Electrocorp Case Study

850 Words2 Pages

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The United States located electronic company Electrocorp faced the problem of declining profitability due to rising production costs, specifically high wages, costly worker's safety and environmental standards. In order to solve this problem Electrocorp is deciding whether to relocate some of their plants to South Africa, Mexico, or the Philippines.

The first alternative of keeping the plants in the US would mean that Eletrocorp obeys the strict environmental and safety regulations, pays its workers $15/ hour, but avoids the loss of jobs in the US. The company would incur high production costs. The second alternative of relocating plants to South Africa would create a job loss in the US. The company would save costs by hiring workers for $10/ day and obeying less strict safety and environmental standards. The strong labor union could cause problems in the future. The third alternative of relocating to Mexico would have the same effects as relocating to South Africa, except that the wages for workers are $3/ day. A larger amount of costs could be saved, although Electrocorp would have to pay attention to citizen health groups which could cause bad publicity. The last alternative of relocating to the Philippines offers the highest cost savings due to the least strict safety and environmental regulations, no activist groups and the market pay rate of $1/ day.

The evolving ethical issues can be summarized as follows: Is a relocation of Electrocorp's plants ethical considering the loss of jobs in the US, workers' exploitation in the host country, and the harmful impact on the host country's environment?

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