Business Ethics and Responsible Management: A Case Study on Ethical Issues Faced by a Hospitality Industry in London, UK
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This report covers a case study on ethical issues faced by a hospitality industry in London, UK. It discusses the importance of ethical issues, role of business in society, stakeholders, good and bad ethical practices, and ethical theories. It also includes a reflective essay on ethical leadership.
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Business Ethics and Responsible Management
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3 PART â 1 (A)...................................................................................................................................3 Ethical issues and its importance............................................................................................3 Ethical issues faced by the company......................................................................................3 Role of business in society.....................................................................................................4 Five stakeholders....................................................................................................................4 Examples of good and bad ethical practices...........................................................................5 Recommendation....................................................................................................................6 PART â 1 (B)...................................................................................................................................6 Discuss and apply two ethical theories together with advantages and disadvantages...........6 Recommendation....................................................................................................................8 PART â 2.........................................................................................................................................8 Reflective essay on ethical leadership....................................................................................8 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9 REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
INTRODUCTION Business ethics are the policies within a workplace which determines about right and wrong at working place in order to prevent any type of conflicts within the organisation(Bowie, 2020). Various controversial issues such as: corporate governance, bribery, fraud, discrimination and others are concerned with this term. Responsible management are such practices designed to uplift the society and environment either by boosting employee's morale at workplace or by sustaining environment(Pirson, 2020). There is a case study with this report about any hospitality industry located in London, UK facing with any ethical issue. This report is covered by middle manager and submitted to senior manager. There are two parts of this reports from which Part 1 (A) will cover aspects of ethical issues faced by a firm, how government affects business, how stakeholders affects the organisation, examples of good and bad ethics and the recommendations. Part 1 (B) will cover the ethical theories and their importance in this case, the advantages and disadvantages and recommendations about such theories for the firm. In last, this report will cover Part 2 which will cover a reflective essay about ethical leadership management. PART â 1 (A) Ethical issues and its importance Ethical issues are such issues which are aroused at a workplace due to various situations. Such issues are occur due to activities or the given decision which creates conflicts with morale of a society. Such issues are important as they norms promotes the objectives for research, research will include a major deal of coordination and combination among various people in various ways, there are many ethical norms which ensures that researchers could be accountable for the public. Ethical norms are also helpful in building public support for the research. Many norms promote various kinds of other important morale and social values such as human rights, social responsibility, animal welfare and others. Ethical issues faced by the company There are various companies which are facing problems due to ethical issues. Hospitality industries located in London, UK are in main focus for this report. Such industries deals in providing guest and tourism services(Oskam and Zandberg, 2019). The one who purchase the room is not aware about the extra charges for AC and food, here arouses the controversy. According to guests, they are wasting their money as they are booking the rooms for taking rest
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with affordable prices. They are providing with the information that they will get AC rooms with food at the set prices and cleaning. But they have to pay some amount of extra charges at the time of check out. UK parliament took a step for the research of why the industry is doing so. Is it true or not. Role of business in society Any business plays a major role for the develop of society. They are producing various goods and services according to the demand of the public. Business plays a great role in participatingintheinitiativesforthebenefitofsocietythroughthecorporatesocial responsibility(Child, 2019). It is basically a business practice which put various funds towards the firm or the people who need. This allowed the people to be more connective. Business develop its code of ethics for proper decision-making within the organisation. Business could harm society if it is operating with unethical practices. According to the given case study, the hospitality industry which is is charging extra money and the clients are somehow not aware about such terms and conditions as the manager did not provided with clear information. The company is moving in the wrong direction as it is not taking the right decisions and is creating a lot of problems for the customers. There is a negative impression at the client's mind about the policies of the hotel as the manager have not provided with the proper information. Business organisations must clear their users about what they are providing and what are available offers. Five stakeholders Stakeholders are such people who has an interest in the firm and could affect or affected by business and the business operations. They are the key for achieving business objectives and goals. Unethical business practices are impacting stakeholders in context to any hospitality industry. Following is the impact of such practices at the stakeholders: ďˇEmployees:These are the people who are working within any organisation for the achievement of decided goals. These are main assets for the company as their activities will be responsible for the future goals. They has the responsibility of manufacturing, promoting and selling of produced goods. Any unethical activity will impact the working motivation of the employees and they will find it hard to satisfy its customer needs. Employees of any hospitality industry often felt discouraged as their services are not satisfying the customers any more.
