Deliveroo Case Study: Ethical and Responsible Management Report

This report examines the ethical and responsible management practices of Deliveroo, focusing on the issues surrounding the employment of its couriers. The report begins with a brief to senior managers, outlining the core issues, Deliveroo's role in society, and the impact on stakeholders, including customers, governance, providers (riders), and influencers. It highlights examples of both good and bad ethics within the case study and provides recommendations for future improvements, such as reevaluating the classification of riders and improving communication. The report then delves into two ethical theories – virtue ethics and utilitarianism – and applies them to the Deliveroo case, discussing the theories' advantages and disadvantages, and providing further recommendations. Finally, the report reflects on ethical leadership in an unethical organizational culture, defining ethical leadership, discussing maintaining integrity, and drawing on personal experiences to illustrate ethical business practices.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS AND RESPONSIBILITY MANAGEMENT
Organizational Ethics and Responsibility Management: Deliveroo
Student’s Name
University’s Name
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
1. Part 1......................................................................................................................................3
1.1: Brief Report to the Senior Managers of Deliveroo.........................................................3
1.1.1 Issue in the Organization...........................................................................................3
1.1.2 Major Role of the Business in the Society................................................................3
1.1.3 Issue impacting Four Stakeholders...........................................................................4
1.1.4 Example of Good or Bad Ethics in the case study....................................................5
1.1.5 Recommendations for future improvement..............................................................6
1.2: Two Ethical theories for applying to the case study of Deliveroo..................................8
1.2.1 Description of the Ethical Theories...........................................................................8
1.2.2 Application of the Theories to the Issue...................................................................9
1.2.3 Disadvantages of the Selected Ethical Theories.....................................................10
1.2.4 Recommendations for Improvements to the Issue based on the Theories..............11
2. Part 2....................................................................................................................................13
2.1 Reflection on Ethical Leader and Personal Ethics.........................................................13
2.1.1 Definition of an Ethical Leadership Management in an Unethical Organizational
Culture..............................................................................................................................13
2.1.2 Process of Maintaining Integrity and Compliance in an Unethical Environment of
Business............................................................................................................................14
2.1.3 My Own Experience and Knowledge with Example to work in an Ethical Business
Environment.....................................................................................................................14
2.1.4 Conclusion of Ethical Leadership Management in an Unethical Environment......15

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References................................................................................................................................16

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1. Part 1
1.1: Brief Report to the Senior Managers of Deliveroo
1.1.1 Issue in the Organization
Deliveroo is a successful organization that provides online food delivery to its
customers. In spite of having such a distinctive approach and advancement in the business,
recently the management have been facing a significant issue related to the employment
services of the riders. A group of fifty Deliveroo couriers would be sharing a 6 figured pay-
out from the takeaway delivery organization as a significant settlement of their employment
right claim (Deliveroo. 2018). The riders of this specific food delivery organization have
mentioned that these people are not getting proper wages according to their work. Moreover,
the management of Deliveroo has eventually labelled them as self-employed contractors and
thus unlawfully denying the rights like legal minimum wage as well as a paid holiday.
According to a solicitor in the employment department, Powell, Deliveroo has paid
out a lump sum amount of money for settling their claims, which proved that the management
already knew about the employment tribunal lost by them. The settlement substantially is
supposed to make a major change to the riders’ lives, since Deliveroo would be able to save
their jobs. However, as per the decision of the high court, it was declared that these riders in
Deliveroo were self-employed contractors (Crane et al. 2019: 2). There is always an
opportunity for the rider's job to get substituted in the application and hence avoid being
called as organizational workers. The court even provided the workers union significant
authorisation of launching a complete judicial reviewing of rights of the riders for collective
bargaining based on human morality. Moreover, every hiring condition of Deliveroo would
also be scrutinized.

