1.
There is either little or no attention given to a customer in many business organizations. The employees are quick to finish serving a client without any personal contact. A classic example was during the start of a school year when I once went to buy school text books, at my arrival the bookstore, the attendant without much talking just asked for my list of books, went and brought all of them, took them to the cashier who calculated the cost. The cashier then gave me my receipt and asked (she was not polite) for cash. This showed lack of good business ethics since it showed that the organization was more interested with my money than me. Moreover, it is worth noting that some organizations are not aware of the welfare of their clients such as burials or even weddings which not only paints a bad corporate ethic, but also shows that they are only interested in profit making rather than their clients.
2.
According to James Sheehy, a Human Resource Manager in Houston, employees are viewed as a whole generation of workers with indifference to quality and service, full of contempt for customers, unrealistic expectations about the world of work, and a get-away-with-what-you-can attitude, which he terms unethical. Since, most of his co-workers were teenagers and college students who were home for summertime, he identified that theft was rampant. Young employees are depicted as unprincipled generation since they were subject to peer pressure to steal, thus, portraying a young generation with unethical behavior. Moreover, he describes the young employees as shoplifters, with poor mentality, dishonest and with lost moral values – which are directed to provoke the management. They rejected the very idea of hard work and long hours. ‘Scamming’ was ideal, it meant taking short cuts or having work done without much effort, usually by delegating the responsibility or avoiding demanding tasks at all. This shows a lazy future work force. “You can only put in the time and the effort for a big score” is how one fellow characterized work ethics. Contrastingly, they looked forward to working at a ‘real job’ where they don’t have to put with hassles. That is, they never viewed casual job as a ‘real job’ that one could be happy and satisfy with but just a way to make some cash during holidays since they viewed it as a job for the foolish people “you can leave this job to the real dummies.” They all expected to get white collar jobs where they would be in an office, sit behind a computer and have a secretary and work less. As a result, this views other jobs as inferior and if this attitude is incorporated into the whole generation then in future we will not have people to work in fast-food restaurant and other casual jobs. Summarily, this predicts a dark future for America’s corporate world crowded with a lazy generation of lost ethics and a very arrogant attitude. This therefore threatens the position of future leaders for American corporations.
3.
In a capitalist society it is expected that the employees would be more concerned with not only good service delivery but also good quality rather than being devoted to their jobs. It is expected that the employees would be more responsive to consumer needs since, for continued business success, customer service is one factor that will help maintain your customer base. Workers should be devoted to their job and should aim at continued success a company and this can easily be achieved by having a good customer service and relationship between the employees and the customers. The employees are always in contact with customers and are therefore the link between the management and the clients. Business organizations should understand that more caring is healthier for business growth rather than greed for quick money would only be a short term achievement. It is worth noting that for continued business success workers should attend to customers need and maintain a close relationship.
4.
Employee theft is an attitude focused on ‘milking the place dry’ (Shaw, 2011). Since the employees seek to benefit more from the organization. Many employees tend to shoplift the organizations they work for in order to become part of the group of the other employees who steal from the organization and seek extra benefits as they benefit the organization ‘the getting mine employee mentality’’. Hence, they view the organization as a means to an end (which is to be rich). Employees also avoid hard tasks or dragged out tasks. Nevertheless, employee theft is partly enhanced by some organizations that do not recognize and compensate efforts put by employees who work hard and carry work home. From recent survey, security experts predict that at some point in their career up to 30 percent of the American employees will steal from their organizations. This surmounts to employee theft accounting for 50 percent more revenue loss for retailers than shoplifting.
5.
Capitalist as defined by Shaw is an economic system in which the major proportion of production and distribution is in private hands operating on what is termed as market or profit system (2011). Therefore it is a free market and making money is the main reason of existence. This leads to a competitive environment which calls for unethical behaviors since big corporations emphasize on profit making. Organizations use advertising to brainwash consumers rather than to inform. Adam Smith commented in his great piece of writing that profit motive drives many organizations, but to what extent and under what circumstances are those motives more or less to encourage anti-social behavior? He goes on to suggests that profit motive is acceptable if it does not breach the ethical norms of the society in which it operates (1952).
The capitalist culture also encourages employees to be devoted to their jobs than the quality service they offer to customers especially in companies with sales personnel who are paid based on their sales hence encourages sale of commodity rather than service delivery. The sales personnel are driven to accumulate wealth rather than deliver services.
A capitalist culture enhances unhealthy corporate competition. Organizations are therefore focused on controlling the market and in order to achieve this, they aim at outdoing each other leading to ‘cut throat competition’. Adam Smith argued, “All for ourselves and nothing for others people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxims for masters of mankind” (1952). Multi-national companies therefore use the advantages of economies of scale by buying in large quantities get large discounts hence sell commodities at lower prices. This forces small organizations to close down hence loss of jobs for many workers. It wouldn’t be a surprise that these multi-national organizations might be paying employees very poorly.
Reference
Shaw, H. (2011). Business Ethics. 7th Ed. Boston: Wadsworth cengage learning.
Smith, A. (1952). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago press.