ďˇShareholders:These are the people who used to invest in the company. He could own minimum one share. If such people are informed about any unethical issue about the company, they will no more able to invest share in the company. Shareholders may decline their decisions if the share prices are not declining. It means they could stop investing according to themselves if they are not earning much from this. ďˇCustomers:These are the people who are responsible for achieving business goals. They are the one who is purchasing and using the products and services of the company and giving profit to the company. They are responsible for the increment or decrement in the overall revenue of the company. If they are not satisfied with any of the product or services, they will not prefer it and it will result as loss for the company(Lee, Lin, Chen and et. al., 2021). For the given case, here the customers are somehow unsatisfied with the service of any hospitality industry as they think there is a waste of money with the booking of such rooms which are good in facilities but have been charged extra prices for such facilities. ďˇGovernment:It is external stakeholder responsible for the collection of taxes from the company as well as from its employees and other incurs. Some of the taxes are such as: corporate income taxes and payroll taxes and sales taxes. In the given case, government has took action for the people who are facing problems due to the unethical practices of the company. It applied strict laws or subsidiarieswithdrawal which affected the business. ďˇSuppliers:These are responsible for providing raw materials or other components to the company to run its components. Businesses are depended on particular type of supplier for their finished goods. any hospitality industry may suffer with problems if they are continuously arousing problems due to unethical practices as there is a loss in its suppliers due to their loss of interest in the business as they do not want to be affected by any controversy due to any hospitality industry. Examples of good and bad ethical practices Various companies are performing well through their activities and are not under the category of bad ethics. IBM (International Business Machines) could be taken as an example of such good ethical practice as it has also been awarded with best ethical company of the world for
two years continuously. Marks and Spencer could also be taken as another example as it is dealing in retailing cloths in a good manner(Sturdy, 2022). There are also some companies which are not performing well and included under bad ethical practices. For example: Amazon, an online retailer comes under bad ethical practices as on the basis of environmental issues and supply chain management. ASDA could be taken as anotherexamplefor such practicesasitisdealingin supermarketsisbad intermsof discrimination among staff, workers and others. Recommendation It is recommended to any hospitality industry which is facing such ethical issues that it should not conduct bad practices. There are various ways through which the company could overcome with such practices: ďˇIt could stop the issues which are impacting itscustomer base by prevention of introducing such products which are creating issue to the customers. As in the given case, extra charges for the furnished rooms and misunderstanding among people and in the end there is wastage of money. ďˇThere should be a clear understanding among people about the facilities provided by the industries and the extra charges associated with that. ďˇClients should be satisfied and comfortable with the prices as per the status of hotel. ďˇThe industries could provided with the basic details over the website of the company also which will help the customers to identify the relevant information about the industry and the related facilities too. PART â 1 (B) Discuss and apply two ethical theories together with advantages and disadvantages Business ethics are the practices which allows a company in having efficient decision- making for businesses and companies have to follow it. These could be helpful for the company in enhancing productivity within the work place which will be helpful in achieving set target goals. Following is the theories of ethics which could be helpful for the company in dealing with such unethical practices: Utilitarianism
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It is an traditional ethical theory founded by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. According to this theory any action which will result as happiness is right and which will result as sadness is wrong and everyone will be affected by it. Any company should work for making the society happy instead of affecting them worst. As per Jeremy Benetham, for happiness, it is the way of providing a sense of pleasure and relief pain. This theory has main focus at the results and consequences come from the actions and doesn't involve any need for accepting action. Then it focus at the decision-making through agents. There should be a proper decision-making and not be taken by a single person's opinion there must be consideration of each factors such as: friends, family and others. The basic principle is ' greatest amount of good to the greatest number of people.' for the improvement of the society. As per the case of any hospitality industry, there is the application of this theory and it could be working towards new policies and changing the existing ones as per the demands and satisfaction of customers. This will provide the customers both with benefits and prevent with any confusion, misunderstanding or conflicts. There are benefits of this theory as it is a universal in nature it means it could be applied at various conditions or culture. It is also beneficial as it follows democratic principles which considers that outcomes for a right decision will provide happiness and wrong will provide sadness. There are also some of the major disadvantages of this theory such as it focuses at the results or not at the actions. It focuses to provide happiness but it doesn't focuses at the people who are suffering from the wrong action. It also doesn't match the happiness in concrete way as there is no measurement for the happiness. Deontology It is an ethical theory according to which there are set of good or bad actions and for clear set of goals. There is the morality of action through which the action itself consider as right or wrong under given series of rules instead of consequences. This theory was founded by Immanuel Kant providing a person with duties and responsibilities towards another society and are compulsory to be follow(Visnjic, 2021). As per Kant said, pursuing right things matter very much and in opposite to which there is harm to others with bad things. As per the given case study, this theory is applied in context to any hospitality industry involves in such activities which obeys the self-esteem of the others. There should be elimination
