Analysis of Stakeholder Influence and Ethical Violations in Business

This report delves into the ethical implications of stakeholder influence on consumer behavior within a business context. It examines how the pursuit of profit by organizations, often through marketing strategies, can lead to ethical violations, particularly in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The report argues that stakeholder interests should not supersede consumer welfare and ethical conduct. It emphasizes the importance of high-quality information, societal well-being, and ethical alignment with CSR principles. Furthermore, the report stresses the need for consumer self-judgment in purchase decisions, independent of stakeholder profit motives, advocating for ethical decision-making and responsible business practices.

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Assignment Name
Student ID
29 Mar 2019
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Assignment Name Student ID
Business article - The discussion is based on an article which argues that stakeholder’
interest can cause an ethical violation in conjunction with consumer’ purchasing behavior
(Browning, Yang, Park, Lee, and Kim, 2019).
Ethical violation - In particular, every organization have the interest to gain profit and thus,
they tend to adopt a unique selling point for the promotion of their product in the market.
However, in the marketing mix, the company often overlooks the corporate social
responsibilities (CSR) including internal behavior of organization, social welfare, and
relationship with the public. This can be referred as violation of ethics and the orientation for
these attitudes is attributed to the mission of attaining profit.
Consequence – The result of such ethical violation is that stakeholders’ decision for the
organization’s internal behavior, disposal factors, and situational factors, results into self-
profit and not for the benefit of organization and consumers.
Debate - In this consideration, I strongly agree that stakeholder’ interest should not be
dominated in conjunction with the consumer’ preference and their choices. Firstly, the
stakeholder must support the organizational unit that aims to maintain high quality and offer
accurate information to the consumer. Secondly, stakeholder’ interest should never supersede
the societal welfare, which is in accordance to the expectancy theory of consumers (Schade,
Piehler, Warwitz & Burmann, 2018). Furthermore, the ethical behavior of stakeholder must
be aligned to the requirement of CSR. For example, when stakeholder donates funds for the
public benefit, they should have no liabilities in determining the fun utilization for their self-
interest. Likewise, the perceived responsibility of organizational conduct should not be
affected by the decision making the power of stakeholders. Moreover, the influence on
consumers’ purchase decision must be based on their self-judgment for welfare and not on
the profit-based intention of the stakeholders.
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Assignment Name Student ID
References:
Browning, N., Yang, S. U., Park, Y. E., Lee, E., & Kim, T. (2019). Do Ethics Matter?
Investigating Donor Responses to Primary and Tertiary Ethical
Violations. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 1077699019835903. DOI:
DOI: 10.1177/1077699019835903
Schade, M., Piehler, R., Warwitz, C., & Burmann, C. (2018). Increasing consumers’ intention
to use location-based advertising. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 27(6),
661-669.
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