Analyzing Values, Ethics, and Collaborative Practices within Tesco Plc

This report provides a detailed analysis of values, ethics, and collaborative practices within Tesco Plc. It begins by defining ethics and its importance to Tesco, highlighting the company's cybersecurity, human rights, tax, and responsible retailing policies. The report then explores Tesco's corporate social responsibility initiatives, focusing on food waste reduction, plastics and recycling efforts, water conservation, sustainable sourcing, and employee well-being. Furthermore, the report outlines ethical guidelines for a hypothetical soft drink company operating in the UK, including compliance with marketing and advertising laws, food and health regulations, and the Data Protection Act 2018 to ensure customer data protection. Finally, the report touches upon the importance of team collaboration in a business environment. Desklib offers a wealth of similar reports and solved assignments for students.

VALUES, ETHICS, AND WORKING
COLLABORATIVELY

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK-1............................................................................................................................................3
Concept of ethics and what it means to Tesco Plc.......................................................................3
Corporate social responsibility....................................................................................................4
TASK-2............................................................................................................................................5
Ethical guidelines for soft drink company...................................................................................5
Marketing and advertisement laws..............................................................................................6
Food and Health regulations........................................................................................................7
Legislation an organisation must comply to for the purpose of ensuring the protection of
customers and their data..............................................................................................................7
TASK-3............................................................................................................................................8
Team collaboration......................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

MAIN BODY
TASK-1
Concept of ethics and what it means to Tesco Plc
Ethics can be referred to as certain societal standards which states the righteousness and
wrongness of an action or conduct with respect to the rights, obligations, justness and benefits to
social group. These standards work as a guide for humans in conducting their actions as it helps
in identifying what is morally right and what is considered as morally wrong.
Ethics with respect to Tesco
Tesco Plc has a set of ethical policies which provides the employees with a set of rules
which are to be complied with, by the workforce of the company. They are as follows:
Cyber security policy
Tesco Plc believes that customers are the most important asset of an organization and
they should be protected at any cost. Similarly, the data that is related to the customer
information holds importance within the eyes of the company. In order to prevent the
information to get leaked, Tesco Plc has formulated a set of policies such as risk management,
system security, and colleague awareness training programmes. Risk management is used to
maintain the confidentiality of the information, and makes sure that the information is available
whenever it is required (Bachtadze, Zaikin, and Żylawski, 2021). In order to ensure the safety of
the information as well as the systems, the company constantly monitors the system , and if there
is any kind of cyber attack, the company instantly takes action to mitigate its impact.
Human right policy
Tesco believes in the growth and development of its employees. It is a source of
employment for a huge number of people across the work. It promotes a safe and happy
environment for its staff and makes sure that no employee has to spend extra hours at workplace
without any reason, it ensures health and safety of its employees and do not force the pressure of
work on its employees.
Tax policy

Tesco plc. understands the importance of paying tax and therefore, pay the tax
responsibly on time. It is one of the biggest contributors of tax in the United kingdom. In the
financial year 2021, the company paid a tax of about £5.2 billion. The company tries to comply
to the tax laws of the country in which it operates and helps in serving the community as a whole
by contributing towards the same.
Responsible retailing
The company provides its customers with a variety of products which includes selling of
products which are age restricted such as tobacco, alcohol, energy drinks of products which can
be harmful for an individual if consumed unnecessary (Becker, 2018). Therefore, the company
asks for age verification from the customers whenever someone wants to purchase an age
restricted product. Since, the consumption of alcohol and tobacco is injurious to health, the
company provides its stores with a variety of warning signs stating the harmful effects of
consuming alcohol and tobacco in order to promote educated buying and promote a safe
community.
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility refers to the practices of self-regulation by a company or
an organization in order to contribute their share towards the betterment of the society. The
programs and activities with respect to corporate social responsibility in Sainsbury has been
explain below:
Food waste:
It has been observed that an estimate of around one-third of all the food produced for the
consumption of human is either wasted or misplaced (Bowie, 2020). Therefore, Sainsbury is
working on formulating strategies in order to reduce the food waste and put the extra food to
good use. For the same, the company is collaborating with farmers to eliminate the food waste
within the supply chain. The company is also sending the extra food as a donation to the ones
who need it.
Plastics and recycling:
Sainsbury is one of the first firms in United Kingdom who has pledged to cut the plastic
packaging of its products by 50% by the end of the year 2025. For the same, the company is
using the approach of the 5R’s that is, reduce, reuse, replace, recycle and remove. This means
that the company is reducing the use of plastic as much as possible, removing its use where it

