Semester 3 Business Ethics Report: Woolworths Group Analysis, 2019

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business ethics of Woolworths Group, a major supermarket chain operating in Australia and New Zealand. The study delves into key areas such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Governance, examining how Woolworths addresses ethical considerations in its operations. It explores the company's policies on labor rights, child labor, and environmental compliance, highlighting both successes and ethical dilemmas, such as underpayment issues. The report further investigates Woolworths' CSR initiatives, including its focus on people, planet, and prosperity, with detailed discussions on diversity in the workplace and environmental sustainability efforts. It also analyzes the company's corporate governance structure and its approach to ethical decision-making, concluding with an evaluation of the need for continuous assessment of corporate policies in response to evolving environmental and social challenges.

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS
Business Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
This research report provides a comprehensive detail about the business ethics in
practice of Woolworths Group. Woolworth group is a large supermarket chain running its
operation across Australia and New Zealand. This case study report is based on Woolworths’
business ethics which includes the major areas like Corporate Social Responsibility,
Corporate Governance, etc. Ethics in business today has become an essential element driven
by some external elements like suppliers chain, customers’ demand, government intervention
and social duties. In addition, the business ethics have got a central role to play in business
because the customers or shareholders associated with the business are more concerned about
how the business are actually responding to social and ethical duties. Customers preferably
purchase the brand that are socially responsible. The major purpose of this report is to analyse
and evaluate the business ethics of Woolworths Groups.
Business Ethics of Woolworths
Woolworths has a broad set of business ethics that are applicable to all its business
aspects. There are certain criteria developed for the business ethics implementation at
Woolworths. For example, in the column labour right, Woolworths developed a set of
standard rules –such as the employees are entitled to choose the employment rights and this
means employment is freely chosen. The organisation is not supposed to forcefully ask its
employees to do the jobs and every employee is entitled to incur debts via the recruitment
fees. Likewise, in the column of Child labour, the organization has developed a set of
standard policies in which the use of child labour is strictly prohibited. According to Dos
Santos, Svensson and Padin (2013), Woolworths’ ethics on child labour is particularly is
aligned with the Child Labour Act Australia. As put forward by Devin and Richards (2018)
the term child labour is significantly known as the work that do not permit children to work

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and it considers the childhood, their potential and the dignity which seems to be harmful and
mental growth. However, Methner (2013) mentioned the fact that there have been several
dynamics in the market in relation to employee wages because terms of employment is
changing along with the changes in industry needs. Thus, at Woolworths, the living wages of
employees are set in relation to the industry standards. This means all employees of the
organization should be provided both written and comprehensive set of information about the
conditions of their employment in relation to the wages before they agree to the employment
contract.
It has been identified that customers irrespective of all sectors and businesses, have
growingly become concerned about the environmental damages and there is a greater level of
global awareness in relation to environmental sustainability (Akbar & Ahsan, 2014).
Following the concern, the organization Woolworths developed a set of environmental
compliance policies.
 The whole facility needs to comply with the national as well as regional or local
environmental laws and regulations.
 The organization must dispose of its production waste in relation to the local and
environmental regulations
Analysing the ethical dilemma in the organisation
Although Woolworths has long been in the market with its broad categories of products and
strong vigil on its business ethics and corporate governance practices but it has failed to avoid
the ethical dilemmas. The supermarket giant has been accused with underpayment practice
for the labours. Woolworths has underpaid its economically lower class labour. It is observed
that almost 6000 of its employees are paid less (Dakhelalla 2014). Especially, the people who
are immigrants working as the ground staff at Woolworths are not paid as per the industry

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wage standards. It has been identified that there have been a series of changes in business
environment; thereby, the large organizations across the supermarket sector, has been under
the pressure of working corporate ethics.
Corporate Social Responsibility
As put forward by Sappideen (2015), CSR is required when an organization tends to
achieve a sustainable development not only in the economic dimension but equally in the
social and environmental dimensions. In order to fulfil the CSR needs, the organization
Woolworths has developed a Group Community and a set of ways in which the organization
seeks to reduce the environmental influence. According to Klettner, Clarke and Boersma
(2014), the organisation has integrated its financial performance with the non-financial
criteria to enhance the values on its members and stakeholders. The organisation Woolworths
Group has developed established Woolworths Employees Credit Unit (WECU) and WECU
mostly focuses on the sponsorship as well as the initiatives for all Woolworths group of
companies because of its unique role within the same.
The Credit units have developed the strategy of becoming respectful of the
environment and actively deals with the environmental impact. The initiative significantly
aims to enhance the awareness of environmental issue and deliver assistance for the members
to react in a sustainable way. The establishment aims to promoting the financial well-being.
The organisation performs the responsibility of fulfilling the greater corporate social
responsibilities and considers them as the fundamental to long-term sustainability and
growth. There are three different elements associated with the corporate social responsibility
initiatives of Woolworths such as people, planet and prosperity. When it comes to people,
the organization promotes diversity; this means that the organization value diversity across
the organization. In order to ensure diversity in the workplace, the organization focussing on

