Ethics in Business: An Analysis of Amazon's Practices (MOD003325)

This report provides an executive summary and in-depth analysis of business ethics, specifically focusing on the practices of Amazon. The introduction highlights the importance of academic and professional skills within an organization, emphasizing business ethics as a core component. The report then delves into an analysis of Amazon's ethical stance, examining the perspectives of the CEO, workers, and consumers. It discusses whether ethics should be the main priority for an organization, providing insights into tax avoidance, worker treatment, and consumer perceptions. The conclusion summarizes the findings, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices for all stakeholders. The report offers recommendations for Amazon, including increased awareness of ethical guidelines and the implementation of new policies. Finally, the report includes a list of references to support its arguments. This report highlights the critical role of ethics in business operations and its impact on an organization's reputation and success.

MOD003325 Academic
and Professional Skills

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Academic and professional skills are essential fore on aviation and periods which is to be
considered as integral part of business. So, the present report gives a brief knowledge about the
importance of ethics within the organisation, ethics in context of workers, politicians and
consumer. It is important to prioritising ethics at workplace so that functions and operations are
carried out in most appropriate manner. Moreover, it has become also important ensure that
everyone in the organisation work with ethics and values. So, it is essential to analyse and
examine whether the donation properly follows ethics or not.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................1
Discuss whether the CEO of Amazon thinks ethics should be the main priority of an
organisation............................................................................................................................1
Discuss whether the workers think ethics should be the main priority of an organisation....2
Discuss whether consumers think ethics should be the main priority of an organisation......3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Academic and professional skills are essential in organisation as they help in achieving
the goals and objectives. It is also necessary to be aware about the organisational behaviour
culture values and other elements which drive the organisation (Shetty and Moorthy, 2020).
Amazon, a multinational operation and online retailers headquartered in US. Business ethics is
important and is defined as study of business policies practices principles that the organisation
need to follow. It is also code of conduct which is needed to be adopted by every entity. The
given case study depicts that Amazon has not been following business ethics as they are avoiding
tax from a long time and also employee are being paid below the living wage (Painter, Hibbert
and Cooper, 2019). Although, tax avoidance is not illegal but also, it is not ethical in the business
sectors.
With the rising problem discussions is being undertaken about the importance of ethics
amongst different people and members of the organisation. The company deals in online retailing
cloud technology artificial intelligence etc. As it is has been considered as it has been considered
as largest technology company they need to focus on there are ethics as well as values so that
management working style and goodwill increases. If comparing it with Google, they properly
follow business ethics and work accordingly for example- they provide fair wages to their
employees and additional benefits too (de Bakker, Rasche and Ponte, 2019). So, the main aim
and objective of this report is to highlight the value and importance of business ethics as well as
how the organisation can use it at workplace in retaining employees. By going through this
report, it will give a brief knowledge about study of ethics and values which are the core asset of
entity.
ANALYSIS
Discuss whether the CEO of Amazon thinks ethics should be the main priority of an
organisation.
A Chief Executive Officer, abbreviated as CEO, is acknowledged to be the highest
ranked official within the boundaries of an organisation who holds the prime responsibilities
such as taking crucial corporate decision, management of overall business operations and the
management of the wide variety of resources pertinent to the company. The CEO of a company
tends to act as the linking pin between the Board and the corporate operations (Werhane, 2019).
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They serve as the public face for the organisation who is elected by the shareholders as well as
the Board of Directors. The CEO is the one who provides a direction in the form of vision to an
organisation and its representatives. As a result of this, employees get the direction in which they
have to act. However, when the leadership under the guidance of which workforce operates is
unethical or unlawful, it has a severe impact on them. In relation to Amazon, it can be said that
the CEO of this company, Jeff Bezos, supported and facilitated several illegal and unethical
things to take place within the confines of the company (Crane and et. al., 2019). Although he
agrees to the point that ethics should be the main priority for a business entity, he himself failed
to follow the same within the bounds of Amazon.
Under the leadership of Jeff Bezos, Amazon engaged and still continues to engage in tax
avoidance in many parts of the globe. Workers under his leadership have claimed to have been
treated badly and paid compensation below the living wage rate (Arnold, Beauchamp and Bowie,
2019). In addition to this, there are severe working conditions that the workers are posed to
within the warehouses of this entity. The issue was reported in The Guardian in May of 2018.
The warehouse of Amazon which was on for the investigation was Rugeley near Birmingham
which witnessed a total of 118 ambulance call out in a time period of almost 3 years (Moriarty,
2019). This indicates that the entity over the course of time has been accused and publicly
defamed of being involved in unethical or unlawful situations even when they could be
stringently avoided to a large extent (Freeman and Greenwood, 2020). All of this happened
under the jurisdiction of the CEO of the company who realised the significance of abiding by the
business ethics, however still continued to avoid its implementation in the business premises by
him or the employees.
Discuss whether the workers think ethics should be the main priority of an organisation.
Workers are regarded as the most important asset of an organisation. They are the ones
whose individual goodwill is attached with the reputation and stake of the company. In case the
entity gets indulged in any unethical or unlawful activity, it automatically dampens their image
in the society too even when they were not involved in the act in the first place (Ferrell and et.
al., 2019). Thus, it is one of the prime concerns of the employees functioning within the bounds
of an organisation to ensure that ethics is the main priority for the company.
With respect to Amazon, one of the world’s biggest e-commerce websites of the world,
the employees have the desire to have access to an ethical and positive working atmosphere.
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However, contrary to this, the respective company is reported to have severe working conditions
