MB112 Analysis of Issues In Articles: Business Ethics Assessment 2 Answer

Article 1

Media 'impartiality' on climate change is ethically misguided and downright dangerous. (2020). 

Media Source: The Conversation

Date of Article: 31st January 2020 (6:11 am AEDT)

Author-Denis Muller, University of Melbourne 

Overview of the Article 

The article points out the impartiality caused by media houses in renting climate changes and environmental problems. The editor of the newspaper Misha Ketchell in the recent announcement that they will block and shut down all the climate change deniers and pseudo environmentalists who provide succinct ideas of no climate change. As the announcement was made, the professional editorial code of conduct policy related to ethics encroached. This behaviour is completely against business ethics. The primary components of business ethics are trustworthiness and solidarity, respect and responsibility, fairness and equality & caring and dialogue (Upcounsel, 2020). It is a moral business ethic to let others speak about their beliefs and faith. The above incidence referred to personal beliefs and thought of an individual. 

 The media or newspaper cannot shut down or lockdown the activities of anyone's viewpoints as there different people with different opinions. To some, climate change is perpetual, but to some environmentalists, climate change is one of the most emergent issues of the 21st century, and this needs careful attention. If the media houses do not report the real scenario of climate change that is occurring in Australia will cause massive ignorance on the ordinary people and will also ethically disturb or hamper policies of media house (Upcounsel, 2020). The article also demonstrates various viewpoints of different media houses such as News Corp Australia, the Herald, Nine newspapers, and Guardian. They explicitly point out that the public should know about what is current scenario related to climate change as there bush fires, destruction of ecosystems, fragmentation of habitat due to anthropogenic policies, and also the effect of the environment on human lives. The paper focuses on the moral code of business ethics (Jeffery, 2017). 

Analysis of one issue of the article 

In the business world, organizations should always consider their customers asking. In the media houses, the viewers are their customers and hampering the viewers from putting up their thoughts and viewpoint is morally and ethically wrong. Misha Ketchall, in his opinion, has broken the ethical rule by commenting on the shutdown and blocking the accounts of environmentalists who spread pseudo views on ecology and climate change. The business ethics pinpoints that it is a moral responsibility of an organization to let customers put their viewpoint and feedbacks (Tutorial point, 2020). 

In the above-discussed incidence, impartiality is done with the viewers as their viewpoint is not in accordance with the media house. Business ethics depicts that customer dealing should be transparent and honest. Along with it, respecting others is also an important attribute both ethically and morally.  Henceforth, no viewers' account should be locked as people of a democratic nation have freedom of speech. (Newman, 2014)

The stakeholders impact now and in the future by the issue by focusing on positive and negative impacts

The primary stakeholders of any media house are its customers and employees. The main stakeholders are:

Employees – Internal stakeholder

Viewers – External stakeholder

Investors - – External stakeholder

Unethical conduct towards viewers may affect all the stakeholders in one or the other way.

1. The Effects on the Customer

The most important and worst effects of blocking the viewers would be on the viewers’ themselves.  Such unethical behaviour will induce a feeling of intolerance and disrespect in society. Such incidences have a long-lasting impact on the complete social system (Voinea & Kranenberg, 2017).  

2. The Effects on the investors or Business

Such unethical behaviour may definitely affect the organization. The journal may lose its loyal customer and which in turn may affect their social image. It may further also reduce the financial gains of the Company.

3. The Effects on Employees

If the media organization will not allow its viewers to speak, then it would indirectly affect the employees. The employee's in the media house are working to generate news. If they will not get unbiased feedback about their news article, then I would ultimately hamper their growth and understanding (Hunter, 2014).

Recommendations to resolve the issue identified

Media is considered as the fourth pillar of democracy, and they must fulfil that promise. As business ethics, media houses or journals should cater their viewers with correct and complete information.  Being an organization policymaker the organization should understand the necessity of reporting on climate change as it matters at first. In this article, Misha Ketchell said that the media had reached its 'zero tolerance', which needs to be changed immediately. According to the business ethic, the media house should have a book of code of conduct, and it should abide by it. The media houses and journal are powerful platforms to influence society. Hence they should act responsibly. Such unethical and immoral act may have an everlasting effect on people, society and businesses (Cosmina & Hans, 2017). 

Along with government and organizations, the viewers should also be aware of the social news and should act accordingly.

Conclusion 

The ethics of Business is broken as the editor shows zero tolerance to the pseudo-environmentalist and their pseudo-science. These are perceptive and also depend on the integrated systems of human perception. The ethical problem arises when the editor wants to shut down and block these people. Any organization should always accept feedback both in the form of positive and negative. There has to be a diplomatic way to focus and demonstrate the problems that are shown by the people in the media houses. 

Article 2

Article title: Oscar Wylee fined $3.5m for making fake claims about donating glasses

Media source: Internet

Date: 2020-09-18

Overview of the article

 ‘Oscar Wylee’ is a Company having 60 online operating stores. This Company released an advertisement with a promise "Buy a pair, give a pair" to promote its sales and brand value. It was claimed falsely that during January 2014 to December 2018, the Company donated one pair of glasses to the needy person for every pair of glasses purchased by customers but in actual Company donated only 3181 frames without lenses to charity against 328010 pairs of sold glasses. It was approximately 1 set of the frame against 100 sold pairs (Chou, 2020). The Company also claimed in marketing material that it has partnered with Rose Charities for sustainable eye care programs in Cambodia and funded Lim studying to be an eye surgeon. Though the Company provided $2,000 and 100 frames to Rose Charities in 2014 in a single donation, it did not make any further donation while it continued its claim of charity for four years. 