of the extra charges or the company should previously let its clients know about its terms and conditions in this theory in context to company so there is no wastage of money of the clients. This theory is beneficial as it is helpful in creating personal responsibility at the individual which carries compatibility in the decisions. This theory is universally applicable it means it could be applied at anywhere. There is also a disadvantage for this theory as it is unable to provide rationale basis for choosing the duty of a person or may be there is a conflict in the duties for a person. Recommendation any hospitality industry company should adopt these concepts for their controversy for the elimination of unethical practices. The company could use deontology for the required changes made in the policies of the industry and could also make some new policies or offers such as: one will get a discount of 30 per cent if they have chosen AC rooms with 3 time meal and others. PART â 2 Reflective essay on ethical leadership Ethical leadership is the leadership which demonstrates and promotes appropriate norms which are conducting through individual actions or relations. In such kind of leadership an individual have to follow set principles and values identified as a sound basis for same goodby majority of people. It could enhance productivity and brand image as it promotes employee involvement. Organizations could also able to pull customers by being true to the set missions and organisational values. If employees are loyal towards the leader and they are motivated towards the work then they feel supportive and stressless. An ethical leader have to be sure about ethical values across the organisation. He promotes effective communication, ignore bias, providesufficientexamples,abletotakeresponsibilitiesandovercomemistakes(Saha, Cerchione, Singh and et. al., 2020). An ethical leader motivates employees so that they could be able to may attention and provide a trusted role model related with treating others well. It means an ethical leader has the responsibility of developing a fair, helping and respecting attitude to its employees. In short their responsibility to to boost employee morale and make them feel exited about their work. There may be a conflict in decision-making as there is difference of interests
and this may result in to challenging thing to an ethical leader as there may be no fair resolution for the occurred conflict. Ethical leadership maintains a good and ethical working culture within the organisation. The leaders following this leadership are responsible to maintain right things and effective decisions within the workplace. Ethical culture in the organisation makes good communication about ethical norms and make sure that the people should have sustained such norms in their behaviour. An ethical leader have also the responsibility of hiring such candidates also who have the ethics in their communication(Zaim, Demir and Budur, 2021). There should be strict rules and regulations within the organisation and following of such rules are make sure by an effective leader. By following such rules employees will be able to maintain discipline at workplace and will clearly focus at the work so that overall performance of the organisation could also be improved. An ethical leader guides, helps and supports, motivates and puts other responsibilities for the development of effective team and overall growth of the organisation. I could be an ethical leader as per my experience as I have the ability to divide people according to their capabilities and make an efficient team. I am able to maintain a motivation and team spirit among the team members so that they could work effectively. I am successfully able to maintain effective communication with the team so that I get to know with their issues and could further take actions to resolve it. It is my nature to be nice with everyone and respect them so that they feel comfortable and able to work freely. I am also a good listener I listen to the opinion of each member and make them avail for decision-making. This will allows the members to be in a good relationship with each other and also with me. I am also able to make positive and favourable decisions for the team by following the ethical codes of my company. I recheck all the process and final decision before applying it so that if there is any mistake it could be resolved with time. This whole things enables me in having a good and leading team as according to me I could be a good ethical leader who guides, supports, helps, listens and motivates team members. CONCLUSION It could be concluded from the above report that business ethics determines about right and wrong at working place in order to prevent any type of conflicts. For the enhancement of employee morale, there should be responsible management at the workplace. Ethical issues are occur due to activities or the given decision which creates conflicts with morale of a society.
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There may be various reason for its arousal. Businesses plays a great role towards society as it is producing various kinds of goods and services according to the demand of the public. But according to the given case study, the hospitality industry is charging extra money from the clients and did not providing with the information previously. The industry could make efforts and change in the policies, terms and conditions of the business to overcome with the problem.
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