Business Ethics Report: Analyzing the Retailing Industry in the UK

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of business ethics within the UK's retailing industry. It identifies key ethical issues such as data breaches, low-quality products, unfair employee treatment, ignored customer complaints, and spreading misinformation about competitors. The report discusses relevant industry regulations, including the Data Protection Act 2018, Equity Act 2010, and Customer Right Act 2015, which aim to address these issues. It also highlights ethical controversies within Tesco, a major retailing company, including labor exploitation, hazardous chemical discharge, untested products, and price discrepancies. The report concludes by advocating for stricter industry regulations and offering recommendations for improvement, such as enhanced monitoring and employee coaching. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Business Ethics Report

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Selection of a specific industry....................................................................................................3
Ethical issues faced by the retailing industry..............................................................................4
Relevant industry regulations......................................................................................................5
Ethical controversy in specific company within retailing industry.............................................6
Does industry require stricter regulation.....................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10
Online-..........................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Business ethics are those principles and behaviour of employees which help them to
perform their work effectively and help them to increase their brand reputation. In simple words,
business ethics are those good habits of a firm or individuals of firm which is accepted by society
and law of nation (Melé, 2019). Every industry and companies in that industry is having some
ethical practices to satisfy their employees as well as customers and further help them to develop
their marketing reputation. The following report covers description of industry, ethical issues
faced by the industry, relevant industry regulation and ethical controversy in specific company
within chosen industry. The report also covers requirement of stricter regulations within chosen
industry and few of the recommendations based on findings.
Main Body
Selection of a specific industry
Retailing company is one of the fastest growing industries of UK where companies sell
household and food products to their customers. There is tough competition in this industry
where companies make improvement in the qualities of their food products and services and
reduces their process to gain competitive advantage in market. Biggest retailers of UK are Tesco,
Morrison, Sainsbury and Walmart (Asda). This industry not only focuses to develop their
products only but they also focuses to develop their services well to attract more customers and
gain high brand reputation in market (Vazquez, 2018). Customer satisfaction is one of the most
important factors in this industry which help the companies to grow well. In context of various
retailing companies, they are required to satisfy their customers by solving their queries and
doubts as soon as possible. Focusing on each customer’s needs and wants and offer them
products according to their requirement is helpful to grow the business in retailing industry.
Here, companies like Asda, Morrison and many others are having supermarkets and
hypermarkets where the customers can find their required products on different shelf. In last few
years technological factor also help to grow retailing industry well and most of the companies
adopt high and advance mode of technology in their retailing stores. They opt online mode of
offering their products and online payments; they are having advanced machines for packing
their products and many others. Here, customers are having both options, purchasing products

through stores or purchasing options through online. Secondly, it is essential for this industry to
perform their business practice ethically like protecting data of customers and employees by
keeping it safe and secure, responding to customers complaints quickly and make some changes
to satisfy customers who are complaining, offering them appropriate and affordable prices and
many others (Ferrell and et. al., 2019).
Ethical issues faced by the retailing industry
There are few of the ethical issues faced by retailing industry of UK which are mentioned below-
 Leaking of personal data of customers and employees- This is one of the most
common ethical issues in retailing industry where the personal data like phone number,
what customers purchase, how they pay for the bills and many others get leaked by
companies to third party. This is unethical practices and no company is allowed to leak
any customer’s or employees personal data to anyone else. Some of the companies in
retailing industry use this data in their advertisements without consulting to those
customers and employees whose data is shared in their advertisements. This is also not an
ethical practice by the company. Hence, every company must ask with their customers
and employees before sharing their any data publically.
 Offering low quality of products- In context of UK’s retailing industry, there is tough
competition and here companies focus to reduce the prices of their products as much as
low then their competitors to gain more customers (Darwish and Abdeldayem, 2019).
Hence, with the aim of reducing prices they also reduces the quality of products and sell
bad quality of product to their customers and customers are unaware about the quality of
product which they are purchasing in low prices. This is one of the most unethical
practices by retailing industry.
 Treating bad with employees- This is seen in various retailing industry that their store
manager treat very bad with their working staff and even they abuse them in case of
minor mistakes. Some of the store managers ask their employees for additional working
hours and did not pay for that. The wages and salaries of staff members are very low.
Hence, this is also unethical and one of the toughest ethical issue faced by retailers
(Anshari and Sumardi, 2020). Here, employees are unaware about their rights and they
have no idea that where they have to complain in case of any unwanted or disrespected
activities with them.