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1.1.2 Major Role of the Business in the Society
The role of the business of Deliveroo is a better position as compared to the other
food delivery applications. These mainly transport takeaway orders from the restaurant to
their customers (Deliveroo. 2018). This particular organization is making its money from a
delivery fee and a commission charge (Trevino and Nelson 2016: 3). In the year of 2016,
Deliveroo have enjoyed an income of 129 million pounds. The significant role of the business
is to provide and distribute food items for satisfying customer needs and demands. Deliveroo
is following corporate social responsibility by enhancing a business practice, which involves
participation in the initiatives, which could provide advantages to society (Michaelson et al.
2014: 81).
The customers have a significant expectation from the food delivery application, and
hence, the management is also expected to properly maintain a specific level of responsibility
in the method by which the operations are being run. An organization could be referred to as
an ethically irresponsible company when it is knowingly bringing major harm to the
environment of the business or when the business tactics could cause the employees to be
treated properly. Since this organization is involved with corporate social responsibility, it is
evident that it would have to consider the major effects and consequences for ill-treating their
employees (Tsalikis and Fritzsche 2013: 352). After the riders of Deliveroo had claimed
about the rights and wage issues, the organization have started to lose their reputation from
the market and hence making them suffer for significant issues.
1.1.3 Issue impacting Four Stakeholders
The stakeholders can either be internal or external to the business. The internal
stakeholders are those stakeholders, whose interests are directly from investment, ownership
and employment. The primary examples of internal stakeholders are employees, board
members, investors and donors. These stakeholders are also termed as the primary

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stakeholders since stakeholders comprise of a direct stake for organizational success
(Hoffman, Frederick and Schwartz 2014: 2). The external stakeholders, on the other hand, are
those people of the company, who are indirectly affected by the respective organizational
results and decisions. The external stakeholders involve creditors, community groups,
government agencies, suppliers and customers. These people are termed as secondary
stakeholders as the stake of these people is merely representational. The four stakeholders of
the case study of Deliveroo include users, governance, influencers and providers (DesJardins
and McCall 2014: 1).
The first type of stakeholder is the user; in Deliveroo, the user is the customer of the
company. These stakeholders are the beneficiaries of the output. If the customers are not
satisfied with the delivery services, it is evident that these stakeholders would suffer from
significant issues (Crane et al. 2019: 1). Due to the claim of riders, the customers are not able
to get food on time. The second type of stakeholder is the governance, who are those people,
who have significant interests in the management of project and programme. Auditors and
safety executives are significant examples of governance. In this case scenario for Deliveroo,
governance is the management of the organization. The entire profit aspect of the company is
dependent on the governance, and due to such issue, they are losing their reputation and
profit.
The third type of stakeholder is the provider. The suppliers and vendors eventually
fall under this category, and the job of the supplier is to supply a company. The temporary
contractors and riders are the provider in this particular case study of Deliveroo (Tsalikis and
Fritzsche 2013: 400). These stakeholders are impacted by the minimum wage issue of the
organization majorly. The last type is the influencers, who have power for influencing
decisions and the ability to change the entire direction of a program (Michaelson et al. 2014:

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78). The senior management is the influencer; and such influencers are the most affected in
this case study since the goodwill of the organization is being lost.
1.1.4 Example of Good or Bad Ethics in the case study
The entire case study of Deliveroo represents an example of bad ethics for working
environment. Since the riders are one of the major and the most significant stakeholders in
the organization, these riders are not satisfied with the wage system and job satisfaction.
Stakeholders can be defined as the group of individuals or persons, who have major interests
on the enterprise and whose support is needed for making an enterprise to be successful
(DesJardins and McCall 2014: 3). The term stakeholder has its subsequent roots in the
business and the entity or person, who is taking care of the entry feed until and unless the
prize money is being awarded for being termed as a stakeholder.
In traditional means, these stakeholders have no financial interests for the outcomes of
the business. However, the riders do have a major financial interest in the organization of
Deliveroo. This is mainly because the riders are dependent on the job. As they are not getting
proper payments, they have to claim their rights legally, which is not correct. It is incredibly
unethical that the riders are not getting paid according to their work, and the high court has
supported them. Deliveroo has even been unethical by not providing them with proper wages
and going for settlement.
Apart from Deliveroo, another significant organization, Google has faced ethical
issues. Google had always claimed about the privacy of their clients and had ensured that
these clients are storing the records of the searches securely (Ethical Concerns about Google.
2018). The reach of technology has made the use inherently political much to the dismay of
their tech workers. This is highly unethical as Google is not supporting its employees and is
focusing only on political perspectives. These issues are profoundly affecting the current