can, recycling and reusing the same wherever possible, and replacing its use wherever they can
in order to attain the target.
Water:
The water is the most important natural resource which is essential for the survival of
humans. However, it is used in various other operations too. Therefore, Sainsbury is taking
initiatives in order to make the optimum utilisation of limited water (Candoğan, Korpeoglu, and
Tang, 2020). The company aims to minimise its use as much as possible, and use rain water
harvesting as a method to save water.
Sustainable sourcing:
Sainsbury sources its products from around 60 countries across the world. The company
has maintained extraordinary relations with the farmers of United Kingdom work with in order to
support their well-being. The company also supports the farmers associated with England and by
this it reduces its transportation miles as England is a part of United Kingdom only. Sainsbury
collaborates with the different teams in order to handle climate change and reduce the impact of
their business operations on the environment.
People:
The people and employees of an organization plays an important role in the success of a
company. Therefore, Sainsbury tries its best to be an inclusive employer and makes sure each
and every individual working within the organization is treated fairly. The company respects its
employees and provides their employees with training and development programs for the
betterment of the employees and also enhancing their skills which can help them in improving
their productivity and contribute to the success of the organization (Claure, and Jung, 2021).
Sainsbury believes in women empowerment, provides jobs to disabled people within the
organization and recognises the efforts of each and every individual and rewards them on the
basis of their performance by way promotions, raise in salary, bonus, etc.
TASK-2
Ethical guidelines for soft drink company
Firstly, in order to launch a soft drink within the market of UK, it is essential for a
company to pay a certain amount of levy to the soft drink industry which is specifically referred
to as Soft Drinks Industry Levy. The company will have to take a Food licence in order to sell
the soft drink within the market of United Kingdom. The approval from the higher authorities of

United Kingdom and the receiving the licence states that the company is efficiently fulfilling all
the necessary requirements in order to launch a product in the market. Before launching the soft
drink in the market, it is essential for the company to ensure that it is following the packaging
and labelling standards existing in the UK. Non-compliance of the same can lead to a penalty in
terms of money or even imprisonment. Before introducing a product such as soft drink, it is
important for the company to make sure that the product do not harm the environment in any
manner (DeTienne, and et.al 2021). The packaging and labelling standards with respect to the
food and beverage policy of UK, states that the company needs to mention the date of expiry and
the date of manufacturing as a label of the product and make sure that the product do not harm
any individual or any other living being in order to launch the product in the market.
Marketing and advertisement laws
For the purpose of marketing and advertisement of the soft drink in the market of United
Kingdom, there are two advertising codes of practice namely, non-broadcast media and
broadcast media. The advertisement and marketing based on non-broadcast media refers to
publishing of advertisements by way of posters, billboards, etc. The standards with respect to this
code of advertisement states that the advertisements should promote honesty and accuracy. It
should include proper list of ingredients that have been used in the manufacturing of a product.
The advertisement should not give rise to any kind political conflict and should be free from any
kind of misrepresentation which might be considered as harmful in the future. The advertisement
should not be conducted in a manner that causes offence to a particular community or affects the
emotions and sentiment s associated with a group of people (DLITT, 2021). The content is
going to be advertised and marketed should be appropriate for the all-age groups.
Advertisements by way of Broadcast media refers to advertising the product using television,
radio, social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and
many more. Same rule that are applicable for the advertisements on non-broadcast media are
applicable on broadcast media too. If an individual thinks that a company has broke rule of
advertising, they have the right to file a complaint within 3 months of the advertisement
appearing. And if it found that an advertisement has broke the rules or the product does not
match its description, the company might have to take it down.

