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Business ethics in the market place
Ethical behaviour in marketing
Ethical behaviour in marketing
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1. Do manufacturers of products for children have special obligations to consumers and society?
Yes, manufacturers of products for children have special obligations to consumers and society.
If so, what are these responsibilities? Manufacturers are responsible for making sure the products they produce are child safe. What this means is the products must be designed and marketing to children based on the age appropriateness. The products must comply with all safety requirements for each country Mattel does business. The products advertisement targeted to children must not exploit their innocence and age restriction should be placed on the products they produce so that the appropriate consumer age group is purchasing the products. Parent of these consumers must be informed, when parental guidance is needed in deciding to purchase a particular product because the product requires
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Any change in suppliers must be approved by Mattel, which includes a sampling of each product to be used at their facilities. 3. To what extent is Mattel responsible for issues related to its production of toys in China?
Mattel is directly responsible for the production of toys in China. The manufacturing facilities are acting as agents or in partnership with Mattel and as a result, any errors or mistake made at any of these facilities becomes the responsibility of Mattel to resolve them. Mattel is responsible for making good business decisions when choosing business partnership, therefore any association with partners who does not comply with the principles or standards set by the Mattel in production of their products will affect that company’s business success.
How might Mattel have avoided these
The land of the free, brave and consumerism is what the United States has become today. The marketing industry is exploiting children through advertisement, which is ridiculously unfair to children. We are around advertisement and marketing where ever we go; at times, we don't even notice that we are being targeted to spend our money. As a matter of fact, we live to buy; we need and want things constantly, and it will never stop. The film, Consuming Kids , written by Adriana Barbaro and directed by Jeremy Earp, highlights children as this powerful demographic, with billions of dollars in buying power, but the lack of understanding of marketers’ aggressive strategies. Children are easily influenced and taken advantage of, which is why commercialization of children needs to stop. Commercialization to children leads to problems that parents do not even know are happening such as social, future, and rewired childhood problems. Government regulations need to put a stop to corporations that live, breathe and sell the idea of consumerism to children and instead show that genuine relationships and values are what are important.
Like all companies and people, Apple is not perfect. The company has many suppliers when it comes to building their products, but with such a large corporation they also hold a responsibility to their supplier. However, one of Apples suppliers in China was charged with child labor. Apple seems to have set high standards but they mis...
Apple recently admitted that they were doing business with several suppliers that have been using child labor. Apple’s 2013 Supplier Responsibility report exposed that there were over 100 cases of children employed by several of their technology suppliers during 2012. One of the suppliers, Foxconn, is a Taiwanese company that assembles iPad and iPhone products. While is based out of Taiwan, many of its operations are in China. The company was hiring interns who were as young as 14 and were well under China’s legal working age .China’s labor law requires a person to be at least 16 years of age to be working. Foxconn has also had several employees commit suicide due to the horrible working conditions and long working hours there.
In the contents of this case there are several management and safety issues and areas for improvement. One issue is Mattel, Inc.’s responsibility to its stakeholders; to its customers, to its stockholders, to its employees, and to its suppliers. The responsibility to Mattel’s customers is that of producing and selling safe products. Along with the recall on the lead coated toys there were also toys that contained small, but powerful magnets that if swallowed could attract each other and cause serious or fatal intestinal perforation or blockage. These defects were not discovered during the testing of the products. Before this incident occurred Mattel, Inc. was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most trustworthy U.S. companies. Too this, Mattel did everything they could to assure that they were doing everything possible to handle and correct this problem. For Mattel’s stockholders, the company had to make sure that the image and reputation was saved and redeemed as soon as possible. With such a massive and extensive recall of potentially hazardous products, that was designed to be safe for children, the stock prices and e...
In last 20 years China became one of the more influential and fast growing countries in the world due to the economical element by some trading and import export business. This changing created better living conditions and affluence enlivenment for Chinese citizens, the result is increasing in the Chinese consumers purchasing power and capital of their bank account. which leaded many new Chinese entrants of toy companies or manufacturers established to produce brick toy similar LEGO type in China and they are targeting to export infringing brick toy and aim to occupy LEGO 's market share. China manufacturers were built up factories in Guangdong, Shantou - Chenghai and Dongguan which is named world factory
... in the toy industry is to make toy safety the number one priority and to fulfill the customers’ needs.
