not available at that moment you would need to sift through a large catalog or directory. If you ordered through that you would send in the order item # along with basic contact information in mail and then came the long wait of receiving your product in the mail to your home or business. It all sounds really cumbersome, time consuming and inconvenient when compared to today’s current trends of ordering products. E-commerce has paved the way for people and businesses to shop easily, faster and more efficiently than was ever thought possible. Even though E-commerce is a relatively young industry with beginnings that point to only as far back as the 1970s, data has suggested that over the next few years some categories of E-commerce is expected to grow about 14% annually through 2017 while traditional retail sales are expected to only grow about 4% annually through that same time frame (Laudon and Traver, p. 27). There are four major types of E-commerce categories that are utilized daily. They include Business-To-Consumer (B2C), Business-To-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) and Mobile...

Words: 3102 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

Business

...stores. RadioShack wanted to do a complete re branding and re make over by getting a new CEO, by changing the colors inside the store and launching new more interactive stores. When I first got promoted to being a manager just threw in the field, sure I had experience from my background and that my previous manager was helping with any questions that I had but I think that’s some of the problems with small companies is that they think that providing videos and slide shows online that is an affective teaching method but its not true I would rather have hands on learning, have a couple one on one conversations with experience managers that have been through a lot. And in my first month in November 2012 my manager gave me a list of everything he wanted to get done from sales goal, profit goal, and how I’m I going to get the team on board with what the company wants to get done. So of course we went through the holidays with no problems sure it was busy so I really didn’t get the team to jump on board all they cared about was their commission that they needed. I wasn’t disciplined because of how I drove profits and met all my sales goals. But what I started to notice was that the company was going to announce big changes when the quarter 4 results came in, what the first thing they announced was commission changes that’s when we had a lot of employees leave the company because they just could not afford to go through commission changes that was one change. RadioShack also announced...

Words: 876 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Leadership Style of Ricardo Semler

...Adejumoke Olaniyan DR Kolawole Sonaike Healthcare Leadership and Management (HCM618 -1601 -HDFSN) February 6 2016 Discussion Questions 1. Evaluate this situation from the view point of David Edmondson’s ethical leadership. What could Radio Shack have done differently? In this world some people crave money and power. To benefit these two things always, people choose the wrong paths. David Edmondson is one of them, because he cheated on his resume. David Edmondson is a fraud that means he is not an ethical leader at all. Because of Edmondson’s cheating his company RadioShack faced losses, so he didn’t do ethical leadership in his workplace. If a manager cheats, lies, steals, manipulates, take advantages of situations, or treat others unfairly that is not an ethical behavior. That is called unethical behavior. We can see lying on David Edmondson’s case, so we can say that he didn’t behave as an ethical leader. According to the text, “Ethical leadership is known as our core values and having the courage to live them in all parts of our life in service of the common good.” Before entering to a company a manager should know what is ethical leadership. If a manager doesn’t know what ethical leadership is, then he/she will never fulfill their job properly. If a manager doesn’t have knowledge about ethical leadership, then he will do unethical things in a company. Also, unethical leadership can create many problems, such as ethical lapses...

Words: 1252 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Discussion for Exploration

...information when a company will be receiving more merchandise of what they don’t have. Again, since I don’t do online shopping, but my mother looks for if the company stands behind their product, the return policies and free shipping. Not sure about Black Friday 2014, but according to this site (Links to an external site.), Black Friday 2015 saw cheaper prices before, during and after Black Friday but the constant rush of people rushing into stores decrease the possibility of being trampled to death (Links to an external site.) or other calamities (Links to an external site.) due to a lot of people doing online shopping. Another ‘winning’ factor would be stores that sell electroinic based products such as Apple (Links to an external site.) or RadioShack (Links to an external site.) considering anything electronic is a must have and isn’t exactly cheap. Other than people doing their shopping needs instead of acknowledging the true meaning of Christmas, I mean, Thanksgiving,...

