Values, Ethics, and Working Collaboratively: A Sainsbury's Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Sainsbury's operations, focusing on its values, ethics, and collaborative working practices. The report begins by defining the concept of ethics and how it applies within Sainsbury's, followed by an examination of the company's approach to addressing environmental issues. Task 2 delves into the creation and analysis of Sainsbury's code of conduct, and how it facilitates effective collaboration with other business organizations. The report also examines the initiatives of the Fire Service, evaluating its legal basis and community impact. Throughout the report, key areas such as ethical practices, environmental sustainability, and collaborative strategies are explored, offering insights into Sainsbury's operational framework and its commitment to ethical business conduct.

Values, Ethics and
Working
Collaboratively

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
A) Concept of Ethics..................................................................................................................3
B) How Ethics Are Applied Within Sainsbury’s.......................................................................4
C) What Sainsbury’s Can Do to Address Environmental Issues...............................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
A) Creating a Code of Conduct for Sainsbury’s........................................................................6
B) Analysing How Sainsbury’s Code of Conduct Helps When Working Together with Other
Business Organisations................................................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
A) Identifying Which Initiatives Operations of Fire Service Falls Under.................................8
B) Evaluating Why Operations of Fire Service Are Legal........................................................9
C) Describing the Impact of Operations of Fire Service on the Community............................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Ethics within a business organisation relates to the implementation and adoption of
operational policies, methods, practices and principles within a business organisation in relation
to controversial subjects within the business (Barry, 2016). This report analyses the values, ethics
and collaborative working operations of Sainsbury’s which is a public retail business
organisation that was created in 1869 and currently operates from its operational headquarters in
London, UK. Having operated successfully in the UK’s retail sector for such a prolonged period
of time, has allowed for Sainsbury’s to possess a significant market share of 16%, which has
made the retail business organisation the second largest supermarket chain in the entire UK. In
order to be able to effectively conduct its daily operations in a successful manner, Sainsbury’s
operates more than 1,428 different retail establishments all across the UK and employs more
than 116,400 distinct employees at various operational positions within its organisational
structure.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
A) Concept of Ethics
Ethics relates to the way in which a business organisation should act and conduct its daily
business operations within operational industries, in order for the business organisation to be able
to conduct its daily operations in a successful manner over a sustained period of time. Business
ethics relates to the examination of ethical and moral values, beliefs and principles of a business
organisation (Dierksmeier and Seele, 2018). Ethics in business organisations can also be related
to the unwritten and written codes values, beliefs and principles of the business’s organisational
culture that comes to govern and influence all the actions and decisions made within the business
organisation (Crane and et.al., 2019). It is of immense importance for any given business
organisation including Sainsbury’s to conduct their operations in a highly moral and ethical
manner, because ethics within a business organisation allows for the business to gain trust of

their customers, employees, stakeholders, allows for the employees of the business to be highly
motivated and satisfied increasing their operational performance and efficiency and allows for
the business organisation to conduct its operations and achieve their organisational objectives by
aligning them to the ethical and moral values, beliefs and principles of the business organisation.
When a business organisation does not promote the adoption of ethical and moral
operational practices within the business’s employees, it can result in the business coming to
possess a highly unethical and immoral organisational culture, which negatively impact upon the
motivation and job satisfaction metrics of its employees, decreases the overall performance and
efficiency of its employees and stands to lose the trust of its customers and stakeholders within
the external environment of the business (de Bakker, Rasche and Ponte, 2019). In addition, a
business conducting its operations in an unethical and immoral manner cannot hope to
effectively increase its overall brand value, awareness and reputation levels within the
consumers, as the business is consistently presented to the customers in a negative limelight by
the media, on account of the various unethical practices of the business and its possessed
organisational culture.
B) How Ethics Are Applied Within Sainsbury’s
The leadership and senior management of Sainsbury’s place immense focus and
emphasis on promoting and encouraging their employees to follow and make use of ethical
operational practices, methods and principles, which are aligned with the values, beliefs and
principles of the business organisation, allowing for Sainsbury’s to conduct its daily operations
in a highly successful manner, also allowing for the retail business organisation to come to
possess a highly moral, ethical and legal organisational culture (Ferrell and et.al., 2019). The
highly ethical organisational culture created and implemented within Sainsbury’s on account of
its competent leadership and management is highly successful towards encouraging and
promoting the adoption and implementation of increasingly ethical, moral operational practices,
methods into the daily operations of its employees and is also highly successful towards
positively influencing the operational behaviour of the employees of the retail business
organisation to make use of ethical and moral operational practices and methods (Fordham,
Robinson and Blackwell, 2017). Further in order to ensure that all operations of the retail
business organisation are conducted in a highly ethical and moral manner, consistent with the

