LEG 500 Assignment 3 Ethics and Corporate Responsibility in the Workplace and the World

Ethics and Corporate Responsibility in the Workplace and the World

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Ethics and Corporate Responsibility in the Workplace and the World

Introduction

The Pharmacare is one of the world fast growing pharmaceutical companies that enjoys the reputation as a caring and ethically well-run company producing high-quality products saving many peoples’ lives, while enhancing the quality of others. In this case, the company offers free and discounted drugs to the low income middle-class consumers. Its ethics can be questioned because of its many wrong doing in the company. It maintains large manufacturing grounds at Colberia, Africa. It has found many people with indigenous cures and an abundance of residents willing to work for as low as $1.00 per day in harvesting plants and walking 5 miles with heavy baskets with the plants.

The company is known for being ethical and caring centrally to its mission. The company being stable and successful should have ability to pay its workers well, and uphold the ethical issues and the cooperate responsibility as per its success. Various ethical issues arise in this company, and hence making it unethical and unsafe for people. The paper explores the ethical issues arising in the company, the stakeholders, and the human right issues present in the Pharmacare’s treatment of the Colberian’s indigenous population. It will also recommend changes for making the company more ethical. In this case, the utilitarianism and deontology will be discussed, and used in comparison with another real world company. Finally, the paper will focus on the similarities and the differences with other real world company chosen.

Stakeholders

The stakeholders of the Pharmacare Company range from the directors, the government, the customers, and even the Colberian people who offer cheap labor for the company. The directors and the management of the Pharmacare has taken the advantage of the people, and hence using them for their personal gains. The drugs they sell cheaply to people is a form of corruption where, they educate them on healthcare, mislead them in prescription and give them drugs. Through the direct customer focused marketing, the people of Colberian have neglected any consultation from the doctors and hence they treat themselves. In this case, the Pharmacare gets cheap customers. The company employs the residents for merely $1.00 for carrying leaves and plants over long distances. The healers on the other hand are essential stakeholders in the Pharmacare scenario. They give information on the indigenous cure. They also form part of the company’s manufacturers and drug researchers (Brenkert, 2008).

Ethical issues and human rights

The ethical issues predominantly arise from personal selling, advertising, contracts and pricing. The company performs a market research that invades into customer’s privacy hence making it unethical. In this case, the research methods used must respect the people’s values and cultures. The predatory pricing and discriminating some populations such as the men in the audience selection is unethical (Brenkert, 2008).

The company’s direct marketing to consumers has led to heated discussion and debates all over the whole world. In this case, they directly promote their prescriptions to the customers hence influencing their decisions in healthcare. The direct to consumer marketing is essential in helping the company always provide the correct prescription making them more compliant. This freedom has led to over usage of drugs even in unnecessary cases, and hence unethical. It is the right of the patient to take drugs only when sick, and after thorough assessment and prescription. Many patients tend to stop relying their doctors and they instead self-treat while others suffer serious adverse effects of the unnecessary drugs (Brenkert, 2008). It is the right of the patient to receive proper assessment and prescription, and get the right medication for the condition. In this case, it is unethical for this company to directly sell their prescriptions to the customers who unnecessarily treat themselves suffering unnecessary drug side effects. In this case, many people suffer again and again without knowing the cause while it is because of the drugs.

Recommended changes

To make Pharmacare more ethical I would recommend various changes. These changes aim at making the company more human and environmental friendly. The first major way is to change the payment system and the wages given to the people. The fact that the Colberians get only $1.00 per day to work in a busy firm collecting leaves and transporting them with baskets over five miles is exploitative to the poor people of Colberia. The company must propose an excellent minimum wage for the people, and this would work towards improving the lives and livelihoods of the people, as well as, improve their economy as a country. The company should introduce more manufacturing plants too to reduce the bulk work the people do. By so doing, the infrastructure, and the electricity of the people is bound to improve (Dhillon & Ebrary, 2001).

The company must educate the people and help building of schools and sponsoring others. It helps in eradicating poverty by ensuring that many people have access to education and higher learning programs. Many educated people in the region ensure the population remain enlightened and there it will increase the awareness of the people. The company should capitalize on ensuring that the people get drugs only after prescription, and discouraging the behavior of people self-treating. In this case, the company will eradicate the existence of the adverse effects for unnecessary use of drugs with no illness or diagnosis. These changes are essential in that, they improve the lives of people of Colberia, improving their economy as a country, and help the company to grow at high pace. In this case, the company observes the human rights, ethical issues, and understands human needs. Research that includes all people rather than only children and women is essential to boost the curative abilities of the drugs, and ensure proper healthcare. The people’s livelihoods is also bound to increase with the creation of a law that takes care of the minimum wage to avoid the exploitation of the indigenous people (Dhillon & Ebrary, 2001).