Words: 358 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Operations

...Operations Qiyuan Sun According to the annual report of T-Mobile in 2013, Cash provided by operating activities was $3.5 billion for the year ended December 31, 2013, compared to $3.9 billion for the same period in 2012. The decrease in cash flow provided by operating activities was driven by several factors. Selected Operational Data of T-Mobile from 2009-2013 Investor.t-mobile.com,. 2015. 'T-Mobile, Annual Report, 2013'. http://investor.t-mobile.com/Cache/1500059458.PDF?Y=&O=PDF&D=&fid=1500059458&T=&iid=4091145. The operating income, exclusive of non-cash items such as impairment charges and depreciation and amortization, declined compared to the same period in the prior year primarily as a result of decreases in branded postpaid revenues. Net changes in working capital decreased slightly due to increases in EIP receivables, offset in part by increases in accounts payable and accrued liabilities due in part to timing of vendor payments. Investor.t-mobile.com,. 2015. 'T-Mobile, Annual Report, 2013'.http://investor.t-mobile.com/Cache/1500059458.PDF?Y=&O=PDF&D=&fid=1500059458&T=&iid=4091145. Cash provided by operating activities was $3.9 billion for the year ended December 31, 2012, compared to $5.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2011. The decrease in cash flow provided by operating activities in 2012 was driven by several factors. T-Mobile made payments of $193 million primarily for employee-related expenses as a result...

Words: 4606 - Pages: 19

Free Essay

Surveillance Robot

...Create a small Surveillance Robot at some point in their time. The biggest problem being the Receiver/Transmitter pairs are always too expensive. My solution: Extract the RC receiver from a small RC car and modify it for our purposes.   It will used the receiver from a $10 ZipZaps RC car purchased at a RadioShack (US) or a Microz GT car purchased at The Source (Canada). Any inexpensive RC car, though, will do. It will also use a wireless camera and 2 Solarbotics gear motors.  The main goal of this robot always remains the same; to be able to perform surveillance that you could watch on your television or on your computer (this depends on the camera used). I broke this tutorial into steps for simplicity and organization of categories (why should you put the construction of chassis with building the electronics? :P) Now for some general examples of the design for the robot (you don't have to follow my example exactly). The image at the top of the page shows an angled view of the robot. This is a bottom view of the robot. You can see the motors and the caster, aswell as the wheels.   This is an image of the front of the robot, where the camera is clearly visible. NOTE: The camera depicted in the image above IS NOT the one that will be used in the tutorial! That camera was inserted to give a generalization of how the robot should appear  when completed!   All these images were created using Google Sketchup, a free and useful CAD software which is popular amongst roboticists...

Words: 310 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

1. Legal Advice to Acme Bikes

...1. Legal advice to Acme Bikes The situation at hand is related to the rights of a player as well as the contractual agreement between a player and his club. Acme Bikes (AB) is a new team in the UCI World Tour competition. We are presented with a situation where a rider by the name Frits Boy, who is the oldest in the team,has a number of complaints against his team. Firstly, the team decided not to field him due to the fact that Fritz has been the slowest rider in the two competitions that the team participated in. The team also left him out of the team selected for the Tour de France that is forthcoming. Fritz feels unwanted by the team for his name has been removed from the team’s website and efforts to have his bike repaired by the team’s technicians have proved to be futile. Additionally, a rival team by the name Team Sky has approached Fritz and is trying to woo him on its side. The European Court of Justice is very clear on contractual terms and conditions. Fritz is on the verge of breaching his contractual terms with the Acme Bikes team by involving himself in negotiations with the Team Sky while is still bound to Acme Bikes. Fritz has the right to ask for a transfer in case he feels that he is not wanted in the team. However, he must adhere to the rules relating to transfer deadlines. It is clear that a late transfer can tremendously alter the strength of a team in the course of the championship. The European Court of justice has recognized that certain limitations on...

Words: 2028 - Pages: 9