Business Ethics and Corporate Governance: Joe Camel & Walmart Report

This report delves into the realm of business ethics and corporate governance, utilizing two compelling case studies: Joe Camel's advertising campaign and Walmart's labor practices. The report begins with an executive summary and a table of contents. The Joe Camel case explores the ethical implications of targeting children and adolescents with cigarette advertising, examining the impact on public health and the legal challenges faced. The Walmart case investigates the company's labor practices, including issues of wages, working conditions, and treatment of employees, highlighting ethical breaches and legal violations. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to comparing and contrasting these two cases, identifying similarities and differences in the ethical dilemmas presented. The analysis covers the ethical principles involved, the stakeholders affected, and the potential consequences of unethical behavior. The report concludes with a comprehensive list of references, providing a foundation for further research and understanding of business ethics.

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Business Ethics and Corporate Governance
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Executive summary
In this report, the two cases will be explained and a comparison will be made out based on
the two cases. The two cases that will be elaborated in this case are the Joe Camel and the
Walmart Labor practice. A comparison with both these cases has been linked even at the end
of the research.

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Table of Contents
1.1 Case Study A: Joe Camel.....................................................................................................3
1.2 Case Study 2: Walmart’s Labor Practices............................................................................5
1.3 Compare and Contrast..........................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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1.1 Case Study A: Joe Camel
Joe Camel was formerly an advertising mascot for the Camel cigarettes from the late
years of 1987 to 1997 and has appeared in most of the advertisements and magazines. The
brand had a highly successful advertising campaign that begun from the R.J. Reynolds (RJR)
on the various billboards, promotional merchandises and many more. The targeting strategy
was highly successful that had legal criticisms and challenges as well and the RJR made a
defense claim that the age group of the target smokers was from 18-24 years. The advertising
rates of the cigarette have not affected the market share and the preference of the brand that
has other social factors responsible solely in the increased rate of the smoking amongst the
youth. The utility can be considered as the impact of this assessment on the ethical grounds.
Pro Joe is something that has an entertainment value in the campaign and makes it a
successful fuel to the economy. It has also been quite evident that the teen enjoys the
smoking more. A contemporary justice can be seen that is the compensation that is in the
form of the funding in the various advertising campaigns (Medeiroset al. 2017). There is a
need for retributive and distributive ways that deals with the greater market shares and most
of them are underage smokers. The retributive can be in principle for those who were
responsible for those who for the sake of the profit. The practice is also on the legal
retribution of the various unwarranted things like the tobacco and unlike the marijuana that is
almost legal and has internal retribution that is unwarranted in doing their own jobs. There is
a need for retribution that is warranted against the various corporations that is not through the
individuals and the assignment is punitive that has their compensatory damages in the civil
cases. The civil cases are against the various tobacco companies that are warranted (Hartman,
DesJardins & MacDonald, 2014). The rights that they are allotted with is that of the children
that is not be lured in to the different harmful addictions and that which do not interfere with

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their long term rights towards their life and their pursuit towards happiness. The assessment
deals with the rights of the children’s that prevails in the insofar that has their children at a
vulnerable point that has their rights at their due protection.
The ethical issue that is found in the Joe Camel is the negative health effects of the
tobacco that slowly became public through the advertising industry. The advertising to the
adolescents and the children became heavily scrutinized that has a co relation with the
childhood smoking and the long term addictions. Ethnically it can be considered corrupted in
case of the tobacco company that has targeted the children and the adolescents in their
advertisement campaigns. The Joe Camel made a cartoon mascot that will automatically
attract the young smokers to their brand. The parameters need to be more specific on the
advertising grounds to the adolescents and the children. One of the main proponents for the
advertising is to provide the consumers with various information of a certain product. In this
case, the advertisement of the Joe Camel is to provide its consumers about the unethical ways
that it shows. The main reason behind considering the Joe Camel an unethical brand is that
the children and the adolescents are below the age that is the consent for purchasing and
using the products of the tobacco. Hence, by law the brand became unethical as well as
illegal. The campaign became unethical because it claimed that the Reynolds produced it
attracts much younger smokers to the brand of the camel. The brand vehemently denied this
allegation but later through the two lawsuits it declared that the brand was created only to
target the age group from 14-24.

