Report on Ethics, Sustainability, and Samsung's Business Strategies

This report provides an overview of Samsung, a South Korean multinational corporation, and delves into its ethical business strategies and sustainability practices. It examines Samsung's organizational structure, mission, vision, and its commitment to ethical conduct, including the implementation of a global code of conduct and compliance management. The report analyzes Samsung's offensive and defensive marketing strategies, and the impact of corporate reputation and ethical branding on its business. It highlights Samsung's ethical business practices, such as developing ethical standards, leadership behavior, and enforcing policies to protect stakeholder interests. The report also touches upon the effects of corporate reputation and ethical branding, referencing incidents like the Galaxy S7 phone issue. Overall, the report offers insights into Samsung's approach to ethical business and sustainability within the competitive electronics market.

Running Head: Ethics and Sustainability
Samsung
Ethics and Sustainability

Ethics and Sustainability 1
Table of Contents
1. Overview of Samsung..............................................................................................................2
2. Ethical Business Strategies.......................................................................................................2
3. Offensive/defensive strategies..................................................................................................3
Effects of corporate reputation and ethical branding...................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

Ethics and Sustainability 2
1. Overview of Samsung
Samsung is a South Korean multinational corporation. Its headquarters is situated in Samsung
Town, Seoul. Under this brand name, numbers of business are associated and this is also known
as the largest business corporation in South Korea. Company was founded in 1938 and initially it
was diversified in three areas i.e. textile, food processing, securities, insurance and retail. Later
on, Samsung entered into consumer electronics market which turned as the crucial factor in
terms of the company’s success and growth (Samsung Electronics, 2018).
Organizational structure of Samsung Corporation is divisional and it is divided into three sub-
categories i.e. IT & Mobile Communications, Device Solutions and Consumer Electronics
Goods. Primary objective behind adaptation of the divisional organizational structure is large
product portfolio. Apart from this, organization delivers various products and services which is
another crucial factor for adaptation of divisional organizational structure (Jones & Jones, 2010).
Samsung Corporation’s mission is focusing over emerging markets and setting up their effective
brand image in those markets along with acquiring the leading position. Its primary competitor is
Apple Inc. and in order to gain competitive advantage, organization has adopted various
effective and advanced strategies so that they could become the leader of the target market till
2020.
Samsung’s mission statement is “inspire the world, create the future” and it is their vision which
needs to acquired till 2020. In relation to their vision, they have adopted various strategies such
as innovation, introduction of advanced products, etc. Apart from this, organization’s another
vision is to reach to the $400 billion revenue mark by 2020 (Singer, 2011).
In relation with the adaptation of the code of ethics and best practices in the workplace so as to
attain its desired goals and objectives, organization has decided to execute their functionalities in
an effective manner by following all types of laws and regulations of all countries in which
company exists. Apart from this, organization has developed and implemented global personal
data security policies in relation with keeping personal information of its customers and
employees safe and secure. Samsung has developed a department which manages all the ethical
risks and other factors according to the Samsung Global Code of Conduct and the Business

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Conduct Guidelines. These considerations have been conveyed to each and every member of the
organization so that these could be followed in an effective and efficient manner (Soo, 2014).
2. Ethical Business Strategies
In relation with increasing the organizational effectiveness, they have adopted various ethical
business strategies. Samsung’s code of conduct policies i.e. Samsung Businesses Principles
include numerous policies related with the company’s customers, suppliers, and for stakeholders.
These policies provide a channel to report against any violation regarding ethical standards.
Company have developed a separate website which focuses over ethics management. Company
has conveyed this information to its stakeholders, customers and suppliers using internal
communication strategies so that they could raise their voices in exploitations related scenarios.
With the help of this practice, organization would be able to make effective relationship with
them (Wambui, 2013).
Corporate Legal Office of Samsung operates under the control of CEO regulates Privacy
Steering Committee and Compliance Team. This has been done to improve the compliance
management and both these teams help the top level management in decision making process.
Organization is operating in various countries and in order to make their processes smooth and
effective, they have included the laws and regulations of every country in their policies and code
of conducts in terms of avoiding the chances of glitches in their functionality. This has helped
the organization to develop an effective image in the marketplace along with attaining desired
goals and the objectives (London & Hart, 2010).
Compliance management, privacy legal management system and other measures have also been
included in the ethical business practices of organization which has increased the effectiveness of
the organization along with the increasing the opportunities for acquiring leading position in the
global market. Following are certain crucial ethical business practices which help to save
stakeholder’s interest at national and international level:
 Development and implementation of ethical standards: This is the first step under
which code of ethics are being developed and implemented within the workplace so as to
perform the functionalities in an effective manner (Mellahi, Morrell & Morrell, 2010).

