Critical Review: Business Ethics in Apple Inc. and Small Businesses

This report provides a critical review of business ethics, examining the relevance of ethics in business decisions, with a specific focus on Apple Inc. and small businesses. The report begins with an introduction to business ethics, defining ethical principles and their importance in guiding business operations to benefit all stakeholders. The main body of the report delves into the application of ethics in business decision-making, including a literature review on the subject. It then analyzes the ethical considerations relevant to Apple Inc., highlighting specific ethical issues such as privacy concerns, price fixing, environmental impact, and supply chain challenges. The report also explores the importance of ethics for small businesses, discussing ethical dilemmas in financial reporting, human resource management, and the benefits of ethical practices in building a strong business, attracting customers and investors, and retaining employees. The report concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of ethics in ensuring the welfare of both society and the organization, reducing legal compliance risks, and promoting sustainable business practices.

Critical review

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Ethics for business decision........................................................................................................1
Ethics is relevant for business decision in Apple........................................................................2
Ethics relevant for small business...............................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Ethics is refers to as a moral principles or code of conduct that are practices by a person
in order to determine what is right or wrong. Business ethics are basically some standards or
code of conduct which direct the business operations that work toward benefiting all the
stakeholder who are involved in affairs of company instead of benefiting the single individuals.
Business ethics support in attracting the customers toward the offering of company that help in
boosting up sales and profitability. This report in based on Apple Incorporation which is an
American multinational organisation that deals in technological industry by offering both
hardware and software related products or services. The current report is based on critical review
about the relevance of ethics within a business (Crane and et. al., 2019). This report is divided
into three sections where part one includes literature review about the ethics in business decision,
section two consists of critical review about the relevance of ethics in business decisions taken
by Apple. At last there is critical review about the importance of ethics for a small business.
MAIN BODY
Ethics for business decision
Business ethics are the one that guide the values, decision and behaviour of a business as
well as individual within the organisation. The business ethics is all about what is right or wrong
actions that is to be performed within the workplace which have a direct impact over the
product/services as well as relationship among the stake holders. The consideration of ethics
within business practices support a business to achieve greater success at marketplace as it
involve codifying of law, minimum wages, environmental regulations and restrictions against the
collusion and insider trading (Dierksmeier and Seele, 2018). The business ethics support in
effective decision making by considering the credibility with employees, welfare of society and
profitability of business.
As per the view point of Michael Volkov, 2015, Ethical decision making is considered to
be a discipline that focuses toward determining and resolving the issues that are present in
business. But the application of ethics within the business requires more knowledge about ethics
in order to determine ethical issues that may arise and methods to resolve it from overall
decision. For ensuring that the operations within the organisation must be performed in more
reliable manner toward the benefits of both customer as well as business at large. Ethics are
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required to be considered by a business while taking any decision for promoting a company as a
whole instead of letting one person earn profit from the business decisions. As individuals who
make decisions as per their personal benefits from business are attempt to be end up with legal
liabilities for a company which leads to bancruptcy. Business ethics is considered to be essential
for several activities performed within a business such as leadership where leaders are required
to direct the employees in right direction by guiding them over making decisions that are not
only beneficial for them but also to whole organisation (Dierksmeier and et. al., 2016). This is
because building of foundation in term of ethical behaviour support in creating a long-lasting
positive impact over business that includes the ability to retain and attract talented individuals
along with maintenance of a positive reputation within the society at large.
According to the view point of George N. Root and Jayne Thompson, 2019, Ethical
compliances is mainly consider within a business for the benefits of employees as well as
company. A well-crafted ethical policies support a business as well as employees in making their
day-to-day decisions that focuses over completion of business goals without venturing over the
dark side. The implication of ethics have both such as benefits as well as drawback over an
organisation. The major drawback of implementing the ethics leads to lack of management
support as application of ethics required the support of all the staff members and if they decide to
apply their own version of corporate ethics then it leads to clashes at workplace that directly
influence the business environment as well as working practices of employees. On the other side,
developing, application and maintenance of ethics within an organisation is very expensive and
time consuming. This is because proper administration of ethics program requires the hiring of
ethics officers as well as commitment of financial and personnel resources that requires more
cost of the company.
Ethics is relevant for business decision in Apple
Apple incorporation is a technology based company which is headquartered in
Californian and work toward offering computer hardware, software and consumer electronics
related product or services. Apple is ranked over first position in term of innovational practices
and majority of companies tried to copy its model but get failed in this. But despite of all these
success in market place, the company has experienced several ethical issues that affected its
market performance to a larger extend (Robertson, Voegtlin and Maak, 2017). These ethical
issues includes privacy, as in the world of internet the tracking of customer become easier that
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support companies in determining the current trend. But despite of all that, this feature leads top
a backlash for Apple as in 2011 it has been found that smartphones of Apple are utilising the
internal GPS devices and collecting the data which is declared as infringement on user privacy.
Another major ethical issues to which the Apple has confined with allegation of price fixing
where it deals with publisher to set e-book price for iPad from which Apple receive 30 percent of
proceeds. Despite of this Apple has also work toward becoming a greener company that help in
reducing the environmental impact over the facilities. But over this it has been restricted to
addressing the manufacturing use and recycling of products because the majority of emission
come from the products it offers.
In addition to this there are major ethical issues that Apple has faced such as rioting,
Intellectual property, threats to other companies, supply chain related issues, taxes and many
more which also has a great influence over its brand image (DesJardins and McCall, 2014).
These all affected the customer perceptions also in market place which increases the ethical
