University Assignment: Ethical Evaluation of HapE's Business Practices

This report presents an ethical evaluation of HapE's business strategies, focusing on a proposed digital ad campaign and its potential ethical implications. The analysis delves into the ethical issues surrounding the use of consumer emotional data for targeted advertising, including concerns about data privacy, consumer trust, and transparency. The report applies ethical frameworks such as Utilitarianism and the AMA Statement of Ethics to assess the proposal's ethical soundness. A stakeholder analysis identifies key parties affected by the strategies. The report recommends that HapE prioritize transparency, data privacy, and ethical decision-making. The evaluation concludes with the need for businesses to consider ethical and moral boundaries in their operations, ensuring their activities benefit stakeholders, including customers and users, and maintain their trust.

Running head: ETHICAL EVALUATION
ETHICAL EVALUATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Case Analysis.............................................................................................................................2
Ethical issues and Identification of missing information:......................................................2
Digital ad campaign-..........................................................................................................2
Requirement for more information-...................................................................................2
The information to be extracted from HapE saffs:.............................................................3
Questions from Oi during follow-up:.................................................................................3
Potential ethical issues:......................................................................................................3
Ethical Evaluation:.................................................................................................................3
Utilitarianism-....................................................................................................................3
AMA Statement of Ethics-.................................................................................................4
Stakeholder Analysis-........................................................................................................5
Recommendations for HapE:.....................................................................................................5
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................6

2ETHICAL EVALUATION
Introduction
Ethics of an organization can be determined by organization’s response for the
various external environmental factors. Organizational ethics comprises of principles and
guidelines depicting the manner in which an organization should conduct activities (Murphy,
Laczniak & Harris, 2016). Ethical evaluation is conducted for ensuring the ethical practices
in regards with marketing, operational or financial functions (McIntosh et al., 2018). The
purpose of the paper is to evaluate the functionalities of the organizational strategies. The
company chosen for the discussion is HapE. The paper will conduct the evaluation under the
Utilitarianism and AMA Statement of Ethics framework. In this paper, stakeholder analysis
will also be discussed.
Case Analysis
Ethical issues and Identification of missing information:
Digital ad campaign-
The digital ad campaign which was suggested by Oi was identification of the mood of
Oi users with the help of an algorithm which asks users to express their current emotional
state. After the identification of ‘unhappy’ emotions, mood enhancing supplements of HapE
can be offered by using targeted ad approach.
Requirement for more information-
There are various data and information which is needed for assessing the proposal.
The functionality of the new algorithm. The frequency and effectiveness of the targeted ad.
The information about the content of the advertising message. The effectiveness or
conversion ratio of the target ads.

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The information to be extracted from HapE staff:
There are various information which needs to be extracted from the staff of HapE.
The information comprise of the previous offerings of Oi for promoting the products of
HapE. The results from previous advertising contract and assessment of the effectiveness.
The information about the security of the social networking site. The data and information
about the other tools and applications of the networking site.
Questions from Oi during follow-up:
The information which needed to be asked during the follow-up are data about the
security constraints in relation with identification of information about personal emotions of
users. Information regarding the potential conversion rates of the targeted consumers. The
functionality of the algorithm for detecting mood/emotions. Information regarding the
understanding of variants for a clear positioning and targeting strategy.
Potential ethical issues:
Potential issues in regards with the proposal or future agreement of the two companies
can affect the ethical constraints of conducting a business. The primary ethical issue can be
the fact of using consumer responses (‘happy’ or ‘unhappy’) for advertising products. This
will cause opacity of motive and will involve self-profit means for reflecting concern.
Another potential ethical issue can be offering customer data of HapE. Customer data
like phone number, email, postal code and address are personal information which should be
confidential and should not be passed on to other businesses. Sharing customer data can
cause breach of trust for the consumers of HapE.
Ethical Evaluation:
Utilitarianism-