beliefs, values and principles of the retail business organisation, Sainsbury’s leadership also
ensure that all the organisational policies, rules and regulations are applied in a consistent
manner to all the employees of the business, without their existing any kind or organisational
corruption, that can encourage the use of unethical practices by employees of the retail business
(Jones, Comfort and Hall, 2020). Further the leadership and senior management of Sainsbury’s
also encourages the adoption of ethical operational practices by the employees of the business by
training and supporting them to make exclusive use of operational practices and methods that are
ethical in nature.
C) What Sainsbury’s Can Do to Address Environmental Issues
There exist several ways through which Sainsbury’s can effectively come to address the
environmental issues present within the business organisation. In order for Sainsbury’s to
effectively be able to address the environmental issues of the business organisation, its leadership
and senior management are required to invest into the operational manufacturing equipment and
machines that Sainsbury’s possess and come to install the new, innovative and advanced
manufacturing machines and equipment available to Sainsbury’s from the external markets
(Rhodes, 2016). Upgrading the old and inefficiency manufacturing machines and equipment
possessed by Sainsbury’s would allow for the business organisation to effectively address its
environmental issues, because such new, innovative manufacturing machines and equipment are
also to make the best and most optimum use of the natural resources required for the
manufacturing operations of the retail business organisation, resulting in a decrease in the
operational wastage produced by the manufacturing operations of Sainsbury’s (Robertson,
Voegtlin and Maak, 2017). Such new manufacturing equipment and machines are also able to
operate with increased performance, efficiency and productivity while consuming less energy
costs, further addressing the environmental issues present through the operations of the retail
business organisation. Additionally, in order to further address the environmental issues of the
business organisation, the leadership and senior management can choose to make use of plastic
alternatives for their shipping and distribution operations, as these too make increased use of
plastics to conduct their operations which adds to the environmental issues of Sainsbury’s.
Further, Sainsbury’s can also switch to making use of renewable energy solutions such as solar
or hydro energy in order to effectively conduct its business operations while addressing the
environmental issues (Rydehell, 2020). This would make the entire operations of the business

sustainable for the future. These initiatives would allow for Sainsbury’s to effectively address
environmental issues.

TASK 2

A) Creating a Code of Conduct for
Sainsbury’s
A code of conduct describes a set or rules and
regulations detailing the operational roles,
responsibilities and norms of an employee of a
business organisation. These are formally
written in order to ensure that the employees
of the business conduct their daily operations
as is expected of them by the business (Storey,
2017). The code of conduct for Sainsbury’s
takes into account the various legal regulations of
UK such as the GDPR and is as follows:
Mission of the Business: The mission statement of
Sainsbury’s is “To be the consumer’s first choice
for food, delivering products of outstanding quality
and great service at a competitive cost through
working ‘faster, simpler and together”
Reason for Code of Conduct: Sainsbury’s has
created this code of conduct in order to ensure that
all employees of the business conduct their daily
B) Analysing How Sainsbury’s Code of
Conduct Helps When Working
Together with Other Business
Organisations
There are several different reasons as to how
the code of conduct of Sainsbury’s helps the
business to collaborate and cooperate effectively
with other business organisations. Some of these are
as follows:
 A dedicated code of conduct allows for
Sainsbury’s and its collaborative
business organisation to effectively
come together for their operations and
collectively adhere to the various
legally mandated rules and regulations
that the UK government has imposed on
them both (American Psychological
Association, 2016).
 The code of conduct also allows for
both Sainsbury’s and its collaborative
partner to conduct their business
operations together in an honest, open
manner with integrity. This is because
the code of conduct ensures that the

operations in a manner that is expected of them,
that aligns with the values, beliefs and principles of
the retail business organisation.
Principles of Code of Conduct:
Honesty, Fair Play and Integrity: The employees
of Sainsbury’s are required to conduct all of their
daily operations in an honest, open, fair manner
while maintaining integrity (Tourani, Adams and
Serebrenik, 2017). The employees of Sainsbury’s
are also required to be impartial to others in the
business.
Equal Opportunities to All: The employees of
Sainsbury’s are required to ensure that equal and
fair opportunities are made available to all the
employees of the business organisation without
there being personal biases, prejudices or
corruption of any manner within the business.
Safety and Health: The employees of Sainsbury’s
are also required to conduct their daily operations
in such a manner that it ensures and safeguards
their own and their subordinate’s personal health
and safety within the business organisation at all
times (Bennett and et.al., 2017).
partner business of Sainsbury’s does not
engage in any operational activity or
practice that might damage the interests,
reputation or brand of Sainsbury’s
within retail markets of UK.
 When cooperating with other business
organisations, the code of conduct of
Sainsbury’s allows for the partner of
Sainsbury’s to treat the customers,
partners and suppliers of the partnership
in the same manner, as they have come
to expect from Sainsbury’s itself over
the years (Hubert, 2019).
 The code of conduct also ensures that
both Sainsbury’s and its collaborative
business organisation also place shared
emphasis on making use of ethical
operational practices, methods when
cooperating together in order for the