in its warehouses which have caused problems to and for the employees. Further, there are
several cases of call outs for ambulance for the workers (Ciulla, 2020). Additionally there is
pressure over the workers to meet their delivery targets in the allotted time frame while some of
the employees have claimed that it becomes almost impossible to do so as the number of target
deliveries are beyond the acceptable and feasible limit sometimes. Some of the employees have
even reported that they are not treated well and not given acceptable wage rates which can ensure
standard living conditions for them (Mea and Sims, 2019). This implies that Amazon gets
indulged in unethical as well as unlawful activities against the intention of the workers to work in
an ethical organisational premise. When workers get access to a positive and ethical working
culture and atmosphere, this tends to have a positive impact over their motivational levels. As a
result of this, they are facilitated to themselves work in an ethical manner, thereby enhancing
their productivity levels by a significant margin. It is required of Amazon to ensure the
development of an ethical atmosphere whereby employees feel empowered and possess trust in
the entity regarding the safety of their individual reputation.
Discuss whether consumers think ethics should be the main priority of an organisation.
In context with the consumers, they are the sources through which on organisation gain
profit and sell their product in the market. So consumer think that ethics are essential and early to
be priority of an organisation because they have a perception that entity without business ethics
is not real and developer negative thinking about them (Ciulla, 2020). It is important to focus on
consumer demand requirements so that profit ratio increases at rapid scale. With the changing
period time perception of consumers is also changing and as there level of priority is also
becoming socialized. Without values and regulations or practices it is not possible to attract
consumers or sell the product in the market. In reference with Amazon, they have a large number
of customers and consumers across the globe; so, it is responsibility and duty to fulfil their
demands with appropriate measures and practices with proper following the regulations. In
market, ample numbers of entities are present but it is necessary to identify which company
actually run their business with ethics and code of conduct or not (James, 2019).
This is because entity which follows the ethics and values within the business is to be
considered as potential enterprise who to work with rules and regulations. Moreover, entity that
does not follow the ethics is not able to provide quality of services and products to their
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consumers for customers (Ciulla, 2020). Consumers mostly have negative feedback to such
entities and have a fear of getting bad quality product or losing their invested money.
CONCLUSION
After a brief analysis of above report, it has been concluded that without having
professional skills it is not possible for entrepreneurs to follow the ethics or values at workplace.
Moreover ethics is important for consumers, politicians, workers and owner of enterprise. This
results in elimination of various problems and issues also so it leads to mutual cooperation and
coordination between management and employee. By using appropriate academic and
professional skills it is easy to understand the business ethics and values which could be applied
within the management in proper manner. Also, it is possible for the manager to making sure that
rules and regulations are being followed properly by the enterprise so that problems do not occur
in near future. Furthermore, it also shows that a positive relationship is being established when
organisation operate their function and operations in effective way by considering the priority of
ethics at top level. It has been also seen it increases the goodwill and image of the brand.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After examining the above report certain recommendations are needed to be required
which will be beneficial for organisation and are discussed below-
 It is recommended that Jeff Bezos, need to be active and aware about the changing rules
and regulation as well as practices which are essential for growth and development.
 After going through the report it has been also recommended that to eliminate the risk
and challenges and increase the goodwill of the brand it is essential to develop suitable
practices and follows the business ethics in proper way.
 Another recommendation is HR manager of the company should formulate and regulate
new policies and procedures so that work is being carried out with proper consideration.
 Also, it is being recommended that to established a positive relationship between the
government, company should be responsible and maintain their transactions so that tax
are being paid with accurate information as well as data.
 Moreover, they should hire the business or marking consultants who will provide them
strategies and tactics how to use business ethics as a tool to increase the sustainability of
the business.
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So, from the above stated recommendations it has been seen that to achieve the growth
and development as well as goodwill across the globe it is important for choose an entity to
understand the importance of business ethics and use them at workplace.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arnold, D.G., Beauchamp, T.L. and Bowie, N.E., 2019. Ethical theory and business. Cambridge
University Press.
Ciulla, J.B., 2020. Business ethics as moral imagination. In The Search for Ethics in Leadership,
Business, and Beyond (pp. 121-129). Springer, Cham.
Ciulla, J.B., 2020. Business ethics as moral imagination. In The Search for Ethics in Leadership,
Business, and Beyond (pp. 121-129). Springer, Cham.
Ciulla, J.B., 2020. The importance of leadership in shaping business values. In The Search for
Ethics in Leadership, Business, and Beyond (pp. 153-163). Springer, Cham.
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S. and Spence, L., 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate
citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press, USA.
de Bakker, F.G., Rasche, A. and Ponte, S., 2019. Multi-stakeholder initiatives on sustainability:
A cross-disciplinary review and research agenda for business ethics. Business Ethics
Quarterly, 29(3), pp.343-383.
Ferrell, O.C., Harrison, D.E., Ferrell, L. and Hair, J.F., 2019. Business ethics, corporate social
responsibility, and brand attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Business
Research, 95, pp.491-501.
Freeman, R.E. and Greenwood, M., 2020. Deepening methods in business ethics.
James, W., 2019. Business Ethics.
Mea, W.J. and Sims, R.R., 2019. Human dignity-centered business ethics: A conceptual
framework for business leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(1), pp.53-69.
Moriarty, J., 2019. Business ethics. Oxford University Press.
Painter, M., Hibbert, S. and Cooper, T., 2019. The development of responsible and sustainable
business practice: Value, mind-sets, business-models.
Shetty, D. and Moorthy, S., 2020. A study of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by E-
commerce companies with reference to Amazon & Flipkart. Studies in Indian Place
Names, 40(75), pp.9-14.
Werhane, P.H., 2019. The normative/descriptive distinction in methodologies of business ethics.
In Systems Thinking and Moral Imagination (pp. 21-25). Springer, Cham.
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