In china, for example, Wal-Mart’s importing operations have significantly affected the manufacturing sector in a manner that gradually unemployment has been stimulated (Holmes 1). The trade deficit between Wal-Mart and China have led to a loss of almost one hundred and thirty- three employment opportunities, especially with Wal-Mart importations. Despite China’s efforts of trying to purchase United States’ treasury bills along with federal securities in an effort to reduce the exportation costs to America, Wal-Mart’s entry into the Chinese market has propelled china’s labor abuse along with internal violations of recognized trade norms (Fishman 1). This is caused by the retail’s growing and vast conduit that allows the distribution of subsidized and cheap Chinese exports to the doorsteps of United States’ market (Neumark, Junfu, and Stephen
... not include any direct appeal to children to persuade adults to buy products for them or to discombobulate children as to the value or cost of a given product. The goal of these rules is to protect children from advertising that exploits their naivety. There’s different ways both parents, and food marketers can control or eliminate food advertisement that is being aimed at children. A good way to control this is self-regulation. Some of the potential modifications that could be made include, banning fast food advertising on child-targeted television; regulating food advertisements directed at children and the companies who produce them; increasing parental intervention. Parents can play a big role in controlling the power to their TV whether by switching in between television programs to avoid food advertisement or recording shows that you allow your kids to watch.
to it being manufactured in China, to it being shipped to the local Toys ‘R Us store in
During the years before 2012, loyal Apple customers were in protest and petition when they found out that the labor conditions of Apple in Foxconn were unaccepted, the issue emerged to a worldwide attention. Also, the customers did not want to buy Apple products anymore because of the increasing number of accidents or suicidal in Foxconn. The employees were working in a dangerous environment and living in dorms that looked like a prison. These issues came to the attention that Apple decided to join Fair Labor Association, a monitoring group including at least 43 violations of Chinese Laws and regulations.
Further investigations revealed Foxconn had been guilty of unsafe and unfair working environments long before the incidents, which included the employment of extended working hours, discrimination, and military management techniques (Xu & Li, 2013). Due to Foxconn’s sole focus on maintaining businesses relationships by fulfilling Apple’s demand of technical products, their subsequent mistreatment of employees was exacerbated and generated 80-100 hours of forced overtime per week (Xu & Li, 2013). However, in an attempt to combat the negative publicity, each firm denied responsibility for the incidents, which ultimately added fuel to the media fire (Xu & Li, 2013). Since then, each firm has enacted superior regulations designed to maintain efficiency while recognizing limitations on labor hours and increased spending on compliance audits (Chandler & Werther, 2014). Yet, as Foxconn continues to sustain their global leadership and Apple’s profits remain unaffected, the disadvantages associated with the incidents at Foxconn have not transcended the outcomes. From a profit standpoint, the increase in spending and subsequent alterations of labor methods serve as the biggest disadvantage to each company’s bottom line. However, after both companies attempted to negate blame, their ensuing developments indicate assuming responsibility was the best avenue to recoup reputation issues and focus on long-term growth. Therefore, the greatest advantage for both companies was their heightened reputation resulting from increased transparency and the employment of business models focused on the welfare of all supply chain
...ations in host countries. Some problems that BMW face is going global into the Asian market for example china does not permit BMW to sell its products directly to its public it must go through government organisation for distribution. It also wants BMW to manufacture at least 80% of its parts in China, which is not possible as they don’t have a plant in China. And in India the tariff is too high, which makes it hard for BMW to import painted body into the country. According to India’s regulation BMW is not allowed to import more value than they are exporting.
the industry as a whole is moving there factories to the far east such as China.
...onsibility when marketing products to children. Today’s children have a higher rate of obesity and a higher rate of diabetes. The grocery industry has had an industry standard of placing items targeted to children on the lower shelves in the isles. In many cases these target items have been high sugar and high sodium foods that are not healthy for these inactive sedentary kids. The industry today is recognizing this issue and although this practice still continues the companies are addressing some complaints by offering more child friendly packaging on healthy foods. Some new packaging depicts healthy combinations of foods and encourages children of reading age to participate in outdoor activities and exercise. As customers realize the negative effects these foods have on their children they will demand a more responsible response from the businesses they frequent.
...training and increasing the amount of workers would far exceed Obermeyers input cost. The backbone of Obermeyer's sales is the parkas. It would be in their best interest to produce all the parkas in China were profit would be maximized. The Hong Kong factories should be used to produce the different styles of Obermeyer Ltd.