Fair Competition: The leadership and
management of Sainsbury’s is required to ensure
that a fair sense of competition exists between the
various employees of the business, encouraging
them all to conduct their operations towards
optimum standards of performance and efficiency
while not preferring any single employee based on
personal biases or prejudices when it comes to the
business’s rewards, incentives, organisational
policies or promotions.
overall operations of the partnership to
the highly ethical and moral (Schmidt,
MacWilliams and Neal-Boylan, 2017).
 The code of conduct also helps ensure
that both Sainsbury’s and its business
partner both come to respect the
environment in the same manner, that
individually Sainsbury’s places during
its operations, so that the operations of
the partnership are still aligned with the
values, beliefs and principles shared by
Sainsbury’s.
TASK 3
A) Identifying Which Initiatives Operations of Fire Service Falls Under
The fire services have run several dedicated campaigns during their recruitment process
to procure talent from the external environments related to attracting increased number of
women, especially those belonging to black and other minority ethnic groups to apply for officer
positions within the fire services (Trevino and Nelson, 2016). This falls under the gender
equality initiatives, as for the longest time in UK, the fire services have predominantly possessed

officers who belong to the male gender and this initiative of the fire services is created to address
this issue and present equal opportunities to the women to also operate of officers within the fire
services in an attempt to implement some form of gender equality within the organisation
(Simion and Dumitru, 2018). The recruitment operations of fire services also fall under the
initiative to encourage diversity within the organisation as the fire services does not possess
diverse officers as part of the organisation. Providing chances to the women belonging to the
black and other ethnic minority groups allows for the fire services to possess an increasingly
diverse workforce, which has numerous benefits to the operations and functions of the
organisation such as enhancing overall performance and efficiency of the employees and
increasing the overall skills possessed by the employees (Sroka and Szántó, 2018). Promoting
initiatives such as gender equality and diversity within the fire services of UK is an immensely
important process because for major parts of the history, women have been isolated to domestic
operations and for the advancement of the overall society, such paradigms and prejudices have to
be discouraged at all levels of the society, which is exactly what the campaigns to attract women
especially those belonging to black and other minority ethnic groups of fire services and other
organisations are aspiring to.
B) Evaluating Why Operations of Fire Service Are Legal
It is legal for fire services of UK to run promotions and campaigns with the intention to
attract increased number of female applicants for the position of officer, especially those women
belonging to the black or other ethnic minority groups because this is an initiative to encourage
gender equality and diversity within the fire service organisation and not a discrimination of
employees on the basis of genders (Vazquez, 2018). The operations of fire services are legal
because they are not discriminating against their employees or the candidates on the basis on
their gender, choosing to only hire female candidates for the operational position of officer
within the organisation (Werhane, 2019). Instead fire services are merely trying to attract
increased number of women participants to also come and apply for the position of officer within
fire services in an effort to promote and encourage gender equality and diversity within the
organisation (Brenkert, 2019). As the candidates in the end would only be selected for the
position of officer within the fire services, based on their personal skills, experience,
competencies etc., with their occurring absolutely no discrimination of employees on the basis of
gender, such operations of fire services do not infringe upon any on the legally mandated

regulations and legislations which have been implemented and enforced by the governing
authorities of UK, making them legal.
C) Describing the Impact of Operations of Fire Service on the Community
The campaigns run by fire services of UK relating to attracting increased number of women
candidates to apply for the position of officer within the organisation, especially those women
belonging to the black and other ethnic minority groups has an immensely positive impact on the
overall community. This is due to the following reasons:
 Attracting increased number of women, especially those belonging to the black and other
ethnic minority groups of UK towards the operations of fire services, allows for members
of these underrepresented and underprivileged communities of UK to effectively make a
living and earn their daily wages, allowing for such members to make a dignified living
and effectively increase their overall standards of living, providing them with opportunity
for a better life (Melé and Fontrodona, 2017).
 Attracting increased number of women, particularly those belonging to the black and
other ethnic minority groups of UK towards the operations of fire services allows for
such ethnic minority groups to be represented at a local and regional level, providing
them with employment opportunities that were not available to them before resulting in
an overall empowerment of the entire underrepresented community (Ogbari and et.al.,
2016).
 Such operations of the fire services also empower the women of such communities to
make a living by themselves, become increasingly independent on others and grow and
develop themselves both personally and professionally. This allows for the women of
such communities to become increasingly empowered and encourages women to speak
out against the domestic abuse and harassment they face consistently in such minority
communities.
 Such operations of the fire services also allow for the women belonging to such black and
other ethnic minority groups to come to possess a different identity that is based on their
profession instead of being directly labelled as a member of ethnic minority by the large
society of UK, resulting in the further empowerment of women belonging to such ethnic
minority groups (Greenwood and Freeman, 2018).