 Ignoring customer’s complaint for longer period of time- It is also unethical in case
any retailing company ignores the complaints of their customers for longer period of
time. Most of the companies in this industry aim to sell their products only and once they
sell their products then their customers are no more important for them (Mili, Gharbi and
Teulon, 2019). Hence, they ignore any complaint which they receive from their
customer’s side because they thought that their duty is finished at that point of time only
when they sold their product to their customer. This is unethical, every company in this
industry must focus to provide after services to their customers and in case any customer
is facing to use their product then they must exchange the product or make some
negotiated decision but ignoring customers complaints are not supposed to be done.
 Spreading wrong humours about competitors- It is also one of the most unethical
practices by retailing companies where they spread false information about their
competitors so that they will reduce the brand image of their competitors and snatch their
customers from them. Most of the companies share wrong and false information about
the bad quality and high prices of their competitors on social media platforms which is
having global reach. This will reduce the brand image of companies as well as
misconduct customers in market. Hence, gaining competitive advantage will help the
company to grow well but in case any company gain competitive advantage by spreading
wrong information about their competitors will be considered as unethical practices.
Relevant industry regulations
There is various kinds of regulations and laws are made to control these unethical issues of
industries and these regulations are given below-
Data Protection Act 2018- This law was passed by UK government in context of aiming
to protect the personal and confidential data of customers and employees by their companies.
According to this law no company is allowed to use any personal data of customers and
employees in their advertisements without asking them (Köseoglu, Yildiz and Ciftci, 2018). In
case customers and employees allow them then only they are supposed to use their data in their
advertisement activities. Secondly, in case the customer of employee gets blackmailed and it is
proven that the data is leaked by the company then strict action will be taken for the company.
Hence, due to this law customers and employees both are protected well related to their data.
Secondly, due to this law, most of the companies use advance and high tech software and devices

to secure the data of their customers so that hackers will not hack that advanced and protected
devices and software.
Equity Act 2010- This is one of another main regulation by the government of UK where
they restricted companies to treat unfair with their employees. According to this law, employers
are allowed to treat well with their employees and do not conduct any unwanted practices like
discriminating employees, abusing employees and many others at workplace.
The Customer Right Act 2015- This is another regulation of UK where customers have
full right to ask for quality products from companies and in case any company sell bad quality of
products to customers without conveying them true information about the quality then according
to this Act that customer has full right to file a case against the company (Suriyankietkaew and
Kantamara, 2019). Customers are also allowed to ask for refund in case they are shown different
item in stores but they are delivered wrong item. Customers are also having right to ask any
detail and information related to product and services to any employee of the company and that
employee have to clear their doubts and issues as soon as possible.
Ethical controversy in specific company within retailing industry
Tesco is one of the most popular retailing companies in UK which was founded in 1919
by Jack Cohen. It is headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, UK. It is popular for their large
variety of products available at their stores with affordable prices. Beside this, they also face few
of the ethical issues and due to such issues their brand reputation declined. Few of the ethical
controversy related to Tesco Company is mentioned below-
Exploitation of labours by their suppliers- It is found that Tesco’s suppliers are
exploiting their labours at their farms and fields and it is said that Tesco is well aware about this
information but they ignore to focus upon this matter and continue to purchase products from
their suppliers. When questions are raised in media to Tesco about this situation then they simple
reply that they are unaware about the condition.
Discharge of hazardous chemicals- In the year 2019, the company Tesco has received
worst rating due to their chemical usage in most of the activities and especially those chemicals
which pollute the environment (Harrison and et. al., 2019). In context of Tesco, they aimed to
reduce the consumption of hazardous chemicals by 2020 but they failed to achieve this mission
as recently in the year 2020 their most of the electronic devices are found to have hazardous
chemicals which are unsafe for environment as well for the health of customers.

Selling untested products- It is also controversy related to Tesco company that they did
not test their every product on animals before they sale it to their targeted customers.
Unmatched prices as compared to advertisements- It is also most common controversy of Tesco
related to their unethical practices that they advertise their products and convey wrong message
to their customers about the prices. They show different prices in their advertisements and have
different prices when customers reached at stores and aimed to purchase that product. Most of
the customers give low ratings to Tesco just because of this reason and they mention in their
comments that Tesco is showing low prices in their advertisements and in actual they are having
high prices of same product in their stores.
Does industry require stricter regulation
In context of above information it is clearly evaluated that there are various kind of
unethical practices performed by retailing companies in retailing industry of UK. Hence, stricter
regulations can be made earlier which will help the industry perform their work effectively and
ethically. Stricter regulations will force the employees to focus more on ethical practices and
satisfy their customers without taking their advantages (Evana, Metalia and Mirfazli, 2019). It is
suggested that the stricter regulations will not only include to add punishments from those who
are found to perform unethical practices but this new regulations can also be made to analyse that
how the mistake can be improved by soft manner. One of the regulation should be made on
monitoring and providing coaching to employees in retailing industry do that they will well
aware about the ways and treatment that they have to perform with their customers.
Stricter regulations will influence company to monitor the activities of their organisation
well and make corrections in case they found any unethical practices. Few of the high
compensation in monetary value can also help companies to focus on ethical practices. In case
the amount of compensation for the companies to exploit their labours and customers will
increased then companies will pay more attention to such factors and avoid taking risk of
exploiting workers at their workplace (Kreismann and Talaulicar, 2021). Monitoring of
company’s advertisements and their actual prices will be increased by government bodies which
will help to control spreading false information through their advertisements to manipulate their
customers.

