Organizational Ethics Assignment in PDF

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS
ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS
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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the issues in the stakeholders management of the profit
making scenario in one of the most reputed company in Australia namely Retail Food Group.
This paper will be analyzing two effective theories to analyze the issues and how the company
can solve these problems effectively. These two theories are stakeholder theory and ethical
leadership framework (Cavanagh et al. 2017). These two concepts will be helping Retail Food
Group to operate successfully in the market of the country and regain the lost reputation by
saving the other stakeholders.
Key issues:
The main issues that the company has been facing are
 The incapability to handle the responsibility of the stakeholders mainly the other
acquisitions (Fassin, De Colle and Freeman 2017). The acquisitions like Donut King,
Gloria Jean's, Brumby's, Crust Gourmet Pizzas, Pizza Capers and Michel's Patisserie all
are complaining on the ability of the company. This company has more than 15
acquisitions operating in the same market which includes the manufacturers and
distributors like Pizza Capers, Crust Gourmet Pizzas, Café2U, coffee chain Gloria Jean's,
DiBella Coffee and Hudson Pacific and many other. This serious player like Retail Food
Group started the business with a great effort and earned reputation by connecting many
of the new acquisitions. Now the company has gone through a tough time as there are
many instances of unethical measures taken by this company relating their business with
the stakeholders which does not ascribe with the stakeholder theory.

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 There are systematic wage fraud with the part time workers in the company and attempt
to cut cost for preserving margins. In addition to this the franchises have also pointed out
that the company used to spy on them to observe their performance. The first and most
issue is related to the under payment process to the foreign employees who work in the
company as part time employees and hired on the holiday visas. This became a stress
situation for the company when this incident were reveled in the international media.
These workers were not been paid properly in order to cut the rising labor costs and this
issue was taken into concern in the annual meeting. Here the ethical leadership
framework can be applied (Jones 1991). The issues with the stores include lack of
support from the head office of RFG regarding the payment and other facilities. This led
the reducing of the quality of food and services to the customers this has led the stores to
lose their loyal customers within very short period of time. The stores had manipulated
their sales for avoiding the royalties charged by the Retail Food Group in case of each of
the transaction.
 These unethical initiatives of RFG had led the store owners to lose their motivation and
all their investment turned into ashes. This inability to manage the stores had led many of
these store owns to sell their stores but no one was ready to buy these stores. Finally the
company had followed the process of buying stores for a fraction of original sale price to
place them on the market gain for sale in more price. According to the stakeholder
theory, the company while operates on market is responsible to meet the expectation of
the stakeholders and take care of the fact that these stakeholders do not face unethical
measures by the company (Jones, Wicks and Freeman 2017). In this case of RFG, all the
franchise, employees and customers are being ill-treated (Bosses et al. 2019). Similarly,

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the ethical leadership theory, the company needs to respect and serve the stakeholders,
show justice, manifest honesty and thus build a community. However, in this case, the
franchises are not respected, served and found a little bit of honesty from the side of RFG
while operating with it.
Recommendation:
In this case, the survival in the industry as well as competing in the market have become
impossible for RFG. In order to solve these issues, the company needs to take some very
important steps. These include:
Firstly, the company must apologies to all the franchise and acquisitions for the inconvenience.
These acquisitions have tried to reach the head of RFG through letters and mails but they got no
active answers from the part of the company. The company needs to return the investment in any
way or at least return a percent of the whole amount so that the acquisitions can pay their debts.
This will help the company to gain the trust back from the acquisitions.
Secondly, the employees who are working with the companies a part time or full time jobs must
be provided with the rest of the amount they claim. This will motivate them in working with this
company. This will also reduce the attraction rate and loss of skill in the human resource. This is
a pores of convincing them to get the training for a high standard of service and producing food
up to the standard quality. This the issues of employees and food quality will be solved. This is
also connected with the welfare of the customers also where they will find the high quality food
at cheaper price.
Thirdly, in order to monitor the company was accused to use spy which is very much immoral
and ethical (Miles 2017). This can be a reason why this company can come under the legal

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problems.it will be solved only when the company will be asking for reports and other evidenced
from the franchises.
Finally, the action of buying and selling of the stores is an unethical process which this particular
company was taking for a long period of time. The high price of franchise fee to use the right of
RFG brand as well as the training fees are all against the growth of the stakeholders. As the
stakeholder theory opines, the scope for business is to be developed in such a way that the
wellbeing of the stakeholders are seen.

