Business Ethics Case Study

While on exchange in Australia, I was employed as a part-time waitress at a chocolate café. My duties included taking orders, washing dishes, and making and serving food and beverages. I was lucky to be hired, as it was difficult for students and backpackers to find part time work in the city I was living in. The café was a part of a larger franchise, where the owners were rarely present. At the site, constraints included a lack of resources and attention.

During training, the managers asked for a signature that bound us to a contractual agreement whereby we would receive only 75% of our actual pay during the first two weeks of training. However, this rate of pay remained the same for all employees, regardless of their employment type, for

The employees could take no action and let the problem continue, or they could bring this issue to higher management. In this case, there would be two potential courses of action. Higher management could address the issue by discussing and correcting the employees’ wage rates. Conversely, the managers could dismiss the employees’ complaints completely, and not take action at all. These business ethics decisions are based on a number of factors, including the personal values and integrity of employees and managers . Regardless of the actions of upper management and the owners of the business, a solution to this problem could not be realised without employees taking some form of

This would likely have the most negative impact on the employees since the right to fair wages is one of the rights of employees as stakeholders of the firm. The expectations placed on the employee and their performance is often the basis for determining wage rates. However, the government has a set fair wage, and the business did not comply with the outlined procedures. The reason this course of action raises an issue is due to continuance commitment. Employees are at a high risk of their rights being violated, more so than employers, because employees are more dependent on the employer . Furthermore, a majority of the employees were foreigners or backpackers who were afraid of losing their jobs in a competitive market, so they did not want to upset the management. This is an example of continuance commitment , which also correlates to globalization. In this case, the mobility of workers has led to workers willing to accept lower pay because it is already higher than what it would be in their home country. By viewing this response with a utilitarian theory, no action being taken would be the least beneficial because employees are not being paid properly and the government would be losing money in taxation. This results in the greatest amount of good for the owners and managers of the business alone, so the lack of action would be morally incorrect when