consideration relevant to the business decision that are basically formulated by the Apple to
perform effectively in marketplace. Hence in order to perform ethically Apple Incorporation has
also moved toward application of ethical practices in its business operations. For this Apple
Incorporation has tried to ensure its workforce remain motivated by providing them extensive
training, better compensation than other organisations and opportunities for further career growth
as ethics means benefit of all not an individual. In addition to this Apple also ensure that its
decision process must includes four basic principle of ethics for contributing toward integrity
which includes respect, honesty, compliances and confidentiality. These principles provide
specific policies in term of corporate governance, guidelines on reporting questionable website
conduct and direct conflicts of interest. Despite of all this Apple has also provided the employees
with a Business Conduct Helpline where workers can report any kind of misconduct which is
happening over workplace to the Apple's audit and Finance Committee. This will support in
reducing the unethical practices that direct the operations of Apple in right direction which
ensure benefit of all the stakeholder who are connected with Apple Incorporation. Despite of this
several product components are manufactured in country that leads to lower labour cost which
potentially results into increase in unethical practices as there are different labour standards but
direct oversight is limited. Hence for avoiding unethical practices Apple incorporation make its
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each supplier to sign a “Supplier Code of Conduct” and perform factory audit for ensuring
compliances.
Ethics relevant for small business
Ethics within the business are refers to the process of acting in a right direction when
performing business transaction as it encompasses everything from offering of loans to small
businesses to marketing as well as hiring. According to the view point of Wallace and Sheldon,
2015, There are number of ethical dilemmas present when it come to representation of financial
information as small businesses get unethical in terms of presenting the their financial statement
as fake detail looks much better than the actual one. It support small businesses in getting loans
but this provides only short term benefits and on the other side the long term consequence of not
working ethically can be devastating for business. Despite of this the companies must also ensure
ethical practices in term of human resource management as an organisation can't function
without staff members. Hence, a small business must focuses toward treating its staff in fair
manner by considering all the workplace standards that includes maintaining safe environment,
eliminating discriminatory practices and upholding of individual's privacy rights (Slocum,
Rohlfer and Gonzalez-Canton, 2014). This is because by adopting ethical practices in term of
treating employees help in keeping them feel valued and protected within the workplace that
motivate them to work harder and more efficiently toward the accomplishment of organisational
goals. This support small business in maintaining a base of loyal and competent workplace that
further contribute toward enhancing the business image at marketplace by strengthening its
position in front of competitors.
On the other side according to the Tom Ewer, 2015, Business ethics are consider as a
huge issue within the society as businesses are becoming more concern toward earning more
profit to achieve market position. But because of which small businesses face several ethics
related issue in their company every day which directly influence the image of business at
marketplace and also influence the decision making of customers. Hence maintaining good
ethics must be consider as crucial part of business operations as other business characteristics
holds. The benefits of good ethics can be seen in similar way the business community consider
good company culture on business success (Michaelson and et. al., 2014). The ethics is relevant
for small business as it help in building a stronger business and offers the benefit not only
externally but internally as well to staff and organisation as a whole. This is because ethical
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implication support in building up a goodwill of company which is consider to be one of the
most essential asset of a business that ensures the growth and success of business at marketplace.
The proper implication of ethics support in attracting larger number of customers toward
the firm's offering that support in boosting up profit as well as sales. In addition to this it also
help in retaining employees for longer span of time that reduces labour turnover and increase
productivity. This is because when working for a company that believes over the ethical
practices then employees become more comfortable in the working practices as they know they
would be treated fairly and working in the right direction (Kolk, 2016). Despite of all this ethical
practices also support in attracting investors toward business which help the firms that operate
their business at small level be able to achieve higher position at marketplace. In addition to this,
with the help of investors small businesses would be able to promote its business practices in
term of customers more effectively. This will further contribute toward building up positive
image in front of customers as they have an understanding regarding the product or services they
are purchasing basically come up in a more ethical and responsible manner to them.
CONCLUSION
From the mentioned information it has been identified that ethics in business plays a
crucial role by ensuring that operations of organisation must performed within the direction of
social as well as organisational welfare all together. Business ethics helps in reducing the
chances of legal compliance that organisation which perform operations for their benefits
organisational profit by skipping ethical practices usually face. The application of ethical
practices support a business to gain the trust of employees, customer and government as well
which leads to high term sustainability at marketplace by spreading a positive brand image in
front of various stakeholders.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Crane, A. and et. al., 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in
the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
DesJardins, J. R. and McCall, J. J., 2014. Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage
Learning.
Dierksmeier, C. and et. al., 2016. Humanistic ethics in the age of globality. Springer.
Dierksmeier, C. and Seele, P., 2018. Cryptocurrencies and business ethics. Journal of Business
Ethics. 152(1). pp.1-14.
Kolk, A., 2016. The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business. 51(1).
pp.23-34.
Michaelson, C. and et. al., 2014. Meaningful work: Connecting business ethics and organization
studies. Journal of Business Ethics. 121(1). pp.77-90.
Robertson, D. C., Voegtlin, C. and Maak, T., 2017. Business ethics: The promise of
neuroscience. Journal of Business Ethics. 144(4). pp.679-697.
Slocum, A., Rohlfer, S. and Gonzalez-Canton, C., 2014. Teaching business ethics through
strategically integrated micro-insertions. Journal of Business Ethics. 125(1). pp.45-58.
Wallace, M. and Sheldon, N., 2015. Business research ethics: Participant observer
perspectives. Journal of Business Ethics. 128(2). pp.267-277.
Online
Volkov. M. 2015. Ethical Business Decision-Making. [Online] Available
through:<https://blog.volkovlaw.com/2015/09/ethical-business-decision-making/>.
Tom Ewer. 2015. Ethics and a Successful Small Business. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.hiveage.com/blog/ethics-and-successful-small-business/>.
Root. G and Thompson. J. 2019. Advantages & Disadvantages of Ethical Compliance in an
Organization. [Online] Available through:
<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-ethical-compliance-
organization-20548.html>.
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