The case came in the knowledge of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). It accused the Company of exploiting the "goodwill" and "charitable nature" of customers and the Federal Court has harsh words for the Company and fined $3.5 million for breaching the Australian Consumer Law, i.e. for misleading the consumers about its charitable activities. 

It was found that the Company did not follow business ethics and used unethical way to improve its sales by exploiting the charitable nature of consumers by false claims. The Company later ramped up its donations and released a statement regarding the issue raised by ACCC. The Company also mentioned that it had adopted the strict trade Practices Compliance Policy.

Analysis of one issue of the article

Customers are the lifeline of any organization. Organizations wishing to appeal to more customers spend billions of dollars on promoting their products. Advertising is a vital tool to promote product globally and is considered as an essential element for economic sustainability (Jeffrey, 2017). Advertisements have a colossal impact on the customers, businesses and organizations; hence it becomes the moral duty of companies to practice the code of ethics (Kumar, 2016).

Many times, companies use false information to market their product, as also depicted in the given incidence of ‘Oscar Wylee’ (Chou, 2020). Deceptive or false advertising is considered a violation of business ethics. The false advertisement is the use of some unreal or misleading statements in product promotion. 

The basics of advertising are that the advertisement should be decent, legal, and truthful. Most advertising contains both an informational component and a persuasive component. The Informative component is the information about the product. The persuasive component is any idea or belief which would pursue the customers to buy the product. Misleading advertisements may affect the consumer’s choices regarding what they buy. All companies should abide by the advertising rules as per their regions and countries (UKessays, 2018).

In the above- discussed incidence, the organization misled the consumer by using a persuasive component which is subject to ethical evaluation. In the mentioned situation ‘Oscar Wylee’ has misled the customers by exploiting their belief and goodwill. Ethically speaking, ‘Oscar Wylee’ has shown disrespect to the customers, and such advertising eventually erodes trust in the market (Ullah & Hussain, 2015).

The stakeholders impact now and in the future by the issue by focusing on positive and negative impacts

The primary stakeholders of any organization are its customers and employees. The main stakeholders of 'Oscar Wylee’ are: 

Employees – Internal stakeholder

Customers – External stakeholder

Investors - – External stakeholder

Misleading advertisements have harmful effects on stakeholders in the business world. The main effects are discussed below:

1. The Effects on the Customer

The most important and worst effects of misleading advertising are on consumers. If the customers are imparted with wrong information, then they will make a poor or uninformed decision. Due to false or misleading advertisement, the customer will waste money on unintended products. When you use such unethical advertisements for your products, then your customers will not be happy in the long run (Marco, 2018).

In the discussed incidence, the advertisement Portrayed Oscar Wylee as a socially-conscious company that made significant donations of glasses to people in need. This information turned out to be false. Thus the Company was accused of exploiting the "goodwill" and "charitable nature" of customers. The socially conscious consumers who wanted to support charitable causes were betrayed in this incidence (Chou, 2020). 

2. The Effects on the investors or Business

Unethical advertising gimmicks may work for a while, but at last, the most reputed companies may also end up by losing their customers (Heath, 2014). Misleading advertising can be fatal to businesses. As soon as the customers find out that the Company was lying, they will surely hit back. Firstly the organization will lose its loyal customer; secondly, the customers will surely spread negative stories. In the present scenario, social media have turned into a potent platform to spread information and rumours. Hence, it may sometimes turn suicidal for the Company. Last but not least; the Company may face legal action leading to financial loss. As observed in this article, the Federal Court has harsh words for the Company and fined $3.5 million for breaching the Australian Consumer Law (Chou, 2020).

3. The Effects on Employees

The employees of any organization are the front liners. They are the one who deals directly with the customers. If the customers are satisfied and happy with the product, then they will give positive feedback to the employees. On the other hand, false advertising leads to unhappy customers who in turn will pass on this negativity to the employees.  This whole process will end up with low esteemed and demotivated employees. Such employees will directly account for low productivity and thus affecting Business (Marco, 2018).

Recommendations to resolve the issue identified

These ethical issues can be addressed by the awareness of both customer and Government. The customers have the rights to be aware of what they buy, and they should act as well aware customer by looking up every minute details available (Mohhamed, 2018).

The most crucial recommendation to resolve these issues is by following stringent rules. The Federal Trade Commission should set make the companies abide by the strict rules so that these organizations do not mislead the consumers. Globally, governments globe some rules and regulations to overcome dishonest advertisements. The Government should follow ethics by following these rules (Ullah&Hussain, 2015).

Conclusion

Organizations might find it tempting to mislead customers to attract consumers for financial gains. But these financial gains are short-lived, and this strategy is terrible for the future of the Company. This kind of marketing is never appreciated, and it might obstruct the business' success.