Ethics is described to be a set of social principles, codes of one’s society or particular group. Business ethics can thus be defined as the social responsibility of a company to their customers and retailers. In the case study the managers need to be assertive in their decisions and consistently honest with retailers and consumers. The case discusses the aspect of ethics on nutritional food company after unpasteurized products were distributed to different regions causing food poisoning to the consumers. In this case the sense of responsibility for the mistake may either come directly from the management or from the crisis management team. This puts the company at a point where they may lose face of the organization by either through their clients and stocks.
As the manager of nutritional foods, the first assignment would be to initially pull out the supply from the unpasteurized batch from suppliers. This may be a huge risk for the company but it may save it from compensating the affected customers. This will mean communicating with the suppliers of different counties that have been affected and ensuring that no more of the product is sold to consumers. By doing so the company may not intentionally accepting blame but will be safeguarding the future of the company. The crisis management team will need to affirm the public that even with this mistake they are still the number one in nutritional foods and that they pride themselves in providing the best for the client. This becomes a platform for the company to take advantage and improve on their public image by enhancing their ethics on this issue. Though this may seem unethical in the sense of the crisis improving on the public image is critical as this may affect the state of the shareholders and partners in the company.
As the manager it is effective to make a snap decision in order to reduce the amount of damage the product will cause. In this case as it is involved with a product that is mainly used in many homesteads and is well known in the different counties. A deontological theory that focuses on the duties, obligations and principles will be used. This will include the examining of the policies that they stand by; this enhances the capability of possibly emerging from the crisis without incurring much loss. The decision of using the crisis management team will reassure the public of the company products improving its image in the process. By increasing on the social welfare than the profit of the company it will help the public understand their worth as per the company. This approach may damage the company or help rebuild its name.
This will happen only if the crisis is not well handled by the management through putting more focus on the policies. By using this approach the company is able to improve on the company image and products not affected by the crisis. The decision to use this approach will include a press statement stating the company faults. Through this the company creates a leeway in which they have the opportunity to shield themselves from losses. There will also be a decline in sales of the product affected and this may overall affect the other brands in the company. This been a crisis affecting different regions the crisis management team will need to educate and use a lot of Public relations strategies. This strategy will gainfully help the public to understand what the crisis was about and the strides made to provide quality products. As the manager they need to employ a well established public relation company that will help curb the losses.
The use of these strategies may affect the company in both negative and positive ways. It may open its doors to more criticism of the product or may have the chance to improve on the company image through its products. Though this maybe dangerous in certain cases the company through choosing of the deontological theory will need to enhance its aspects to make it better. As the manager newer measures of dispatching of products to the suppliers will be enforced this will ensure that the products are in proper conditions. This crisis will help improve on the processes required for the company to be able to track all the products that leave the company. The use of these strategies will better the company and help the management in creating better and more sophisticated processes in the company.
Work cited
Edelstein, Sari. Managing Food and Nutrition Services: For the Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professions. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2008.
Jones, Campbell. Business Ethics: A critical approach. Routledge, 2005.
Linda K Trevino, Katherine A Nelson. Managing business ethics. John wiley & Sons, 2010.
O.C Ferrell, John Fraedrich. Business Ethics: Ethical decision Making & cases. Cengage Learning, 2012.