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world since business ethics are getting concerned to a high level. The obligations and
information rights for employees working in several organizations are being violated due to
such issues, and ethical or moral balances are mismatched.
1.1.5 Recommendations for future improvement
It is recommended that the stakeholders would be that these stakeholders should
change their salary or wage criteria for the riders. This would provide significant motivation
to the riders, and hence, these stakeholders would be able to work correctly without any issue.
The second recommendation for the stakeholders of Deliveroo would be not considering the
riders as self contractors (Michaelson et al. 2014: 89). It is recommended to be assertive or
organized for maximization of participation of opportunities and not assuming opportunities
would automatically being offered. The fourth recommendation is sharing information on the
technology initiatives and advances through proper stakeholder forums so that the workers of
Deliveroo can get satisfaction. It is also recommended that the stakeholders follow a code of
ethics in their business and review their business strategies periodically. Moreover, these
stakeholders should also consider about the survey. This type of survey would help in the
collection of information regarding employees' perspectives in future.

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1.2: Two Ethical theories for applying to the case study of Deliveroo
1.2.1 Description of the Ethical Theories
The two distinctive ethical theories, which are appropriate for this case scenario of
Deliveroo and could be applied, are virtue ethics and utilitarianism theories. Another popular
organization is Nestle. This organization has some of the major ethical issues within their
business. One of the most significant ethical issue in this organization is the shortage of water
in Africa in the year 2000. Nestle had commented that there should not be public right for
water access. It was extremely unethical since water access should be a public right. The
second distinctive ethical issue was the deforestation in the coasts of Ghana and Ivory. As per
few critics, the chocolate production of Nestle littered allegations of wrongdoing, which was
not good for the environment and for this purpose, more than 90% of the national parks are
used for Cocoa production. The description of the two ethical theories for Deliveroo and
Nestle are as follows:
i) Virtue Ethics: The first and the most important or significant ethical theory that is
applicable to the case studies of Deliveroo and Nestle is virtue ethics. This particular theory is
a broad term, which majorly emphasizes on the role of virtue and character in moral
philosophy and not only doing on the duty and responsibility of any specific individual
(Stanwick and Stanwick 2013: 2). The major objectives of this particular ethical theory
include providing a self-centred conception of ethics to ensure that every individual or
organization is working without many complexities. Virtue ethics even provide proper
guidance on the activities to be undertaken by the intended person and the ability for
cultivating the right virtue for getting impacted by a subsequent number of several factors
regarding control of self-perceptions and moral character (Crane and Matten 2015: 1).
ii) Utilitarianism Theory: The second important and specific ethical theory, which
could be successfully applied to this case scenarios of Deliveroo and Nestle is utilitarianism