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greater numbers of women in Woolworths’ management by 2020 in which the organisation is
determined to allocate at least 40% of executive and senior manager to women. The
organization continues to have strong representation of women across the business. This
initiative would involve the women to deal with the management target through the
partnership with Macquarie Graduate School of Management.
People
According to Young and Marais (2013), as per the diversity initiatives of
Woolworths, there will not be any sort of salary wages gap between male and female workers
of the equivalent positions on per hour rate at all ranges. As mentioned by Devin and
Richards (2018) an essential element any campaign to achieve equality for women must
ensure equal pay for the equal work. It can be mentioned that in the workplace where pay is
fair and transparent, loyalty of employee and retention are greater. In addition to ensure that
diversity in the workplace, the organization has developed 100% of the responsible for hiring
new team members to have accomplished unconscious bias training. This means that
achieving such goal may requires the company hiring teams to make objective and some
more inclusive decision. In order to promote and encourage diversity, the organization
established the commitment of reflecting on the communities where the organisation
presently serves. In order to achieve this objective, Woolworths is focussed on making sure
that team members and particularly its store teams.
Planet:
In order to fulfil the environmental sustainability initiatives, the organization is
working towards ‘Zero food waste going to landfill’. The aim of this initiative was set in
2007-15, however, Shaw & Shaw (2019) argued that this initiative was not fulfilled and most
importantly a large percentage of waste stream is still the waste food which is fundamentally

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because of the insufficient storing at the outlets. In order to meet the initiative, the
organisation is working towards increasing food in tonnes of food waste diverted from the
landfill. The initiative will be fulfilled by reducing in stock loss as well as enhancing store
wasted management behaviour. On the contrary, Mortimer (2017) mentioned that the
organisation needs to enhance the recyclability of organisation’s own brand packaging and
contributing to the circular economy. In this context, Sappideen (2015) argued that people in
Australia are avid recyclers and the customers consider as brand’s responsibility to enable or
authorize people to play their part particularly in protecting the environment. Woolworths, to
implement the initiative would decrease non-recyclable packaging as well as enhance
recycled content. This, for example can be done by eliminating the expanded polystyrene. As
the part of its corporate social responsibility, the organisation Woolworths is trying to achieve
zero supply chain forestation for the high impact commodities particularly in the own brand
products. Considering the contemporary issues of climate change, the businesses across the
world are working to implement the Paris Agreement and nations that restrict the global
warming within two degrees. Thus, Young and Marais (2013) mentioned that the large
brands like Woolworths should take the initiative of controlling or reducing the wasted
materials. In this context, Shaw, and Shaw (2019) mentioned that supermarket organization
like Woolworths should use science-based targets to significantly evaluate and assess the
influence of two degree world as well as investigate the applicability of the initiatives.
Corporate Governance
Corporate Governance of Woolworths Group includes a broad series of responsibility.
This means there have been a broad set of principles of corporate governance. When it comes
to the structure of the board in corporate governance, it is observed that Woolworths’ board
may approve Group’s strategy, financial plan, duties and other responsibilities of the CEO.
This means that the CEO of the organization would be responsible for the regular

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management and operation of Woolworth Groups along with the support of senior
management of the organisation. This means that the board of the organisation would
recognise that having a diverse series of skills, backgrounds and other experiences among its
directors is significantly necessary for decision-making and effective governance.
Considering the current as well as future strategic direction, opportunities and challenges for
the organization, Board of Woolworths on a regular basis reviews the present and desired
skills and experience of individual directors. In addition to this, Board of Woolworths hold
the right to determining that each director besides the Chief Executive Officer is dependent
throughout the reporting period. As the significant part of the formal independence
evaluation, Board considers all business relationship between the Woolworths groups on one
hand, directors, companies of which they are the substantial relationship between Woolworth
Group on one hand and the director of substantial group of shareholders in other hand.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be mentioned that even though the organisation has developed a
set of policies in related to corporate ethics but as the external business environment is
threatened due to environmental and climate issues, the business, especially, the large
organisations in the supermarket industry needs to evaluate and assess corporate policies on a
frequent basis. The findings of the analysis also indicates that Woolworths developed a set of
standard rules –such as the employees are entitled to choose the employment rights and this
means employment is freely chosen. The organisation will not forcefully ask its employees to
do the jobs and every employee is entitled to incur debts via the recruitment fees.

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References
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Dakhelalla, R. F. (2014). The impact of corporate governance principles on board
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Dos Santos, M. A., Svensson, G., & Padin, C. (2013). Indicators of sustainable business
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