Food and Health regulations
Cold drinks do contain preservatives, colourings, flavourings and sweeteners which are approved
by the food authority in the country where they are manufactured, however, the presence of
certain standards in United Kingdom makes it essential for the companies to lower the ratio of
additives including preservatives, colourings, flavourings and sweeteners within the soft drink
and only permits in a small number of products (Ferrell, and et.al ., 2019). The packaging of the
soft drink needs to be in such a way that it protects the product, maintain its quality and make
sure the product reaches to consumer in the exact same condition as it was when manufactured.
The bottle used for the purpose of packaging should be recyclable and environment friendly. The
ingredients that the soft drink contains should be balanced as a shortage or excessive
apportionment can lead to health problems such as headaches, dehydration, poor skin condition
and many more. The soft drink companies need to make sure that their packaging is inclusive of
proper labels in order to promote educated buying. The packaging and labelling of the product
should include the manufacturing date of the product, its expiry date, where it should be stored,
state a warning if the product does not suit people with specific health conditions and a list of
ingredients used while manufacturing the product ( Freeman, Parmar, and Martin, 2020).
Legislation an organisation must comply to for the purpose of ensuring the protection of
customers and their data
Organizations do gather the information related to their consumers as well as try to access
information in order to attract new and potential consumers towards the products sold by the
company. For the same, the company needs to abide by the rules and regulations of Data
Protection Act, 2018 (Magni, and Maruping, 2019). The Data Protection Act 2018 regulates and
controls how an organization, business or even government can use the personal information of
public. There are certain rules stated by the Data Protection act, 2018 which are to be followed
by an organization. The principles states that the information must:
 Be used in a fair, legal, and transparent manner
 Be used for a specific, stated purpose
 Be handled in a way that guarantees suitable security, including safeguards against
unauthorised or illicit processing, admittance, loss, demolition, or damage
 Be used in a way that is adequate, relevant, and confined to the bare minimum

 Be held for no more time than is required
The Data Protection Act, 2018 provides the certain rights to the general public as well as the
consumers of an organization. With the help these rights, the public and the consumers have the
right to be informed about how the organization is making use of their information, they public
correct any discrepancies their data by informing the company in order to update it, they also
have the right to object the way an organization is using the data, the consumers can also ask the
company to delete the data and stop the company to make use of their data with respect to the
business of an organization.
TASK-3
Team collaboration
Team collaboration takes place when a set of individuals working within an organization,
each having its own unique skill set comes together to work in order to achieve the targets of an
organization. Team collaboration is different from team work. Team collaboration is done when
different colleagues join each other in order to carry out a specific task or find a solution to the
problem of the organization. Team collaboration takes place within an organization for a number
of reasons such as promoting problem solving behaviour and attitude within the people of the
organization, gain a wider perspective, enable knowledge sharing and improve the work
environment and promote the happiness of the employees. Similarly, Marks and spencer’s makes
use of team collaboration as an essential part of the organization in provide to the grow of the
company (Seeber, and et.al 2020). By forming collaborative teams, Marks and spencer makes
sure that their employees are feeling valued and getting equal treatment. The formation of
effective team collaboration also helps the company in enhancing the knowledge and
effectiveness as within a group, people can learn a lot from each other.
In order to promote team collaboration within Marks and Spencer’s, the company used
certain policies which helped them in the process of team collaboration. For the same, the
company first identified the common objectives that are to be achieved by the employees, set
expectations as to what the company expects from them, focused on the strengths possessed by
each and every individual that is going to be a part of the process, by conducting team meetings,
it identified various fresh ideas, and developed a trustworthy relationship among all of its
members (Siemon, and Robra-Bissantz, S., 2020). Marks and Spencer’s also made sure that its
employees spend time with each other after work in order to create a bond between them so that