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Survey of the ads
(source: Trevino & Nelson, 2016)

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1.2 Case Study 2: Walmart’s Labor Practices
The moral principles that is concerning on the various acceptable and the
unacceptable behaviors of the different business people. As per the ethics, there is a need for
the executives to maintain a high sense of their conduct and their value that has a
comparatively fair practice and honesty in their conduct with the public. The ethical business
practices in the labor practices in Walmart deals with almost 100 million customers every
week, there is a need for the different low prices and private level brands (Ferrell &
Fraedrich, 2015). Some of the unethical business practices that may be considered in the
Walmart and their workforce relations are the wages, the health insurances and the working
conditions. The various practices are the violations in the child labor, use of the illegal
workers, oppositions in the labor union market and the gender and the sexual orientation.
There are scopes for low payment, questionable treatment and the hard work and the Walmart
is considered as one of the largest private employer. Walmart is accused of the various
offerings in the low payment and their feedbacks. The employees have been angered by a
disparity that can be used between the high profit levels of the organization and the different
low wages (Hoffman, Frederick & Schwartz, 2014). There are various working offs that can
be found around the clock that can also be done without the breaks.
The working around the clock and without break is one of those serious allegations
that are unfair to the treatment that has been reported of being the “work off the clock”
(DesJardins & McCall, 2014). This is such a case where the employees are pressured to do
overtime work but is not paid for it. There are several allegations like those that the managers
would wait until the employees have clocked out. As per the annual report of Walmart in
2013 that has their defendant that is found in several cases (Crane & Matten, 2016). The
pressure is on the various labor unions that have their resistance on the various unionization

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attempts that has a success in the union resistance level. The use of the various undocumented
immigrants that consists of a series of the predawn raids that has several federal agents that
may be conducted in a rounded up way that has almost 250 illegal immigrants that is working
as the cleaning crew members. The ending relationships is claimed to be from the beginning
of 2002 until the end in the relationships that is outside the cleaning contractors.
The Walmart made headlines in the later years at an unprecedented rate and the major
reason for this is for its infamous employment practices. The policies regarding the rules in
labour are highly criticized. The net income of the organization is almost over $11 billion and
a lot of money has been raised on the grounds of the organizations workplace practices. The
inadequate health care, wage law violations and the exploitation of the workers are all the
major ethical issues that arose up against the organization. 5,000 lawsuits are filed up against
the Company every year that is roughly to 17 suits in every working day. The Walmart is
accused of failing to provide adequate safety measurements for its fabric cutters and its
overseas seamstresses. On a report, the cost benefit analysis shows that it is much cheaper to
wash off the blood from the clothing of the workers even before the shipping of the clothing
to the overseas. Many employees joined the class action lawsuit that is against the retailers
stating that it violated the verdict of the court that stated to provide an unpaid 30 min break to
the workers who are working for atleast six hours.

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Walmart’s labor practice
(source: Chell et al. 2016)

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1.3 Compare and Contrast
From the two cases the Joe Camel and the Walmart’s labor practices, it can be said
that there are various similarity as well as dissimilarity. There are some specific actions that
needs to be sorted out that will eventually help in improving the image of the various
stakeholders that are on their fore fronts (Weiss, 2014). The areas of the outreach of the
company needs to have their offices opened that is considered as one of the major city that
will attempt to make an improvement in the levels of the community relations. It can be
evident that from both the cases that there is a difference on the ethical grounds, one do not
bother to fulfill the goals of the workers and the other makes cigarette campaign for the
teenagers and the children.
The ethical issue that rose is that the company Walmart cheats on its current workers
by not providing them with special amenities that they are bound to receive and also holds on
their salary for a long term. The Joe Camel is another brand of cigarette that provokes the
children and the teenagers to use them. In both the cases the product was a consumerism
good and in case of the Walmart it can be said that the practices that are used for the labors
was meant for their good but ultimately they are exploited. The major ethical issues that were
present in the Walmart organization is regarded as the appeal that has a strong certified under
the several laws. On an average it can be seen that in case of the Walmart’s labor case that it
took men in just 2.86 years that has been promoted to get an assistant manager (Armstrong et
al., 2015). However, in case of the females it took 4.38 years to make them into the better
performance rating. 65 percent of all the Walmart employees are almost female and out of it
only the two third of the managers are male. The female workers has an hourly job and earn
almost $1,100 less than the males on an annual basis. In 1990, the FTC made an investigation
on the RJR and on the Joe camel that has made ads that will determine whether the smokers

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are underage or are illegally targeted by the campaigns of it (Armstrong et al. 2015). In late
1997, the RJR began phasing out and that new intervention of the ad features of the various
men and women.

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References
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Pearson Education.
Chell, E., Spence, L. J., Perrini, F., & Harris, J. D. (2016). Social entrepreneurship and
business ethics: does social equal ethical?. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(4), 619-
625.
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
DesJardins, J. R., & McCall, J. J. (2014). Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage
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Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases.
Nelson Education.
Hartman, L. P., DesJardins, J. R., & MacDonald, C. (2014). Business ethics: Decision
making for personal integrity and social responsibility. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hoffman, W. M., Frederick, R. E., & Schwartz, M. S. (Eds.). (2014). Business ethics:
Readings and cases in corporate morality. John Wiley & Sons.
Medeiros, K. E., Watts, L. L., Mulhearn, T. J., Steele, L. M., Mumford, M. D., & Connelly,
S. (2017). What is Working, What is Not, and What We Need to Know: a Meta-
Analytic Review of Business Ethics Instruction. Journal of Academic Ethics, 1-31.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to
do it right. John Wiley & Sons.