Responsible Business at Coca-Cola: Ethics, CSR, and Recommendations

This case study delves into Coca-Cola's approach to responsible business, examining its ethical practices, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and overall impact on society and the environment. It explores the company's current strategies, including its efforts to refresh the world and create a difference through its beverages and various community programs. The analysis incorporates the deontological ethics theory, emphasizing the importance of respecting human rights and treating individuals with dignity. The case study also highlights instances where Coca-Cola has faced accusations of unethical behavior, such as anti-competitiveness and racial discrimination, and discusses the company's attempts to address these issues. Furthermore, it provides recommendations for improving Coca-Cola's ethical reputation, including developing clear ethical standards and promoting community involvement. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of ethical conduct in business and suggests that responsible businesses should avoid causing harm to the environment or exploiting their workforce. Desklib offers a range of resources, including similar case studies and solved assignments, to support students in their academic pursuits.

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

TABLE OF CONTENT
• Introduction
• What is responsible business?
• Current approach to responsible business
• Ethical theory
• Success and/or failure rate upholding their code of ethics or conduct
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• References

INTRODUCTION
• Business ethics can be represented as the
implementation of right business policies as well as
practices concerning controversial subjects such as
insider trading, corporate governance,
discrimination, bribery, corporate social
responsibility, along with fiduciary responsibilities.
• It showcases the general guideline that organizations
can select to follow to achieve public approval.
• It helps in generating a certain level of trust exist
between customers and several kind of market
participants with organizations.
• This presentation considers the company Coca-Cola
which is also known as Coke.

WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS?
• Business responsibility is also named as corporate
social responsibility or corporate responsibility.
• Responsible business is that organisation that
benefits society and considers negative influences it
might have on people, society as a as planet.
• The responsible business aims to create positive
impact on the society.
• They take responsible decisions while ensuring the
considerations of environmental and social
influences are balanced against those of financial
aspirations.
• Being responsible business can also be understood as
being sustainable organisation.
• The responsible organisation can generate greater
trust while strengthening its bonds with its
stakeholders on each and every level.

CONTINUE
• As per the viewpoint of Kelly O' Brien and Shyam
Kamath (2020), responsible business does the
practices of developing customer value with the help
of active concern for people, equity, ethics and
environmental impacts while operating business with
lucrative processes.
• By focusing on profit, an organisation fixes its
financial sustainability as without making a
reasonable amount of profit a business cannot
run or survive, so the main role of responsible
businesses to make sure that the organisation
returns a profit while indulging income to grow
and survive.

CURRENT APPROACH TO RESPONSIBLE
BUSINESS
• In respect of Coca-Cola company, they aim to refresh
the world while creating the difference by serving
their beverages to its customers.
• The company manufacturing and selling beverage
concentrates, syrups as well as finished beverages by
generating net operating revenues by commercial
syrups and concentrates to authorized bottling.
• It is spreading its services by operating its business
through Costa Limited which has approximately
4000 coffee houses in UK, China and other markets
throughout the Asia, Europe, Africa and many more.
• This company also claims that its customers enjoy
its finished beverage items which is owned and
licensed by Coca-Cola.
• It also claims to be best-positioned to grow and
survive in a fast changing place of market.

CONTINUE
• The portfolio of coca cola company also covers some
of the major valuable beverage brands around the
world such as Ayantaka green tea, Adani waters,
Fanta, AdeS soy-based, Gold Peak teas and coffees,
Del Valle juices and nectars, Minute maid juices,
innocent smoothies and juices, Simply juices, Sprite
and many more.
• They also intend to create employment opportunities
with 7,000,000 people around the world while
serving beverages through 30 million customer retail
outlets in more than 200 nations.
• They are exploiting their leadership to attend positive
change in the globe while generating a more
sustainable future for the planet and communities.

THEORY OF ETHICS:
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS
• This theory was related with the father of modern
deontology, Immanuel Kant, he was recognized for
the " Categorical imperative" that seeks for other
transcendent principles that can be applied to all
people.
• The key objective behind this theory is that people
should be treated with respect and dignity because
they have rights.
• This theory emphasized that human beings have a
duty to respect the rights of other people while
treating them accordingly.
• The key concept is that there are aspiration
obligations and duties that are needed by all human
beings.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
• Corporate social responsibility is the concept of
management where business entities combine
environmental and social concerns in their
organizational operations and interactions with their
different kind of stakeholders.
• In case of Coca-Cola company, to engage in
corporate social responsibility activities means that,
in the ordinary course of corporate business, an
organisation is operating in manners that improves
environment and society instead make negative
impact on them.

CONTINUE
• The Coca-Cola Company also aims to improve the
lives of human beings from its employees to those
who are touch with their organisation. There are
various steps which are going to be initiated and
some of them are already started to being a
responsible business.
• It is found that since 2010, the organisation is paying
attention on enhancing community access to water as
well as sanitation. It also aims to promoting against
hygiene behaviours to create positive influences on
health and development.
• They also create a better future for women
entrepreneurs while giving them training and access
to financial services.

SUCCESS AND/OR FAILURE RATE UPHOLDING
THEIR CODE OF ETHICS OR CONDUCT
• It is found that the respective organisation has been
accused of its unethical behaviour in a range of areas
such as anti-competitiveness, channel stuffing,
product safety, distributor conflicts, pollution health
concerns, racial discrimination and many more.
• It is also seen that the company dealt with such
issues some via court battles and private settlements
and many of them are remain unresolved.
• The chosen organisation is also looking to revise its
plans and strategies through social responsibility
steps, company diversity as well as brand expansion.

CONTINUE
• Some of the main concern is contamination scare. Earlier, it was seen that Belgian children became sick after
consuming the products of company. This sickness was caused due to the improper process of carbon dioxide in
its products. The company was also very slow to respond such issue and taking many days to consider the
medium.
• Another issue is of competitive issue: Earlier times, government enquiries into the organizations, marketing
strategies and plans plagued to the business throughout Europe. European countries have strict antitrust laws, and
all organizations must focus to market share and its position when addressing mergers, joint ventures or any kind
of acquisitions. It is seen that the company lost a court case due to its anti-competitive prices and practices.
Additionally, a strong arm strategies were seen in violation of EU laws where the company demonstrated its lack
of awareness of European laws and culture.
• Allegations of racial discrimination, many African American employees sued Coca-Cola company for racial
discrimination. The company AC used for discriminating in areas of promotion, wages and performance
evaluation.