Ethical Moment 3
Summary
McDonald is a fast food restaurant that has been using unethical food preparation practices since years. Its burgers cause obesity and recently FDA found that the company adds pork French fry grease in its coffee to keep it hot. The health issue was realized in 2006, and the issue of fry pork grease has been found in 2015 by FDA.
Introduction
This assignment aims to discuss an example of an ethical issue in light of the “Chapter 13: Ethics in a Global Society” written by Craig. E. Johnson. The organization that has been selected for this assignment is McDonald.
Discussion of the issue
Globalization has always been an opportunity to businesses for expanding their roots and enhances their global presence, customer base, market share, and therefore, profitability (Johnson, 2012). Fast food chains have been a master in taking the advantage of globalization and expanded immensely (Johnson, 2012); one example in this regard is of McDonalds. When companies go international, they have to take care of ethical issues such as they have to take care of the health of local people, give preference to their tastes, and should maintain diversity within the organization for dealing with diverse people (Johnson, 2012). The company is recognized for its local adaption and cultural diversity, but the major unethical issue due to which the business had to face difficulties in the United States and the United Kingdom, is the ill-health burgers of the restaurant that cause obesity. The restaurant is not in of step with a body society. Even the organization was accused by health campaign organization in Europe and America for increased obesity. In result of this unethical issue, the restaurant took some steps, but could not resolve the issue properly that resulted in closing 25 restaurants in Britain (Walsh, 2006).
According to an FDA report, the restaurant for enhancing the heat of its coffee adds french-fry grease to the water of the coffee; this process is illegal and unethical (Joey, 2015). The company adapted ethnocentrism approach and did not care about different religious beliefs. It is the responsibility of food chains, to not to include such ingredients that damage the health of customers (Johnson, 2012). Using the pork French fry grease means that McDonald without telling its customers was serving coffee which could hurt religious beliefs of some of the customers and was damaging their health by not keeping its ingredients in line with healthy society. Not taking care of people’s health and feeding them with the food that causes health problems is unethical (Johnson, 2012). The organization should have taken care of the health of its customers that serve the restaurant with profitability and loyal with the firm.
Recommendation and Conclusion
The company should move from this unethical condition to ethical situation. The corporation should adopt the concept of moral foundation theory, it should take care of people health and should include healthy items in its menu, should maintain transparency through telling the ingredients that have been used in food (Johnson, 2012). The business in this way will be able to build trust, the organization through maintaining transparency will be able to respect diverse cultures. The management of the organization is responsible for the solution of this problem. The immediate steps should be taken by management to improve the image of the company as an ethical one. For the attainment of this objective, as the company adapted local culture of India, it should do the same in every country and should build and respect the contract with religious authorities. It should seek to comply with laws (Johnson, 2012).
References
Joey. (2015). FDA Reveals McDonald’s Uses Left Over ‘French Fry’ Grease To Increase Coffee’s Heat. Retrieved May 31, 2016, from http://theracketreport.com/fda-reveals-mcdonalds-uses-left-over-french-fry-grease-to-increase-coffees-heat/
Johnson, C. E. (2012). Organizational Ethics. UK: Sage Publication Inc.
Walsh, C. (2006). Big Mac tops 'unethical' poll. The Guardian. Retrieved May 31, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/apr/16/theobserver.observerbusiness1