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The ethical theory or constraint which determines wrong and right actions or
decisions by reflecting the focus on the outcomes is known as Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism
believes the existence of the most ethical decision will be the one which is for the greatest
good for greater number of people (Lyons, 2015). It is considered to be the most effective and
commonly used approach for the purpose of moral reasoning for businesses for its cost
effective nature. The core idea of Utilitarianism is to understand the right and wrong actions
on the ground of morality which can be detected by the effects of specific action (Mertens &
Wilson, 2018).
The two potential issues of the business proposal can be assessed with respect of the
principles of Utilitarianism. The first issue can be the opacity in regards with the real motive
of asking for user emotion. The utilization of user responses regarding their state of mind for
the purpose of advertising products can be considered unethical as the users will be unaware
of reason behind responding to such questions or labels.
The utilization of HapE customer data may benefit the functioning of Oi’s media
strategy as well as it may contribute towards the promotion objectives of HapE by
synchronizing the data with the ad campaign objectives but it can cause breach of trust and
confidentiality for the personal details of the consumers. The potential reflect especially the
risk of sharing personal details to another business will not be for greater good of all (Mill,
2016).
AMA Statement of Ethics-
AMA (American Marketing Association) facilitates the promotion of high standards of
ethical values and norms in regards with professional activities and for the values of the
members (Klein, Michal & David, 2018).

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A marketer or professional must follow various norms like one should not harm by
avoiding facts. Consciously sharing personal information of client base will harm the
confidentiality and disrupt the trust factors associated with HapE. Utilizing customer
responses for advertising products without the awareness of the users can harm the trust.
Trust can be disrupted with the decisions of sharing personal data of clients as well as from
projecting company’s motive by utilizing user responses without their awareness on the
same. Ethical values will be ruptured by disturbing the confidence of the users in the process
of using their personal information for fulfilling objectives of Oi and HapE.
The ethical values includes honestly, responsibility, transparency, fairness, citizenship
and respect (Schwandt, 2017). The potential issues of the proposal and proposal requirements
can cause harm to consumers and to both company’s reputation. Both the companies have the
responsibility to be transparent about their marketing motives and should be honest with the
promotional survey. They should be fair by respecting their trust by protecting the personal
information.
Stakeholder Analysis-
The stakeholders in this case will be customers/users. The policies and strategies of
HapE and Oi should be based upon ethical grounds as well as in regards with the greater
good of greatest number of people, of which a major part constitutes the users. Utilizing the
responses regarding the emotional state for promotional purposes without their awareness of
the same will result in opacity of motives of the companies. Moreover, sharing personal
details of consumer with Oi will be considered as the breach of confidentiality of the
consumers.

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Recommendations for HapE:
The company should carefully assess the functionality of the mood detecting
algorithm and should ask Oi to incorporate transparency in the process of content
communication.The company should not agree for sharing the data of customer’s personal
information for ensuring client confidentiality.
HapE as an organization should asses the proposal based upon the ethical and moral
constraints and should ask for clarity in thoughts and motives from Oi in regards with the
greater good of all.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded from the paper that a business entity should considers a
decision on the basis of ethical and moral boundaries. Professional activities of companies
should be for greater good of greater number of people which primarily include stakeholders.
HapE should be asking for clarity and transparency for getting a clear understanding about
the functionality of the advertisement proposal.

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References:
Klein, P., Michal, J., & David, B. (2018, October). Business ethics and corporate social
responsibility as a tool to stimulate interest in the living environment. In Proceedings
of Business and Management Conferences (No. 6810197). International Institute of
Social and Economic Sciences.
Lyons, D. (2015). Utilitarianism. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, 1-4.
McIntosh, T., Higgs, C., Mumford, M., Connelly, S., & DuBois, J. (2018). Continuous
Evaluation in Ethics Education: A Case Study. Science and engineering ethics, 24(2),
727-754.
Mertens, D. M., & Wilson, A. T. (2018). Program evaluation theory and practice. Guilford
Publications.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383).
Routledge.

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Murphy, P. E., Laczniak, G. R., & Harris, F. (2016). Ethics in marketing: International cases
and perspectives. Taylor & Francis.
Schwandt, T. A. (2017). Professionalization, ethics, and fidelity to an evaluation ethos.
American Journal of Evaluation, 38(4), 546-553.