The ethics involved in the creation of standardized positions where the actions of morality are judged and based on a set of rules. The duties that are created provide an obligatory or as some would like to call it, a binding effect between subjects as they are perceived as duties. The rules often will be made up of moral legislation, human dignity and universalizability. Usually, the duty of ethics will focus on the actions of person per-say and not the results of their actions. Duty ethics tackle the aspect of intentions and motives to determine one's actions. When the intentions of an individual become negative then the action will be negative regardless of the results. However, duty ethics can be quite strict and this can make them become categorized actions in a good or bad way. According to Crane & Matten (2016), this categorization is not practical because at times it is, not a matter of right and wrong, but making the appropriate judgments based on the end results of the action.
When we look at a company such as Mattel Inc., this is a company that has been producing dolls for the last 72 years. Their main products are the hot wheels, Barbie dolls cabbage patch kid and the American girl. The products
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As noted by Sethi, Veral, Shapiro & Emelianova (2011), the toys’ magnets could easily become lose, and thus posed a huge threat to the safety of the children as they could easily ingest them. Additionally, the toys which were produced were usually covered with lead which does affect the health of the children. The company outsourced the products from China. In this case, Mattel was quick to portray China as the culprit and denied direct involvement in the blunders. However, the company was forced to accept the full responsibility at the end of it after widespread criticism from both China and the media (Sethi, et al.
This act also covers sexual harassment in the workplace. Discrimination disrupt good order and discipline and creates a hostile environment. These actions are considered immoral and as law-abiding citizens, it is our duty to intervene to curtail these types’ actions. Duty theory talks about two approaches, the first imply we all have a catalog of instinctive obligations. The Ten Commandments is a perfect example because it speaks about not killing, committing adultery, covet thy neighbor things and bear false witness. These practices have been adopted by many cultures, which play an important role in their
What is ethics? Ethics are the philosophical principles of good verses bad moral behavior. It is a guideline to help people make decisions or make a judgment calls. There are two main types of ethical principles that will be discussed in this paper, and how they are applied to the decision making process. They are Deontological and Utilitarian. Deontological ethics are based on the righteousness or wrongness of the action-taking place. It does not base itself on the bad or good consequences that come from the action. Immanuel Kant introduced deontological ethics in the 18th century. Kant believed that every decision or action made by a person had to be evaluated by his or her moral duty. He stated that humanity shouldn’t side on its
Mattel wants to improve their execution of the existing toy business and globalize their brands; extend their brands into new areas; identify new trends, create new brands, and enter new industries; develop people and improve productivity by simplifying processes and maintaining customer service levels. Mattel wants to make a positive impact in children’s lives around the world by using unrivalled creativity and innovation to create high-quality toys that will be loved by children and trusted by parents.
Ethics are the principles that shape individual lives in modern society. It is a subjective idea that seems to have a standard in society. Ethics and morals are the major factors that guide individuals to make right and wrong choices. Something that is morally right to one person might be the very opposite of what another person would view as right. There are many factors that can trigger a change in an individual’s view of morality.
Some of the most popular toys today came from Mattel Inc. Handler her husband and partner Elliot Matt created this organization having no idea what would come out of it. Shortly after Barbie’s first debut, Mattel was pushed to the top of the toy making industry. “Since her "birth," approximately 1 billion Barbie’s have been sold in four decades, making Handler's "child" the bestselling fashion doll in every major global market.” (Karen). The Barbie brand is valued at over 2 billon dollars making it the most successful of all time. Every year between 150-200 different Barbie’s are put on the market making this product one of the longest lasting ever. It is amazing how one invention could turn into such an icon. Another invention of Handler’s which is far less popular but still just as important, was her line “nearly me”. Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970 inspiring her to create a line of breast prosthesis. “Unable to find a satisfactory arti...
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...
