I would present two key ethical problems of the company. These are Fraud and Organizational Issues. There are numbers of issues that arise when it comes to fraud issues. In a non-profit organization, this trend is no longer a surprise in the non-profit world. Non-profit organizations are highly susceptible to fraud issues. Generally, non-profit organizations are established for beneficial purposes in accordance to the mission and vision of the company.
Problem 1
Particularly, Visayan Forum Foundation, Inc. or VF faced fraud charges in 2012. The problem rooted when the United States Agency for International Development filed a case against VF. The money in question amounted to 210 million Philippine Peso or 5 million US dollars. The charges stemmed from a complaint from the office of USAID Inspector General. VF is accused by the donor agency of faking receipts that is related to million-dollar donation to the port project of the organization covered from 2005 to 2011 period. The National Bureau of Investigation in the Philippines presented some evidences of the charges; tampering and alterations in the receipts based on the analysis conducted. An auditor that is hired by the USAID declared that the funds are disbursed without real beneficiaries.
The founder and executive director of VF, Maria Cecilia Flore-Oebanda denied the charges filed against her by the USAID for the alleged falsification of documents hiding the misuse of the funding donated to VF. Maria Cecilia is shocked by the malicious attack on the organization built for 20 years with sweat, tears, and blood. She vowed to continue to provide services for victims of human trafficking and exploitation. Maria Cecilia expressed her true emotions that she is betrayed by the USAID, and promised to clear the name of the foundation in court. In the contrary, she declared that the money funded by the donor agency are all accounted for and spent to the beneficiaries. She added that the whistle-blower accusation is not true about the faked receipts. As per statement of the VF, founder that they are ready and they are no hiding anything. She described the whistle-blower who worked for four years in VF as intrigera.
Apparently, the charges started to worry some of the VF beneficiaries. One of the survivors interviewed by the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the issue would affect the help that is extended by the foundation. The survivor was only 14 when she was rescued by the organization and now she is on her early 20s studying as a social worker in Philippine Christian University. She is worried about the case that might cause the closure of the foundation.
Potential Solutions
The simplest way and the best way to solve the issue is transparency. The founder with the other officials of the organization should present all the pertinent documents as an evidence to prove that their conscience is clean. By showing transparency to the public, it would disprove that no allegations are true. All the works done by the founder is an instrument of social transformation; protecting the domestic workers, providing empowerment through the recognition of the worth in the society in the economic contributions, teaching the rights of the victims, and to fight for today to achieve betterment in the future.
Problem 2
The second problem is the Organizational Issues. The non-profit or non-governmental sectors are growing phenomenon worldwide. It has impressive figures in revenue, employment, and services provider. However, non-profit organizations are concerned with the development of the management of its diverse and complex issues. They face internal management issues such as strategic planning, staffing, budgeting, and governing structure of the organization.
The common problems experienced in the internal management are decision-making process, governance, relations between board members and staff, fund raising, structural growth problem, evaluation problem, economies of scale problem, mission, effectiveness, and accountability, and main future needs.
The tensions are often occurred between the senior managers and the staff; expectation on equal decision-making from the side of the staff. The governance and the relations between board members and staff of the organization stemmed from the inability or unwillingness to perform their responsibilities. One source of the tension in the organizations is fund raising. The images and strategies raise funds from the public are felt to compromise the nature of work done by the staff. The problem of replacing one-person management or family management is an institutionalized structure. The founder used to have the total control of the things in the organization. It is hard to persuade someone to create independent management roles, respect the authority, and the autonomy of independent managers and experts. The evaluation problem; it is the most immediate problems for donors, failure to resolve the situation reflects back to the organization. Eventually, it perceives as a problem of the entire organizations. The economy of scale problem is another internal management issue; the lack of cheap and easy access to the knowledge of the specialist required. Staff development is important; however, it has a little idea on how to perform it. Volunteering is an activity that is given to benefit another person and organization freely. The organization should achieve the missions that are valuable in the society, board, staff, and founder. Older voluntary organization desires paid staff, and the younger voluntary organization appears in greater needs of information and management advices.