it gets easier for them to work together and achieve successful results. Marks and spencer’s also
made use of certain collaborative tools in order achieve collaboration within its teams. There are
several apps available in the market that are used by the company for carrying out specific tasks
such as ‘Trello’ for managing the tasks, ‘Slack’ for the purpose of communicating with the team,
and ‘Doodle’ for scheduling meetings.
In order to collaborate with people outside the organization, it is important for an
organization to enable sharing. The organization can customize the sharing controls with the help
of certain software and allow the level of sharing of data that an organization wants to have. The
company should also enable additional security in order to protect the data while sharing the
documents with people working outside the organization. Marks and Spencer’s is good at using
team collaboration for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness of its organization. Marks and
Spencer’s believe that team collaboration helps its employees in gaining a wider perspective as a
number of people from diverse backgrounds come together to present their opinions on a
particular subject. Team collaboration helps its employees to look at the problem from not only
the view point of one person but also view it as a bigger picture and discussing about its impact
on various fields and functions of an organization.
Marks and Spencer’s effectively implements team collaboration within the organization
and promotes happy and healthy environment (Symons, 2020). With the help of team
collaboration, Marks and Spencers enables knowledge sharing within its teams. As there is
presence of individuals relating to different fields and which can help the other people in a team
to improve their learning and development by gaining knowledge from other team members
within an organization.
There are a number of strategies used by Marks and Spencer’s in order to motivate the
teams existing within its organization. They include planning and scheduling team building
activities, providing necessary support to the employees, providing them the flexibility to work
from home with suitability of their timings, providing a place to the employees to relax and take
break during the working hours and appreciating the efforts made by the team. When an
individual is appreciated for contributing towards the success of the company, it develops a
feeling of motivation within the minds of the workforce to work hard for their betterment as well
as for the organization. Similarly, it is important for an organization to provide breaks in between
the working hours of an organization. This helps the employees to relax and release their stress

and boost their morale for the purpose of reinforcing the capabilities in order to successfully
complete a task. The flexibility to work remotely increases the efficiency of employees as they
can work for the company at their timings and convenience. The comfort they get from working
from home reduces employee turnover and increase the employee engagement of the company.
There are certain consequences of poor collaborative working within an organization.
When different individuals come together in order to accomplish a task successfully can be
referred to as collaborating teams. However, when the formation of teams that are going to work
collaboratively are unable to accomplish the task, they can be called as poor collaborative
working (Tang, Li, Ding, and Ma, 2021,). The risks associated with poor collaborative working
includes wasting time, poor project management, poor implementation of tactics, negative
impact on morale and security risks. In order to improve the effectiveness of team collaboration,
it is essential for an organization to utilise each and every minute. For the same, it needs to make
to technology for the purpose of automating a task and save time. On the same note, an
organization must make use of better tools of collaboration. The better the tool, the better will be
the outcome as it smoothens the process of collaboration. It has been observed quite a few times
that the process of collaboration does not match the strategies as well as the objectives of the
company. This leads to a mismanagement within the organization reduces the effectiveness of
the strategies implemented for the purpose of solving an issue or a completion of a specific task
on time.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
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Bowie, N.E., 2020. Business Ethics. In New Directions in Ethics (pp. 158-172). Routledge.
Burrows, J., 2020. Improving Team Collaboration as a Project Manager. The Kabod. 6(2). p.4.
Candoğan, S.T., Korpeoglu, C.G. and Tang, C.S., 2020. Team collaboration in innovation
contests. Available at SSRN 3607769.
Claure, H. and Jung, M., 2021, March. Fairness considerations for enhanced team collaboration.
In Companion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot
Interaction (pp. 598-600).
DeTienne, K.B., and et.al 2021. Moral development in business ethics: An examination and
critique. Journal of Business Ethics. 170(3). pp.429-448.
DeTienne, K.B., and et.al 2021. Moral development in business ethics: An examination and
critique. Journal of Business Ethics. 170(3). pp.429-448.
DLITT, B.I.R., 2021. CULTIVATING ETHICS IN BUSINESS. Strategic Finance. 102(12).
pp.13-14.
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.
Freeman, R.E., Parmar, B.L. and Martin, K., 2020. BUSINESS AND ETHICS (pp. 129-140).
Columbia University Press.
Magni, M. and Maruping, L., 2019. Unleashing innovation with collaboration platforms. MIT
Sloan Management Review. 60(3). pp.1-5.
McIntosh, T.B., 2021. Leadership and Team Collaboration (Doctoral dissertation, Touro
University International).
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