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the unethical initiative taken by one of the most
reputed Australian Financial Service Provider IOOF Holdings Limited. This company has been
operating under the financial market of the country for long but it has been used for carrying on
different unethical initiatives by cheating the customers as well as the government. In the
investigation different layers of financial fraud has been found which has not only affected the
customers who put their trust in this particular company regarding their financial operations but
also the government because the company has a great control of the finances in the market.
Unethical actions in dealing with the clients as well as the employees.
Key issues:
 The problems in this particular company is not related to the financial aspect only but
also the human resource management. The issues associated with IOOF Holdings
Limited is not only related to the financial fraudulent but also an ethical decision making
regarding the human resource management. The company has not accepted the
accusations regarding corruption cover fraud and unethical firing of the important
employees without any particular evidence (Gehman, Lefsrud and Fast 2017). According
to egoism, a normative ethical theory, this company has a great brand image in the
financial services in Australia with a huge market share. The company gets support from
the government in order to get the funds under management advice supervision and
administration (Banerjee 2011). It has more than thousand financial planners working
constantly for the growth of the company. This company if gets targeted by the

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government for its unethical measures will affect the livelihood as well as retirement of a
huge portion of workforce.
 The issues of IOOF Holdings Limited is also related to several new merger and
acquisitions. This company controls more than 150 billion dollars of investor funds and
uses 1200 financial planners to deal with the technology courtesy of the acquisitions as
well as low cost research department. It has bought Bridges Financial Services, Lonsdale,
Ord Minneett and Shaforth. This had made the company the second largest non-Bank
financial planning network in Australia. This is completely opposing the stakeholder
theory because the merger and acquisition who are depending upon the business of this
particular company are its responsibility (Bolton, Houlihan and Laaser, 2012). The
company not only affected the business of these acquisitions but also show end to work
with the ANZ to sell its OnePath Pensions and Investments business to this particular
company at a very low price.
 The issues related to this particular company is an ethical decision made against the
honest and skilled employees within the organization. This company had focused upon
the lower level employees in such a manner that let them to forget about the clients and
the government which is opposing the ethics mentioned in the welfarism, and ethical
theory for effective business (Ciulla 2005). Here the problems include fraud management
cover-ups, forgery, low ball offers of compensation to the customers, poor advice, insider
trading, front running by employees and many other extremely serious problems. These
are clearly seen by the employees from lower level to the uppermost level and some of
them initiated steps to reveal these facts to the Fairfax authority and the government. This
is the reason why these whistle blowers were immediately fired from the company in the

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excuse of poor performance (West 2018). Any question against the corruption in the
company was immediately stopped so that thee fraudulent actions cannot be known to the
customers or the media. This means that the company has no regard for the rule of law
and work only for profit and not for the Welfare of the customers or other stakeholders.
According to virtue ethics theory, the leaders need to be virtuous as the subordinates
follow them to learn virtue (Newstead et al. 2018). They are the ideal persons to be
followed and get trainings to make the organisational operation ethical but in the case of
IOOF Holdings, the upper level management is highly corrupt and sue those employees
who question the corruption or whistle blow.
Recommendations:
Corruption is bad for business that poses different operational financial and operational
risks in order to solve this issue faced by IOOF, the company needs to follow some very
important and essential steps ascribed in the virtue ethics theory.
Firstly, the company must follow virtue ethics theory. By knowing the virtue of honesty only,
it can solve the problems hence must allow Change management to take place in the organization
show that the corruption among the high level and low level employees can be pointed out easily
(Koehn 2019). The change management can also help in changing the policies within the
company where the existing policies giving scope for fraudulent behavior and corruption in the
human resource will be eliminated and replaced by the new and ethical policies.
Secondly the problem of insider trading can be illuminated through perfectly virtuous
strategies. The best practices to prevent illegal insider trading within the company can be
handled with restriction of risky trading. The Change management here by changing policy so

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that risky trading tendency can be prevented (Joslin 2019). In order to stop Insider trading
appointment of an in-house watch dog is needed. A new department will be developed which
will monitor every steps taken by the managers and the other low level employees.
Thirdly the change management based on virtue ethics will ensure that the employees are
educated about the corruption level of the company and how much it costs in the future. Proper
education of insider trading and other types of corruption in which the company was entangled
must be known to every employee at every level. By having information about this correction the
number of whistle-blowers will be increasing which will reveal other layers of corruption from
every nook and corner of the company’s operation. These employees if get proper training can
act quickly to investigate the insider trading and other fraudulent behavior of the risky upper
level management operation.
Finally, the anti-corruption initiatives must be defined properly where development of goals and
strategies show the importance of these policies based on virtue ethics. This will lead the
company to implement perfect anti-corruption programs integral throughout the value chain.
After implementation measurement and monitoring of the impact of the Anti-Corruption policies
is needed so that the management can identify how much work is done and who what still needs.
Through proper communication with the employees and other stakeholders can help this
company to overcome the issues of corruption and strive for continuous improvement. All of
these measures can guide this organization to get rid of the defamation due to corruption and
fraudulent actions but regain trust.

