Staples Inc. Ethics Program:
Staples Inc is a firm that operates in the office products industry where it sells a wide range of office products, furniture, and equipments through various retail outlets in the United States and 20 countries across the globe. The company provides its products and services to customers through various ways including catalogs, the Internet, and its subsidiaries like Staples UK Limited, Medical Arts Press, Inc., and Quill Corporation. Since its inception the company has continued to experience tremendous growth to an extent that it’s currently the leader in the office products industry with a workforce of more than 10,000 employees. While the company seeks to grow and develop across the global marketplace as a social responsible organization, Staples Inc. does not have an ethics program. Consequently, the firm needs to develop an effective ethics program based on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations.
Benchmark of the Code of Conduct:
Since its inception, Staples Inc. has primarily focused on building a culture of integrity where one associate makes one decision and undertakes a single task at a time. However, the effectiveness of such culture will only be enhanced through the development of a code of conduct. Generally, many companies in the office products industry have sought to achieve their respective business goals through developing and establishing code of conduct. However, most of these companies have relatively had ineffective codes of conduct or ethics. For instance, United Stationers Inc., Amazon and Office Depot, which are major competitors, have had ineffective codes of conduct because their ethic standards have been incorporated in corporate governance measures...
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...anges to aspects that are affected by any of these forces in order to reflect current practices and requirements. Furthermore, the company will ensure that the compliance program is effective in making employees and managers abide by the ethics programs.
Conclusion:
Staples Inc. is a company that has experienced tremendous growth and profitability in the office products industry since its inception. While the company is committed to a culture of integrity in which it has built its business, it can enhance is practices and operations by adopting and establishing an effective ethics programs. The program should be based on Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations to ensure effectiveness. Moreover, necessary measures should be put in place to ensure that potential challenges or setbacks are addressed while necessary changes are undertaken from time to time.
The ethical code of an organization illustrates the importance of being honest, acting with integrity, and showing fairness in decision making (Bethel, 2015). Ultimately, “laws regulating business conduct are passed because some stakeholders believe they cannot be trusted to do what is right” (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015, p. 95). In the last couple of years, culture has become the initiator for compliance, which means from the top down there has to be a commitment to act in a way that represents the company’s core values (Verschoor, 2015).
The movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” presented a series of ethical dilemmas that surround a group of salesmen working for a real estate company. The value of business ethics was clearly undermined and ignored in the movie as the salesmen find alternatives to keep their jobs. The movie is very effective in illustrating how unethical business practices can easily exist in the business world. Most of the time, unethical business practices remain strong in the business world because of the culture that exists within companies. In this film, the sudden demands from management forced employees to become irrational and commit unethical business practices. In fear of losing their jobs, employees were pressured to increase sales despite possible ethical ramifications. From the film, it is right to conclude that a business transaction should only be executed after all legal and ethical ramifications have been considered; and also if it will be determined legal and ethical to society.
Lowe’s begins their manual with an Introduction that includes employees’ and Board of Directors’ together. Lowe’s feels employees’ are equal and expects their executives to follow the same rules of conduct. Lowe’s includes ethics and code of conduct together as a framework of principles’ to guide employees’ in their day-to-day conduct. (Lowe's Internal, 2010)
Trevino, L., & Nelson, K. (2011). Managing business ethics - straight talk about how to
Trevino, Linda Klebe, Gary Weaver and David Gibs. "Managing Ethics and Legal Compliance: What Works and What Hurts." 1 January 1999. Harvard Business Review.org. California Management Review. Web. 9 November 2013. .
According to Ferrell (2004), “Organizations create ethical or unethical corporate cultures based on leadership and the commitment to values that stress the importance of stakeholder relationships. Establishing and implementing a strategic approach to improving organizational ethics is based on establishing, communicating, and monitoring ethical values and legal requirements that characterize the firm's history, culture, and operating environment” (p. 129). Ethics programs ensure satisfactory relationships with all stakeholders by aligning with all of their demands and needs, and determine conduct with customers and relationships with regulators, shareholders, suppliers, and employees (Ferrell, 2004).
For a company to be successful ethically, it must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture. A corporate code of ethics can be a very valuable and integral part of a company’s culture but I believe that it is not strong enough to stand alone. Thought and care must go into constructing the code of ethics and the implementation of it. Companies need to infuse ethics and integrity throughout their corporate culture as well as into their definition of success. To be successfully ethical, companies must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture.