Potential Solutions
It tends to offer decentralization that some power is devolved to certain levels. The best solutions to the issue of tensions are between headquarters and field offices. However, the decentralization has an effect of the increase in the bureaucracy as organizations that devolve the power, tend to set up all types of control measures. These problems revealed clear gaps, between the values of the non-profit organizations espouse, and what happens in the practice. There should be balance of needs of the different stakeholders to have an equal right to the decision-making process that creates a number of management issues for the organization. it is necessary that non-profit should have strategic choices or options with the government. The process of the strategic choices provides increase positive results to internal tensions that concerns expenditure priorities and conflicting demands of donors and clients. The results can resolve the voluntary organization performing as mediators between clients and donors.
In fostering, the participation of all sector of the community in decision-making should be focused. Services should be offered such as information publications and exchange with the emphasis on the facilitation access to information, training, and capacity. To develop the organization, each individual should contribute in the decision-making process and learn more ideas. All the participants need to understand clearly their responsibility to embody their stakeholders and sustain the implementation of the activities. In addition, solutions include the following: timeliness of annual reports issuance; degree of disclosure of assets and liabilities, salaries, and benefits for the staff, directors, board, consultants, and members; employments, recruitments, and development policies and practices of the staff; and arrangements for the organizational performance evaluation.
Problem 1
Customer Service issues are one of the major challenges or problems encountered by fast food chain, Jollibee in particular. Slow services of the crews to the customers to some branches happened anytime. The unhappy aura of the crew results to negative impression of the customers and complaints are about the service environment of some Jollibee branches. Some customers are facing many difficulties in ordering and some customers are receiving wrong orders.
Factors that caused the problem to happen are high traffic customers, few number of on duty crews, and lack of time for trainings and workshops. The effects of the problem are low quality of services, low quality of products, low evaluations, unable to reach the target, and miss out of orders.
Potential Solutions
The best solution of the problem in customer service is standardization. Standardization can lead to innovation; innovation comes from freewheeling chaos, and it is an extreme order that begets breakthroughs in business. Standardization includes standard process, common goals, common platforms, shared values, and standard interfaces. Always value the new and different by learning the standards and sharing ideas for better transformation. Innovations are tested to change the world in different aspects and succeed through standardization. An organization can benefit from incorporating many types of standard, shared, and common features of the efforts done and should focus to transform the operations, customer experiences, and the industry as a whole.
Problem 2
In the management issues, it focuses into the conflicting areas or the necessity to establish a greater cooperation and coordination among the managers, crews, and staff of the company. In connection with the first discussed problem in Jollibee, the effects of the problem are the lack of trainings and workshops in all aspects to address internal management issues. There are instances that some stores lack marketing skills, in-depth planning, and research expansion and poor coordination. Concerning treatment between managers and crews, commitment to this value is also lacking.
Potential Solutions
The company should do differently in each of the department like in Marketing, HR, Finance, or Operations, to succeed on its plans of local and global expansion. Switch to a more flexible approach to staffing and partnerships. The approach is the best way to utilize Human Resources. The top-level managements should have the expertise and the skills to push the operational effectiveness of Jollibee not to compromise the organizational culture and effectiveness, as well. Management Development as a strategic tool; Jollibee needs strong corporate cultures, and informal management networks to help in coordination and control, and it needs to understand local cultures before its expansion. All these can be achieved through a proper emphasis on Management Development. An effective Management Development builds a unifying corporate culture by socializing new managers and partner in the norms and value systems of the company.
Intra and inter unit communications should not be ignored. These communications are needed in Knowledge Management. Many out bound and internal training exercises should be applied in the Jollibee facilities to iron out differences and inflict comradeships. The use of external corporate trainers in this regard would be a plus definitely. The small differences in management style and culture between the cooperating companies can occur as serious problems that make it difficult to create synergies that lead to poor financial performances. Given the difficulty of identifying the organizational compatibilities, it is convenient to use specific procedures to foresee positive outcomes.
Reference
Fieser, J., & Moseley, A. (2012). Introduction to business ethics. San Diego, California:
Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Jollibee. (1975). Jollibee Foods Corporation. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from Jollibee:
http://www.jollibee.com.ph/
Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (1991). Visayan Forum. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from
Visayan Forum: http://www.visayanforum.org/portal/index.php