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the unethical initiative taken by an internationally
reputed aged care center situated in Australia. This unethical incident has taken place in the
highly expensive aged care home of British United provident Association operative in in the
Healthcare industry in many countries of the world. In this paper, the Kantian theory of ethics
will be a discussed. According to this theory the ethical law is determined by the concept of Duty
according to the theorist the only virtue which can be qualified as good as the Goodwill
(McGhee and Grant 2017).
Ethical issues:
 In the aged care home that has been established by BUPA in the suburb in the northern
Sydney, is accused for taking various unethical measures against the clients for the aged
people residing there. Here the main stakeholders are these agent presidents who are
disabled to work for themselves but need help every moment in their lives. as their
relatives are not being able to take care of these aged people, they have put their trust
upon the facilities provided by this particular is it home. Here there is a limited number of
workers present in this duty. This can be explained through Agency theory. This is a
principle, used to explain and resolve the issues in the relationships between the business
principals and the agents (Kostova, Nell and Hoenen 2018).
 The brand image of BUPA has increased the expenses for their offerings and facilities to
their clients but in the real scenario the evidences are collected which are showing a
completely opposite image. Starting from their food to their medication all are below the
expected level where the relatives are finding the food given to their parents having

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lowest quality. These elder residents do not get timely help from the stuffs but have to
wait for long to be washed or given medicines. They are not provided with proper clean
clothes and clean bathrooms which are affecting their health questioning the ability of
this organization. Here the connection can be made in terms of role ethics where the
concept of family roles are more dominating in the behaviour of the people around the
individuals (Kostova, Nell and Hoenen 2018). Some of the evidences point out the fact
that some of the elderly residents where severely beaten by the stuffs responsible to take
care of them. Now the question of ethical decision making and meeting all the promised
requirements of these clients is not answered by the organization. Here the need for
employees have been shown by the relatives of these residents but the organization has
taken no steps.
 The organization gets Full support from the ministry of aged care both legally as well as
financially. In spite of all these this organization takes a huge amount of fees from these
customers but does not provide service accordingly. this is purely a case of fraudulent
behavior from the part of the organization which has lead it to be closed for 6 months
until it shows proper evidences to nullify these accusations. The Organization was
established with the aim to act for the well-being of the elderly people but ultimately it
has ended with the complete chaos and immoral venture. The issues are completely
opposing the Kantian theory of ethics because the organization were meant for taking
care of the aged people which is a duty of rational beings. According to this theory, an
effortlessly rational being must be moral as a rational being individually finds it
important to do what is rationally essential. Here the organization is promising the

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relatives to take care of their clients but actually there are some evidences of criminal
activities against these aged residents.
Recommendation:
In order to overcome this crisis BUPA needs to utilize its sources in a proper way.
Firstly, the company needs to follow Kantian theory of ethics to solve the shortage of employee
in the aged care homes situated in 70 different parts of the entire country. This is a reputed
company therefore it will be able to recruit more dependable persons to work for it. In that case
the company can collaborate with different Non-governmental organizations who are working
for the aged care systems in Australian market. The company therefore can utilize the human
resource of those NGOs in order to take immediate steps.
Secondary an immediate action to build a team for investigation needs to be taken which
connects the rationality mentioned in the Kantian theory. The employees against whom charges
has been brought by the patient’s relatives need to be handed over to this team (Bosse and
Phillips 2016). They will be under observation and interrogated properly so that the already
working employees who possess the same mentality of beating or hurting the elderly residents
can be found out and sued.
Thirdly, as the theory of Immanuel Kant has pointed out, the idea of good will behind every
action is the only truth, the company needs to focus more on the investment in developing proper
infrastructure which it promises to provide to the clients. Here Goodwill cannot be replaced with
profit making initiatives because the aged Care industry needs organization who actually poses
the intention to serve the disabled aged helpless people and not only making profit through
various policies. In order to save the name of this brand the company immediately needs to

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invest more on the aged care system in many ways otherwise it cannot survive in the Australian
market.
Finally BUPA needs to compensate the Victim residents in their aged care home and take their
responsibilities in terms of treatment. This company has its origin in the Healthcare insurance
therefore it can arrange insurance for these aged victims as a kind of remuneration. This will
create a scope for apology not only in a verbal way but also show in actions. The assurance of
providing a quality service will only be e established through this process. This will enable the
government to start trusting this company again and the company will regain its position in the
market within few years.

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