The business world has always been a very risky business. There is a lot to worry about no matter what position a person fulfills; everyone has some level of responsibility. The Gap Incorporated is a multinational specialty retail company (Gap Inc. 2014). The company was created by a Doris and Don Fisher (Joslin et. al. 2010). Don Fisher and his wife was a very wealthy couple, Don was a real estate developer (Joslin et. al. 2010). They decided to open up a clothing store when Don realized how popular jeans were becoming in the fashion industry. Another reason that Don Fisher wanted to open a clothing store is because he has an extremely difficult time finding jeans that fit him properly in department stores (Joslin et. al. 2010). So in the year of 1969 the Fishers opened the very first Gap store in San Francisco, California (Gap Inc. 2014). In this paper I will explore The Gap Incorporated and discuss the company’s ethical culture and behavior past and present. Based on preliminary information, I hypothesize that The Gap Incorporated is an ethical company.
An organization needs to adhere to ethics in order to effectively implement its mission, vision, and objectives in a way in which offers a solid foundation to management and their subordinates to properly develop and implement its strategies. By doing so, the organization as a whole is essentially subscribing to one commonality that directs all of the actions of the employees of the organization. Additionally, it assists in preventing such employees from divergence in regard to the proposed strategic guideline. Ethics additionally ensures that a strategic plan is developed in accordance to the interests of the appropriate stakeholders of the organization, both internal and external (Jin & Drozdenko, 2010). Likewise, corporate governance that stems from various regulatory parties makes it necessary for organizations to maintain a high degree of ethical standards; this is done by incorporating ethics within the organization’s strategic plan so as to foster a positive corporate image for the stakeholders and general public (Min-Dong Paul, 2009).
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
Tyco provides products and services across the world. The company is global and diversified providing a variety of products including electronics, healthcare, fire and security services and engineered products and services. While employing over 250,000 people worldwide they grossed approximately $40 billion in revenue in the year 2005. In 2002 Tyco was involved with the corporate scandal where the management mis-appropriated corporation funds. The previous CEO Dennis Kozlowski was convicted in 2005 on 22 counts of the 23 that he was charged with. This is an example of not only a legal issue of responsibility but also one of an ethical issue that the Tyco Corporation has had to face. In the face of the legal and ethical issues that this mishap had placed the corporation in, Tyco placed Ed Breen in as chairman and CEO. Mr. Breen joined the company in 2002 after the scandal and immediately began the rebuild of the company’s name. With the appointment of Ed Breen and his changing of the company’s ethical standards (to be discussed in the next portion of the paper) he promotes the legal responsibilities of not only the company’s employees but the responsibilities of the suppliers and buyers to report any wrong doing. This reporting also speaks to the ethics of the Tyco corporation employees as well as those of the companies th...
Who knew that we would be using Starbucks and McDonald’s in the same sentence. When you first think about it, it does not make sense to compare Starbucks and McDonald’s; nevertheless, the two chains have become each other’s biggest competitor and have a great deal in common. Primarily, they conveniently provide consumers with coffee products and food that they crave. However, each company has a unique code of ethics. In this paper, I will be analyzing Starbucks and McDonald’s code of business ethics. Furthermore, I will be discussing three aspects that I like and dislike about each companies statements. In conclusion, I will be explaining why having a code of business ethics is not sufficient for ensuring ethical behavior in an organization,
From reading this case, we realize the company did not apply the managing ethics competency in building its goals and structure. Managing ethics competency involves the o...
A company's code of ethics is very important to establishing the expectations and quality of its brand. The code of ethics are concrete expectations for employee behavior, accountability and communicates the ethical policy of a company to its partners and clients. A good business practice is to have sound ethics. Having good ethical practice is knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing what the right thing is. Though good ethical behavior is something that should be done automatically, a company needs to have a set of rules in place that holds everyone accountable. Over the last twenty years, the country has been bombarded with company scandals and unethical behavior; though morally wrong, the punishment does not fit the crime. The punishments have been overkill. A murderer, rapist, or child molester commits violent crimes and potentially is out of jail in 10 - 20 years. The CEO’s that commit white collar crime receive 25 years to life; this paper will discuss how this punishment for committing nonviolent crimes, such as breaching a company’s code of ethics, are disproportionate to violent crimes that plague the country today.
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2007). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right Fourth ed., Retrieved on July 30, 2010 from www.ecampus.phoenix.edu