Conclusion
It is concluded from the above information that ethical issues are most common and dangerous
issues within a company which can even damage their brand image in market and decline their
overall productivity and profitability. Retailing industry is one of the fastest growing industries
in UK and it is focusing more on providing good services to their customers. Highest
competition is also presented in this industry. Few of the ethical issues which are common in this
industry is data leakage where companies leak the personal data of their customers and
employees to any third part by knowingly or unknowingly. Secondly, they sale bad quality of
products to customers and ignore their complaints for longer period of time. Treating employee’s
labours badly is another ethical issue with retailing companies. Most of the companies
discriminate their employees and did not pay adequate wages for their work. It is also concluded
that stricter regulations can be made in UK to monitor and control these ethical issues well.
Some of the existing regulations also help to control these business ethical issues well like Data
Protection Act, 2018 which include that in case any company found to misuse the data of their
customers and employees will get punished. Hence, having stricter regulations will help the
nation to control such unethical practices within their nation and protect the right of customers
and employees well.
Recommendations
It is recommended for the retailing industry of UK to focus on the quality of their products well
and aware their customers about actual quality and price of the product.
 It is also recommended to retailing companies that they must advertise their products
with true and actual information like they must share actual prices of their products in
their advertisements as compared to the prices of their products in stores.
 It is also recommended to retailing companies that they must sale their products after
testing it on animals and they are suggested to mention whether their product is animal
tested or not in their labelling process of product.
 It is also recommended to most of the companies that they must aware their employees
about their rights at workplace so that any employer try to discriminate them or perform
any unethical practice then the employees must aware what they have to do and where
they have to complain.

 It is also recommended to the companies that they must use advance devices and updated
software to save the data of their customers and employees so that third party will not
misuse it. Keeping passwords to the system is essential to keep the data safe and secure.
 It is also recommended that amount of compensation will be increased for those
companies which are found to perform any unethical practices. This will help to avoid
exploiting employees and workers at workplace.

References
Books and Journals
Anshari, M. and Sumardi, W.H., 2020. Employing big data in business organisation and business
ethics. International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 14(2), pp.181-205.
Darwish, S. and Abdeldayem, M.M., 2019. Risk Management and Business Ethics: Relations
and Impacts in the GCC. International Journal of Civil Engineering and
Technology, 10(10), pp.489-504.
Evana, E., Metalia, M. and Mirfazli, E., 2019. Business Ethics in Providing Financial
Statements: The Testing of Fraud Pentagon Theory on the Manufacturing Sector in
Indonesia. Business Ethics and Leadership, 3(3), pp.68-77.
Ferrell, O.C and et. al., 2019. Business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and brand
attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Research, 95, pp.491-501.
Harrison, D.E. and et. al., 2019. Corporate social responsibility and business ethics:
conceptualization, scale development and validation. Journal of Product & Brand
Management.
Köseoglu, M.A., Yildiz, M. and Ciftci, T., 2018. Authorship trends and collaboration patterns in
business ethics literature. Business Ethics: A European Review, 27(2), pp.164-177.
Kreismann, D. and Talaulicar, T., 2021. Business Ethics Training in Human Resource
Development: A Literature Review. Human Resource Development Review, 20(1),
pp.68-105.
Melé, D., 2019. Business Ethics in Action: Managing Human Excellence in Organizations.
Bloomsbury Publishing.
Mili, M., Gharbi, S. and Teulon, F., 2019. Business ethics, company value and ownership
structure. Journal of Management and Governance, 23(4), pp.973-987.
Suriyankietkaew, S. and Kantamara, P., 2019. Business ethics and spirituality for corporate
sustainability: A Buddhism perspective. Journal of Management, Spirituality &
Religion, 16(3), pp.264-289.
Vazquez, P., 2018. Family business ethics: At the crossroads of business ethics and family
business. Journal of Business Ethics, 150(3), pp.691-709.
Online-
Tesco plc, 2021, [Online], Available through:
< https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/tesco-plc>
Tesco voted UK's worst supermarket, 2021, [Online], Available through:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/feb/20/tesco-voted-uks-worst-supermarket