Examples of ethical dilemmas in business situations.
Respond as though being consulted before the decision.
What do you think of it?
A- legality B- Moral viewpoint C- Long term solution strategy
You are the general manager of a cosmetics firm. The results of a study show that your major brand may cause skin cancer. What do you do?
a) Not illegal yet. The Pepsi company currently puts alarming amounts of chemical aspartame in diet sodas (hey professor), proven to cause down-syndrome, ADHD, and other birth defects in children, and cancer in current drinkers. Could potentially create studies countering the studies we just got about the cancer causation. Cigarette companies were going strong for years without it catching up to them, and even as cigarettes are dropping in popularity, Philip Morris company acquired Kraft foods and all subsidiaries to soften the punch it would have made on their wallets. So there are legal ways around the sticky cancer issue.
b) and c) This should not be too difficult. Common moral code wins here. Change the ingredients to non-cancer causing ingredients! A lot of companies get lazy or slow to change here, but our cosmetics company can/has to do better. Look at our culture! People are starting to get investigate to inspire transformation to better their lives and find out what’s in their usable goods. Unless you enjoy the thought of being a mass serial killer or seeing your name displayed as such in major newspapers... your high position in the company allows you to be the one to instill changes now, so you should. Let’s stay a relatively honest company for as long as we can, here.
Substitution is possible. If the Ocean spray company can figure out a way to substitute 90% actual juice for high fructose corn syrup with minimal change in taste/without anyone noticing, then our company can find alternatives. And who knew one could find a substitute for what was once thought to be a basic ingredient-eggs! Its possible. When people look back on this time in history with that lovely 20/20 vision, they’ll should be using our cosmetic company name as an example of one that made immediate change to help humanity, versus Ocean Spray who is currently and silently helping to cause an obesity epidemic. Just because its quiet now, doesn’t mean people wont one day be looking back and shouting the facts all over the place. And you can’t go back and fix it then.
Not only that, but consider what the cancer causing ingredients are doing once they’re imbibed into the human body? IF you think you and your company are doing this to people far, far away in some far-off unconnected land: think again. Would the dollars you may or may not even save in the short run worth it, when you end up spending them on grandma’s cancer treatments when she’s in the hospital? And what if your daughter Kelly got cancer because she wanted to paint up her face for the boy down the road on a Friday night?
What are these levels of chemicals doing-and not just in causing cancer. Often, all the effects of a chemical are not seen for years, even generations in all the multitudes of ways it changes humans. Besides causing cancer…what else lurks in the system that is not supposed to be there?
