- Describe how the ethical dilemma can affect both the organization and society.
- Evaluate changes could have been made to prevent this ethical dilemma.
Your response must be a minimum of 300 words.
Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ posts and respond to at least two of your peers by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week. You are encouraged to post your required replies early during the week to promote more meaningful interactive discourse in the discussion. For your response, take on the role of an organizational leader, based on the evaluations from your classmate, give advice on additional suggested for changes to prevent the ethical dilemma.
Reply to Edwards Discussion:
There have been many ethical dilemmas over the past years about customers wanting healthier choice options from fast food places for better health and dietary needs. “In August 2002, a group of overweight children in New York City filed a class-countable for the economic and public health action lawsuit against McDonalds corporation seeking compensation for obesity related health problems and improved nutritional labeling of McDonald’s products” (Mello, Rimm & Studdert, 2003, p. 207). Many people feel that the company is making tons of money from customers while putting their health at risk due to the high sodium and fat that a lot of their menu items carry. Not to mention that when McDonalds run an advertisement on television for a new sandwich they only have people in the commercials that are in shape. This can be misleading to individuals who are not obese by making them assume that they can eat McDonalds products without gaining weight.
This unethical dilemma effects the organization by way of dealing with customer conflicts that boycott and file lawsuits against the company which creates a bad work climate. “Unethical marketing that exploits or harms another party reduces the customer’s evaluation of perceived fairness and risks alienating the most committed customers” (Ingram, Skinner & Taylor, 2005, p. 1.2). This causes a company to lose profit, which will force them to reduce their expenses by letting go of workers which will create more poverty. McDonald’s unethical dilemma can cause customers to get more diseases associated with unhealthy and weight gain such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol. This in turn can make McDonalds’ customers spend more money in medical costs in regards to seeing the doctor more frequently, buying more medication and even putting their body at risk of a stroke which can lead to death.
While the company has putting salads and oatmeal on their menu, they need to include hamburgers that come from grass fed cows which will has less calories, fat and more antioxidant vitamins and omega fatty acids. The company also allow customers to substitute their white buns for wheat buns which are more healthy and put organic items on their menu board.
References
Ingram, R., Skinner, S. J., & Taylor, V. A. (2005). Consumers’ evaluation of unethical marketing behaviors: The role of customer commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 62(3), 237–252.
Mello, M. M., Rimm, E. B., & Studdert, D. M. (2003). The McLawsuit: The fast-food industry and legal accountability for obesity. Health Affairs, 22(6), 207-216. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.22.6.207
Reply to Jefferey’s discussion:
A 21st century ethical issue that has been in the news recently involves data mining and privacy issues. If proper security measures are not put in place, data mining can be used for malicious purposes and expose privacy issues. A recent example of this is Facebook which has been in the ‘hot seat’ regarding data privacy, or lack thereof, with its customer information.
Describe how the ethical dilemma can affect both the organization and society.
While most tend to agree that consumer data privacy is extremely important for any organization, Facebook is in an odd ethical predicament because their business is driven off the concept of sharing data and information. This is how they stay in business. Another interesting twist is that Al-Saggaf and Zahidul (2015) actually wrote an article about this very same issue before the recent Facebook scandal. Their paper explored the potential that data mining could be used for malicious reasons and could threaten the privacy of social network sites. Fast forward to recent events and we absolutely know that this can, and did, happen with Cambridge Analytica.
Al-Saggaf and Zhidul (2015) wrote that Mark Zuckerberg previously commented how people are more willing to share more and more information online. One commentator interpreted this statement as the ‘age of privacy is over’. One could argue that this is probably true. Europeans take consumer privacy much more seriously than in the United States. There have been two recent attempts at passing more data privacy controls for consumers but neither have passed legislation.
Evaluate changes could have been made to prevent this ethical dilemma.
Some changes that could have been made include having better security measures in place. I understand that Facebook’s platform is meant to share data and information. However, proper security measures should have been put in place to limit the amount of access Cambridge Analytica had to customer information. As our weekly lecture suggests, Facebook needs to work on balancing what’s right and what’s profitable. Facebook obviously wants to remain profitable and stay in business. However, they should not do so at the expense of its customers and their privacy.
Reference:
Al-Saggaf, Y., & Zahidul, I. (2015). Data Mining and Privacy of Social Network Sites’ Users: Implications of the Data Mining Problem. Science and Engineering Ethics. 21(4). 941-966.
