Business personnel needs to guide employees on the plans that have been undertaken to improve the functionality of a company. This is significant because it helps the employees to make decisions that are in line with the company code of ethics. This article focuses on a business that planned to move its operations to Indonesia, and the ethical implications involved.
Unethical elements in the movement
It is unethical to move the company to Indonesia in this scenario. The company should first state the core values and the purpose of this plan to the employees. Doubling the salary does not cover up for the inconveniences that this operation may cause on the part of the workers. The employees should interact with the human personnel department and also even inform the public of the plans that the business wants to undertake to increase the integrity of the company and the public image. The decisions made should also consider both the internal and external aspects. In this manner, the business gets an opportunity to do away with any activity that could be considered to compromise its core values and purpose (Waller, 2010).
A company increases its integrity by balancing the work of its employees with their other responsibilities like their families and their other personal activities. Management of a company should focus both on the employees and the customers because the two parties keep the business running. The management should uphold honesty to create a working friendly environment so-called a spirited workplace which has been shown by many studies to increase the productivity of a company. The individuals running the operation of management should treat their employees as they would like themselves to be treated, and this could only be achieved through consulting their employees whenever they are making decisions especially major decisions like in this scenario (Thompson, 2002).
Motive or conduct
Without conduct, the motive of a company will never be realized. The management can take advantage of the lack of strict enforcement of regulations to only focus on personal interests of creating a wider market of their products, which are not going to be achieved in this scenario while forgetting about the needs and interests of their employees. The motive, in this case, can be termed as greed because it degrades the integrity of the company, and shows a lack of uprightness and moral standards.
The business may be transferred to Indonesia but never prosper because of lack of employees, lack of the working spirit that they once had, lack of market, high costs of the raw materials and not to mention its paying double salary. This would be a great compromise of the integrity of the company and would be a moral hazard too.
Increasing the earnings of a company should not be the sole purpose of management, because in so doing it would decrease the benefits that the stakeholders are enjoying. The integrity of a company is more than its productivity but comprises many aspects including morality proper. Integrity has been described by some authors to be an adjunctive or secondary virtue. Others call it a synthesis or unity of virtues; or a high order virtue. These aspects have been changed by many businesses with the primary goal to increase their profits. This is even though most of these companies claim to be placing integrity at the heart of their functions.
This case study is an example of conflicts of interest between the employees and the management due to violations of the standards of integrity. The management should learn from other big companies that have collapsed due to poor management, like Enron, and know that the integrity of the company is crucial and should be observed to the letter since it is the basic virtue that determines its existence, functionality, and thus benefit to all (Becker, 2009).
References
Becker, G. (2009). Integrity as a Moral Ideal and Business Benchmark. Journal of International Business Ethics, 2, 2.
Thompson, W. (2002). Restoring Integrity to Business. Business Network of the union league of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Cengage Learning.
Waller, J. (2010). Creating Ethical Business Standards. Alaska business monthly, Alaska: Prentice Hall.