Business Ethics in Wesfarmers

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS IN WESFARMERS
BUSINESS ETHICS IN WESFARMERS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1
BUSINESS ETHICS IN WESFARMERS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Relevance of the ethics in the business ethics:.......................................................................2
Relevance of ethics in the business decision of Wesfarmers:................................................4
The way in which Wesfarmers indulges the ethics in the decision making process..............6
Relevance of maintaining ethics in small business:...............................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................9

2
BUSINESS ETHICS IN WESFARMERS
Introduction
Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian company. Headquarter of this organization is in
Perth. This organization works with Chemical, retail, fertilizers, safety products and coal
mining. Currently, the organization is operating in Australia, New Zealand. By revenue this
company can be regarded as the largest company in Australia (Booth and Coveney 2015).
Wesfarmers overtook Woolworths and BHP. The number of employees currently working in
the Wesfarmers are 220, 00. With this large number of employees and the expansion of the
business, it is necessary for Wesfarmers to maintain the proper business ethics (Crane and
Matten 2016). With the proper business ethics, the clarity in the functions for the organization
can be maintained. As the products of the Wesfarmers are needed for the various purpose, the
quality of the product is needed to be maintained (Swanson and Frederick 2016). Application
of business ethics will help maintaining the sustainability in the business of the Wesfarmers
along with that it will also help to draw the consumers to the organization. The main aim of
this paper is evaluating the application of ethics in the business decision of the Wesfarmers.
The conclusion can be drawn on the basis of the factors discussed in the passage.
Discussion
Relevance of the ethics in the business ethics:
Usually organizations commit in making positive social, economic as well as
environmental contributions to the society, these contributions are consistent with the
principles of honesty, fairness, respect and integrity. As per Crane and Matten (2016),
decisions undertaken within an organization can be done by an individual or a group of
individuals. The decision making process is influenced to great extent by the culture of the
organization especially when the organization deals with serving customers with their
products or services. Ethical concerns must be included while undertaking a decision; it must

3
BUSINESS ETHICS IN WESFARMERS
be considered that the decision that is being taken is the right course of action. According to
Pearson (2017), ethical decision making as well as corporate behavior would bring about
significant benefits to the business (Jie and Gengatharen 2018). Decision making process
must be aligned with ethical practices because they help in attracting target customers to the
products manufactured by the firm, this as a result would boost the profits and sales of the
organization. The employees get more connected with the organization, reduction in labor
turnover and hence increase the productivity of the organization (Trevino and Nelson 2016).
According to Trevino and Nelson (2016), the alignment of ethics in the process of decision
making helps an organization in attracting more employees which aspire to work for that
particular business which also reduces the recruitment cost along with enabling the company
to get hold of talented employees.
The chosen organization, Wesfarmers aim at its primary objective being able to
delivery satisfactory returns to their stakeholders with the help of financial discipline as well
as exceptional management of the diversifies portfolio of the business (Mea and Sims 2018).
This is done by implementing ethics within their decision making. Wesfarmers Way is a
specific framework that is followed by the organization for carrying out its business and take
ethical decisions. This framework comprises their core values of openness, integrity,
entrepreneurial spirit, accountability and some more. According to Siedel (2016), the
Westfarmers Way along with their code of conduct and some more policies, guide the
behavior of employees along with their process of decision making. These guidelines and
code of conduct is followed by all the departments functioning within the organization
(Wallace and Sheldon 2015). These codes of conducts and ethical guidelines have been
designed in order to fulfill their primary objectives (Jie and Gengatharen 2018). They
implement ethics in their working principles in order to approve their strategic direction of
the group for guiding as well as monitoring the management of the Wesfarmers and their