Business Ethics
Business ethics
Bait advertisement: This is a practice for advertising were attractive low priced goods, little of which are literally in stock are advertised so that they can attract customers to the store of sell.
Duty to comply: This means that any person owner, consumer, employer, employee are under the obligation to obey a given set of decisions, directions, requirements, standards rules or regulations set up by a given organization, business or institution so long as they agree to adhere to such.
Implied Claim: It’s where a claim is understood by the individual receiving the message, but not explicitly stated by the sender of the message. Therefore it can be viewed as a truth claim that needed for another claim to be sound. For example when one says "I’m working" this carries with it some implied claim that they have got some kind of business or employment.
Reliability: This is the ability of a system or person to maintain and perform their or its functions in circumstances that are routine including those circumstances that are unexpected and hostile.
Service life: This refers to the expected lifetime of an item or product, or period acceptable for such product to be used in service. Take for example the time expected by a manufacturer for his manufactured item to be serviceable.
Maintainability: This is where a product can be maintained with ease in order to isolate defects and correct defects or their causes, replace or repair worn out and faulty components, prevent breakdowns that are unexpected, maximize the life of the product etc.
Reasonable risk: This can be defined as the kind of risk one would take if the chances of wining outweighed the chances of failing.
Duty to disclosure: This is where an individual or business has the responsibility to disclose every single piece of material circumstance it has knowledge of. Breach of which will led to the avoidance of the contract.
Duty not to misrepresent. Under this duty, a business or person should refrain from representing false statements of facts as their items formed by one party to the other. For example false statements/promises made by a trader in regard to the nature and quality of the goods and product.
Duty not to coerce: Here the seller is under duty not to take advantage of the ignorance, immaturity, gullibility or any other factor that’s relevant that may reduce the ability of a buyer to make a rational decision.
Caveat emptor. This lets the buyer to be aware of the conditions being bought especially with specific levels of defects or malfunctioning.
Caveat Vendor. This is a principle that obliges the seller to be legally responsible for quality as well as the suitability of goods being made available to the consumers. .
The theoretical analysis of the theories provide an important platform for business and clientele relationship and thus relevant for exploring the ideals of business optimizations and ethical definitions.
Contractual theory:
Under this view, the relationship between customers and a business is a contractual one. The moral duties to a customer are those laid out by this contract.
Social costs Theory.
Under this theory, ideas of market failure, social cost and externalities are regularly employed as an argument for intervention by the government in the form of regulations.
Arguments for and against the three main theories of a producer's duties to the consumer are based on various analytical platforms and business performance optimization:-
A number of platforms support the implementation of these theories and thus we are hence able to establish their relevance in real world applications.
Under the duties of a producer, they are under obligation to put on the market products that are safe. Within the confines of their respective activities, producers should:-
- Provide information to consumers that shall empower them to assess the risks that may come with a purchased product throughout the foreseeable, reasonable or normal duration of its use. Such risks may not be obvious immediately without sufficient warning and to have precautions taken against such risks. Providing such adequate warning however, doesn’t exempt any individual from complying with other requirements within the directive.
- Provide safety of the products for the benefit of the consumer and protect them against marketed goods that could be hazardous to their life and health. To ensure this, producer should endeavor to put labels on their products or provide product circulars that advice people before they use a certain product. This would be beneficial especially for consumers that have certain sensitivity to some products. An example would be "NOT SUITED FOR CHILDREN BELOW FOUR (4) YEARS or "POISON".
- It’s made possible for the consumer to exercise their right to choose. This is not restricted to a specific market as there are variety of products to choose from by the consumer and at competitive prices with satisfactory quality guaranteed. Consumers are given the choice to decide specifically what they really want. To some big sizes may appear cheaper but it may not be what they really need. However before choosing, consumers ensure that they analyze the prices of a product before purchasing or signing a contract. Again "choice", empowers the consumer to carefully read the instructions and manuals and compare out item product with another. By the doing this consumer doesn’t miss the fine prints which contain necessary information needed to determine which product would serve them better.
- The producer provides the consumer with the right to be heard and representation. Consumers are provided with the ability to voice their concerns and complaints with regard to certain products so as to enable the producer to handle the issue responsively and efficiently. Federal agencies charged with the specific duty of providing and handing forms for this synergy between the producer and the consumer. Such agencies include the "Better Business Bureau". Representation enables the consumer to express their interests for the creation and execution of government policies.
However, the theories that are significantly implemented equally suffer from certain levels of shortcomings. Thus the objective nature of their application is faced by the following limitations.
- The implementation of such rules and regulations is always questionable. It has been a custom for producers to advertise and assure consumers that their products are safe to use since there have put in play certain regulations demanding producers to provide assurance to their consumers that their products are safe. However time and again producers are proving to disregard such regulations. A case in point, is in the United states were a number of inquiries have been received by FDA(U.S Food And Drug Administration following the safety of parabens( a chemical component comprised of P-Hydroxybenzoic acid) that’s widely used as a preservative in cosmetic products.
- The monitoring by producers is always unsettled. It is up to the producers to always monitor their products that are in the market. Their distribution throughout the market system to when they reach the consumers is handled through the key steps of the producers. But, this has proven to be shaky and in turn opening up the doors for other instabilities such as deficiency in effective demand which is turning out to be an economic problem that’s most fundamental.
This is true according to an analysis above. I prefer the theory of the producer’s duty to provide information to the consumer over the others. Information for the products most consumers use is most imperative. In this particular level, the theory is relevant in terms of establishing the appropriate quality delivery of ideal products. The names and addresses of the manufacturer are provided through such information. Basing on this, a given rise occurs when a person needs a critical nature of specification including being made to understand the required product details, contact information and security features. The outlets of such information are provided in magazines, guides and newspapers so the consumer is make options that regard to the product being purchased.
