Ethical Issues and Responsible Management in Ladbrokes: A Case Study

Business Ethics and
Responsible Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1 – A (REPORT)..................................................................................................................3
1. Ethical issue or issues..............................................................................................................3
2. Role of business in society......................................................................................................4
3. Five Stakeholders....................................................................................................................5
4. Examples of good and bad ethics............................................................................................6
5. Recommendations...................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
PART 1 – B (TWO THEORIES).....................................................................................................8
1. Describe the theories...............................................................................................................8
2. Application of theories............................................................................................................8
3. Critical analysis of theories..........................................................................................................9
4. Recommendations........................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
PART 2 (REFLECTIVE ESSAY).................................................................................................11
1. Ethical leadership management in organisational culture.....................................................11
2. Analysis of how to maintain integrity and compliance in business environment.................11
3. Reflection on own experience and knowledge......................................................................11
4. Conclusion.............................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Business ethics refers as the policies and practices that organisations follow in order to
ensure ethical working within firm. These includes some potentially controversial subjects such
as discrimination, corporate governance, fiduciary responsibilities, insider trading, corporate
social responsibility and bribery (Buchanan, 2017). Managing responsibly can be defined as an
integrative approach to ethics, sustainability and responsibility that enables administrators to deal
with such challenges in an effective and competent way. This report consists of two parts, that
are ethical issues and theories and the reflective essay. Part 1 is based upon a case study of
Ladbrokes: The online way to save your job which includes ethical issues that company faced,
impact of those issues on society, affect of ethical problems on stakeholders and
recommendations based on that. Moreover, ethical theories and their application in context of
business are included. Part 2 is a reflective essay which covers Ethical leadership management
and the way business maintains integrity and compliance in business environment. At last
reflection on own learning and experience along with conclusion are included in report.
PART 1 – A (REPORT)
1. Ethical issue or issues
The present report is based on the Ladbrokes case study and its main purpose is to
determine the various issues that company faced due to the different unethical practices in which
the organisation is indulged and the way these impacts on society and its stakeholders (Corlett,
2016). In context of Ladbrokes, it is identified that the firm is becoming the victim of
predominant closure of gambling shops according to the instructions rendered by government.
The employees are being fired on the continuous basis by the top most authority of the
organisation. At workplace, this developed interest if conflict as the firm is now opting for
unethical activities or practices for firing employees, In United Kingdom, the employment rate
was also negatively impacted by this as due to closure of 1000 shops from 3500, there were
around 5000 people who loose their job (Ladbrokes Coral fined after customer lost £98,000,
2019). In that situation, the unethical practice that was conducted by business was to choose
particularly some people to terminate them. Customer service managers are the main target of
company for coping up with the huge loss. They are judged partially based on the performance
in online test which is responsible for 40 percent of their score, whereas that past disciplinary

record is count for 10% and face to face interview is 20%. The further score of 30% is based on
the figures of customers they can persuade to open online account (Ladbrokes staff told to sign
gamblers to online accounts to avoid redundancy, 2019). The company asked to its staff
members to take advantage of assailable individuals and urge them to set up their online account.
The employees of company are dissatisfied for the practice of being judged on the basis of
encouraging gamblers to open up their online accounts. This is the ethically wrong practice that
is conducted by company as it creates a dilemma for employees to indulge directly or indirectly
in an unethical practice of influencing gamblers to set up their account for securing their job
(James, 2017). These entire activities has affected adversely on the brand image of business
entity in market place. Apart from this, the company also indulged its customer service managers
in unethical activities. Middle manger of Ladbrokes have been developed this report to his/her
senior manager with the aim of aware them regarding the entire scenario of conducting unethical
practices by firm and the problems they are going through. This report focused mainly on ethical
issues that are determined in Ladbrokes related to restructuring of its manpower. In the overall
scenario, the company has focused to retain only those staff members who enabled to influence
more gamblers towards online gambling by set up their account. This issue harms the image of
company as it is indulged in gambling practices for its own profits which is totally unethical.
2. Role of business in society
It is the social responsibility of every organisation which is operating in business
environment to perform its all activities in a manner that it can not harm the society and people
living in it (Pennock, 2015). But, the practice of influencing people to set up gambling account
impacts adversely on society. The customers lost huge amount of money in gambling activities,
they are being harmed and the money which is stolen flowing through the business. The
unethical practices of Ladbrokes resulted in closure of thousands of shops which leads to creates
unemployment and impacts negatively on employees of company and people of society as well
as their quality of life is also impacted. One of the main issue of gambling is that the gamblers
get into huge debt and their family members, colleagues and friends directly affected with it.
This may leads to breakdown in many family relations and children and other members of
society are being victim of it.