Mattel inspected materials when they came in the factory door. Suppliers were monitored for problems such as lead-based paint, and some vendors had been terminated for violations. Mattel developed about 5,000 new toys each year. New toys were first produced in small batches before approval. When full-scale production began, the company would periodically take toys off the production line for inspection. (p.3)
Ethics are moral principles that can be used to help guide peoples decisions. We are all different and therefore our beliefs and opinions differ. There are many ethical theories, and according to Panza and Potthast (n.d.) the following are some that are widely used. Virtue ethics is one theory which states that personality is the most important thing. Living an ethical life, acting right, requires that one develops and demonstrates the quality of courage, compassion, wisdom, and temperance. It also requires that greed, jealousy, and selfishness is avoided. Utilitarianism states that the amount of happiness and suffering created by a person’s actions is what matters the most. As a result, acting rightly includes maximizing the amount of happiness and minimizing the amount of suffering around you. At times you may need to break some of the traditional moral rules to achieve such an outcome. Kantianism is another theory which highlights the principles behind actions rather than an actions results. It states that it requires to be motivated by good principles that treats everyone with respect. If you’re motivated by good principles, you overcome your animal instinct and act ethically. Another ethical theory is the Contract theory, which suggest that ethics should be thought of as terms of agreements between people. It suggests that doing the right thing means obeying agreements set by members rather than those of society. For this theory ethics isn’t necessarily about character, consequences, or principles. The last theory I’m going to mention is Care ethics. Care ethics focuses on ethical attention on relationships before other factors. As a result, acting rightly involves building, strengthening, and maintaining strong relationship...
... in the toy industry is to make toy safety the number one priority and to fulfill the customers’ needs.
Top managers should be reminded that they are ultimately responsible for the quality of a product and the company. Quality management is one of the keys. By defining quality in operational terms, understanding the costs and benefits of quality, recognizing the consequences of poor quality, and recognizing the need for ethical behavior (Stevenson, 2012), will lead to a more productive operation. If Toys, Inc. specifically doesn’t want to hire additional positions to inspect quality they could outsource to a company such as SATRA whom from its website states, “SATRA can assess the risk of injury from a toy, as well as carry out analysis for the presence of restricted metals such as lead, chromium and mercury(2015).” Quality is the ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations (Stevenson, 2012). Quality when it comes to manufacturing of toys especially those that have moving parts also brings in safety concerns. “Market watch officials and technological experts have warned parents to pay more attention to the quality of toys they purchase to better protect their children (Hazell, C 2011).” Parents will associate a poorly made toy, especially one that already knows that it’s poorly made by having a trade-in program as potentially dangerous for their son or daughter. Continuing to have customer dissatisfaction will further question the quality of our product and in turn the safety of our
In the episode, “Toy Company”, of the show “Nathan for You”, the toymaker has been presented with an idea to get more of his unpopular toy sold. The idea is to get more kids to buy the toys by proving that owning the toy won’t make them babies. Here we will discuss how the issue relates to business ethics by explaining it from a deontologist, utilitarian and a virtue ethicist’s point of view.
A system of rules organized an association of people to establish a society. These rules enhance the lives of people to get organized and progress. One of the rules is the rule of conduct which ought the people to do or ought not to do depends on the situation. These rules constitute a phenomenon of Morality. The philosophical study of morality is an ethics which are rational and systematic analysis of conduct that can be a source of benefit or harm to other people. The predominant focus of an ethics is based on the voluntary and moral choices of the people. In the past era, philosopher proposed many ethical theories. The ethical theory which fails to enable the user to make persuasive arguments in front of the diverse audience is a non-working
[1] Ethics is defined as “the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviour of a person or a group with respect to what is right or wrong” (Samson and Daft, 2005, p.158)
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. These days our society is changing due to advanced technology, hence the study of ethics is very important than the previous decades. In fact, the study of ethics is not a new issue but Socrates and Plato used ethical reasoning to explain different unjust issues before 2000 years. Ethics is one of the major issues, which does have not any guideline to a particular activity that is morally good, bad or neutral. However, everyone has different understanding and judgment about ethics depend on their cultural, economical, and family back ground. For instance, lying is unethical in most society and it is normal for some other cultures. Therefore, it is difficult to give universal meaning about morality as it depends on a given culture. For this reason, I would say there is not a single universal standard to label someone’s ethical decision as right and wrong. However, all countries should adopt ethical behavior with their environment in order to have honesty and caring society. An Individual can choose among different alternatives based on his or her ethical decision, but it is very difficult to say his or her ethical decision is right or wrong.