Pharmacare need s to abandon its simple goal of making only profits. In this case, Pharmacare must work to embrace changes that focus on its mission and vision of quality healthcare provision. It involves pursuing those activities that show care of its clients, as well as caring for the country of their customers. The company must establish a work environment that values the cultures and values of the people respecting the laws and the regulations put for all the pharmaceutical companies. The company’s employees and the executives must train often on ethical and legal behavior, and how the company love and value the ethical behavior. Any unethical behavior must receive severe punishment for the company’s employees and stakeholders realize the seriousness of the ethical issues. These controls motivate the employees to act in ethical manners at all times in the workplace. The company must work closely with other organizations such as the Food and drug Associations and hence it will not suffer the numerous ethical lapses as currently (Dhillon & Ebrary, 2001).

Utilitarianism and Deontology

In Utilitarianism, The Pharmacare uses the intellectual property of the Colberian people. In this case, the people work hard in many harsh conditions and despite that getting low wages. The people provide cheap labor to the company, and yet they do not get the utility of the services provided by the company. The workers have no pleasure but only endure the pain of exploitation by the Pharmacare. The people depict unhappiness with their economy deteriorating day by day. The poor working conditions is bad for the indigenous residents. Equally the people’s environment is endangered by the cutting of the indigenous plants making then endangered for extinction. The company must always remain oriented to the environmental preservation for the prosperity of the people. The utility of the sentiment entities is all inclusive of the moral habits that the company upholds in its execution of provision of care to the people. It means that, the environment, the people, and the country’s economy are entities that the Pharmacare should consider and uphold moral ethics for their prosperity (Jones, Zhang, & City University of Hong Kong, 2013).

In Deontology, the company has a moral duty to execute. It ensures that the company educate the public for it to prefer its cooperative responsibility and the working conditions. In this case, the company being aware of the dangers that may arise in the society didn’t act in accordance to the ethics to mitigate the risk. This is unethical for the indigenous residents. The virtue of ethics states that, the key consideration is not the rules emphasis or the consequences of failure, but the wrong and the right analysis of the action. The character and behavior of many officials were unethical and the actions were wrong makes the company unethical in its duties of healthcare provision. In the ethics of care, since the colberian people complained over a long time, with a wrong response the entire company’s duties and projects became unethical. The company had a duty to educate the clients, carry out research, and teach the people on the negative effects of drugs as its responsibilities (Jones, Zhang, & City University of Hong Kong, 2013). The company failed in this task, and hence the whole company and employees acted unethically.

Pharmacare vs Enron

The other company that used legal technicalities to defraud and cheat investors, and engaging in unethical behaviors is the Enron Company. It deals with the energy, gas, commodities, and services. Through the mergers the company was to become the leading in the market. The profits mainly were driven by the share prices, and due to losses the company was making, led to its massive borrowing to maintain image of profitability. The Enron made losses of more than $600 million. The giant energy company collapsed due to ethical and legal technicalities. The two companies are similar in that, they both breached the peoples ethical care, and were both profit oriented than the service and ethical oriented to mission and vision. The two companies exploit the people and do not consider their mission and vision as key drivers rather than profitability. Financially the Pharmacare makes much money in the fact that, pretends to offer cheap healthcare rather they ride on the cheap labor and exploitative behaviors. On the other hand, the Enron borrows to maintain their profitability history while in the reality they make losses. Two companies need to uphold the moral entities and observe the legal and ethical considerations for the companies (Jones, Zhang, & City University of Hong Kong, 2013).

Finally, the ethical and the legal aspects of the company is essential. In this case, it protects the human rights, their environment, and their economy. The company performs the best when all the ethical issues are followed, and the right of the people preserved. The environment forms the platform where the business is carried and its preservation is very essential in business for it supports its prosperity. Exploitation of the people depletes the economy and their cost of living deteriorates in the process due to the poor wages and the working conditions. All the stakeholders are entitled to upholding the ethics and preservation of the environment. The stakeholders range from the customers, the company management, the organizations, and the indigenous residents who provide labor and market for the products. It is the role of the society members to rise and say enough is enough where the company misleads them to avoid complications (Jones, Zhang, & City University of Hong Kong, 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, ethics and the co-operate responsibility is essential because it determines the quality of services people receive. In this case, the government also have a role to play in ensuring minimum wage is set for all companies to avoid exploitation of the people. The government also and its organizations must work closely with companies to ensure the people receive the quality services. People who fail to uphold ethical behavior at work need punishment to act as a stern warning to the rest. Those with good behavior motivation is essential to encourage the culture of internal moral habits.

References

Brenkert, G. G. (2008). Marketing ethics. Malden, MA [u.a.: Blackwell.

Dhillon, G., & Ebrary, Inc. (2001). Information security management: Global challenges in the new millennium. Hershey, Pa: Idea Group.

Jones, J. C. H., Zhang, A., & City University of Hong Kong. (2013). The Patent Act and the pricing of ethical drugs in Canada: Some empirical evidence from British Columbia, 1981-1994. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Business, Dept. of Economics and Finance.