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 Leader exhibit proper behaviour: It is necessary for every organization to develop and
maintain effective organizational behaviour. Initiative needs to be taken from the top
management so that lower level management and employees could follow the same. In
this procedure, leaders play crucial role because they seems to be role model for
employees. Leaders are required to adopt adequate code of ethics in their functionalities
which will influence other employees to perform in the same manner.
 Enforcing policies: While imposing policies within the workplace, every aspect should
be considered along with analysing all realistic scenarios. It is necessary to take reviews
from employees in relation with the application of policies. This helps the organization to
develop appropriate relationships with the employees and it is useful to take out the best
from employees.
With the help of these ethical practices, organization will be able to protect the interest of its
employees, customers and other stakeholders at both national as well as international level.
Ultimately, it will improve organizational functionalities which will impact over its overall
performance. Efficiency of these practices could be measures by their effectiveness. Performing
organizational functionalities in ethical manner is the most appropriate way to attain desired
goals and objectives of the organization.
3. Offensive/defensive strategies
Companies use marketing strategies in order to accomplish its goals and objectives in relevance
with the attainment of competitive advantage. These strategies are also used for defending and
attaining competitive advantage in the market. Amongst these strategies, primary strategies are
defensive and offensive. Role of offensive strategy is to keep secure organizational competitive
advantage whereas defensive strategies are used for defending the competitive advantage of the
organization (Yannopoulos, 2011).
Defensive strategy of Samsung focuses on maintaining the competitive advantage and other
achievements which are already attained. As a result, firm’s position in the market does not get
affected. For instance, Samsung is a leading mobile phone brand in terms of Android operating
system market. Thus, to maintain its position as well as to compete with the existing and with

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new entrants, they promote their products rapidly along with providing unique and various offers
to its customers (Bear, Rahman & Post, 2010).
Offensive strategies are implemented with the objective to gain competitive advantage in the
market. Samsung continuously invent new measures and features through which their products in
order to gain competitive advantage as well as to showcase their product more effective and
advantageous from its competitors.
Effects of corporate reputation and ethical branding
Branding is done to add value to the products and services as it promotes lifestyle and sets the
benchmarks in terms of quality of the product, customer satisfaction capability, etc. Branding is
considered as the social and economic construct and it seems beyond to the advertising and
marketing strategies. While promoting the brand, company’s core values should be considered
because for creating a brand name, it takes several years while destroying the name requires one
negative indent. For instance, Samsung was doing a great job in consumer electronic market but
due to negative incident, organization’s goodwill was affected in negative manner. This was
when its effective Galaxy series’ S7 was launched. It was an effective phone for that time with
great features but after sometime of its launching, organization gets several complaints regarding
blast in phones. This decreases the value of the brand as well as brand loyalty of Samsung was
also affected (Abratt & Kleyn, 2012).
Corporate reputation of Samsung is high as they are engaged in electronics market since a very
long time and in their entire tenure, they have done various inventions and developments through
they have made a positive image in the global market. Apart from this, their ethical policies and
the standards are effective enough to protect interest of its customers, suppliers and other
stakeholders.

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References
Abratt, R., & Kleyn, N. (2012). Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate reputations:
Reconciliation and integration. European Journal of Marketing, 46(7/8), 1048-1063.
Bear, S., Rahman, N., & Post, C. (2010). The impact of board diversity and gender composition
on corporate social responsibility and firm reputation. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(2),
207-221.
Jones, G. R., & Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change.
London, T., & Hart, S. L. (2010). Next generation business strategies for the base of the
pyramid: New approaches for building mutual value. Pearson Education India.
Mellahi, K., Morrell, K., & Wood, G. (2010). The ethical business: Challenges and
controversies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Samsung Electronics, 2018. About Us. Retrieved on 18th March 2018 from:
https://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/ethics/
Singer, P. (2011). Practical ethics. Cambridge university press.
Soo, K. G. (2014). Building your company with strong vision platform. International
Information Institute (Tokyo). Information, 17(7), 3021.
Wambui, E. (2013). Samsung Smartphone strategic marketing: analysis of Samsung Smartphone
marketing strategy decisions and the consumer perception to the implemented strategies.
Yannopoulos, P. (2011). Defensive and offensive strategies for market success. International
Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(13).