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theory. This particular theory is a specific moral theory, which promotes action and activities,
which support total happiness before rejecting the actions, which cause harm or unhappiness
(Jennings 2014: 3). In spite of having different varieties of utilitarianism based
characteristics, there are few situations, which do not provide any utility to the respective
individual or organization. The basic idea of this theory is to maximize the utility of the
situation and hence to ensure wellbeing of the individual majorly. The utility is the type of
benefit, happiness or advantage that is being gained by the individual or people involved in
the situation so that better effectiveness and efficiency is obtained.
1.2.2 Application of the Theories to the Issue
The case study of Deliveroo states that the riders of this particular organization are
dissatisfied with the wage or salary that these riders are getting from the organization.
Moreover, the riders are being referred to as the self-contractors and hence are not given
respect as workers of the company. However, the court has rejected their petition and asked
the workers union of Great Britain for further investigation (Wallace and Sheldon 2015: 271).
On the other hand, the organization of Nestle states about the two ethical issues of water
access not given to public and deforestation in Ghana and Ivory. The two ethical theories of
virtue ethics and utilitarianism theory could be applied in these two case studies for
understanding whether it is ethical or not. The description is as follows:
i) Virtue Ethics: According to virtue ethics, the character and overview or virtue of
the respective individual can be termed as ethical only if the duties and actions of that
particular person can bring good consequences. In this case study of Deliveroo, the
management of the organization is paying appropriate wages to the riders. As a result, 50
delivery boys have decided to claim their rights legally (Quarshie, Salmi and Leuschner
2016: 86). After applying virtue ethics to this case study, it is being analysed that the
organization has been unethical to the riders as laws are not being followed. Moreover, the

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consequences of this situation are negative as riders are tending to lose their jobs, and the
customers are not getting food on time. For the case study of Nestle, the management or
stakeholders are not considering the public rights for water access and are cutting trees for
cocoa production, .which is extremely unethical for both environment and public. The
stakeholders are not following virtue ethics in their business and hence are termed as
unethical. After comparing it to the Deliveroo case study, it is being noted that Nestle is more
unethical since the organization is not preserving forests.
ii) Utilitarianism Theory: As per this particular ethical theory, every action should
provide utility to the situation and hence ensure that the individuals or organization is gaining
advantage from the activity (Floyd et al. 2013: 758). In this particular case study of
Deliveroo, the activity of limiting wages or salaries of riders is absolutely unethical; hence
the activity does not provide any ethical benefit to neither to the riders nor to the customers.
Moreover, the organization itself is suffering from loss as the company has to go for a
settlement with a lump sum amount. Thus, the utility is negative, and no utility is being
observed in the company. Moreover, the management is also unable to resolve the issues of
their riders, which is a major drawback for organizational management. For the case study of
Nestle, the management or stakeholders are not providing any utility to the environment and
their customers. Rather this particular organization is increasing complexities for the
environment and natural habitats. Commenting on not having the public right to water access
and cutting trees for cocoa production prove major unethical practices business management
to a high level. Hence, the stakeholders are unethical in terms of utilitarianism theory.
1.2.3 Disadvantages of the Selected Ethical Theories
In spite of having a few significant advantages, there are some of the major and the
most significant disadvantages of these two ethical theories that are needed to be analysed on
a priority basis. The disadvantages of these selected ethical theories are as follows:

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i) Disadvantages of Virtue Ethics: The major disadvantages of this virtue ethics are
as follows:
a) The first disadvantage is that it does not provide any clear decision model
(Werhane 2019: 272). Hence, it becomes difficult for the respective individual to take her
decisions in the situation.
b) The next disadvantage of virtue ethics is that virtue ethics cannot account for few
aspects of morality, which means that it can only identify the good and bad consequences,
however, could not address the questions for action.
ii) Disadvantages of Utilitarianism Theory: The major disadvantages of the
utilitarianism theory are as follows:
a) The first disadvantage of utilitarianism theory is that it only focuses on the result of
choice and not the activity to be taken (Abend 2016: 2).
b) Another disadvantage of this theory is that it does not provide any moral judgment
for the actual actions, which any person has selected to take.
1.2.4 Recommendations for Improvements to the Issue based on the Theories
The recommendations for Deliveroo for improvements to the issue based on the
theories are as follows:
i) The management of Deliveroo should focus on ethical approach and ensure that the
result of the decision taken by them is ethical and is providing utility to the riders (Heath
2014: 1). The management should change the salary structure so that riders are happy with
the salaries.