Ethics in our society seems to be more blurred than what the average person may believe. Chris MacDonald wrote and reflected on the life of a person who is both a drug dealer and an ice cream seller, and how it blurs the distinction.

see blog here

The person sells two products: ice cream, which is sold primarily to kids who can’t get enough of the stuff, and highly-addictive narcotic, which is sold primarily to adults who just can’t get enough of the stuff. Ice cream isn’t healthy. But on the other hand, it’s a harmless treat when consumed in moderation. But on the other hand, it’s not always consumed in moderation.

Arising from this is the conclusion that ethical beliefs are rarely rationalized in a consistent way. There is no rational explanation as to why selling ice creams are moral while selling drugs are not.

This can be applied to the field of business, where being ethical is not doing what is best for society, but rather it is following the ethical guide that society has placed for itself. This supports my opinion that while people have ethical values, corporations do not. Therefore, the attempt for a corporation to be ethical is in fact following the opinion of society, and not because it has an ethical conscious.

          Puma recently introduced a new method to calculate the social and environmental impact a firm have. Puma has added a dollar value to its greenhouse gas emission and water consumption, and compares the value to the dollar value of the shoe it produces. Using this formula, Puma places itself in the red, where it extracts more from the environment than what it would provide for the customer.

`        This formula isn’t without its problems. It is impracticable to place a dollar on every single externality Puma can cause on the environment. For example, how do we as a society measure the loss of species or the destruction of beautiful scenery?

         In my opinion, Puma should not have labeled itself “in the red” on how it conducts its business in relationship to its social and environmental impact. The average customer of Puma is not educated enough to analyze the faults of the formula, and would most likely believe the statement without processing and reflecting on the information. This would likely associate Puma with being environmentally harmful, which would often provoke bitter responses from some customers.

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http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/business_ethics/57891–puma-s-environmental-profit-and-loss

Zappos has succeeded at being one of the most innovative firms on organizational behavior， and customer support. The firm encourages the customers to call them about everything; which averages on average 5000 calls a day, and employees work independent of scripts, quotas, or call time limits. Company culture is important for Zappos, who emphasizes on a friendly, compassionate and innovative working environment and. Zappos has passed on numerous experienced employees for the simple reason that they were wrong for the company culturally.

In my opinion, Zappos have been too keen on maintaining their superb organizational behavior that it is not worth the cost associated. Despite the argument that a great phone line service can increase the number of returning customers, the cost of having 5000 calls a day is still too burdensome.

There is also the issue with its organization model. A family style working environment poses many problems to the efficiency of management. Management becomes weak and fragile when the relationship becomes too close between the employer and the employee (for example, managers need to consider how to tell a slacking employee to do his job without damaging the relationship between them).

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There is an illogical practice in the field of the eBook business where despite the lower fixed and variable cost for the distribution of each e-book, many firms continue to charge a higher price for their e-book than the same hardcover copy. The situation can be summed up nicely in the blog post: “while Canadians seem to have growing choice between e-tailers, most of those sellers aren’t actually going to bat for consumers by trying to lower prices”.see blog here

Amazon is one of the exceptions to this scenario where it consistently tries to fight with publishers over the price of eBooks, in which publishers have been more or less been denying the digital revolution.

In my opinion, the internet eBook business should innovate fast to meet the expectation of the customers in the future. When the fixed and variable costs are both lower for eBook than hardcover copies, there is no reason for the eBook to be charged at the higher price. Essentially, because society as a whole prefers hardcopy than electronic version, eBooks must bring something of value than hardcopy does not provide (for example lower cost), the failure to do so would induce the buyer to purchase the hardcover copy, in which profit decreases because there is a higher cost involved with the hardcopy version.

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There is a universal trend across the world that more and more people are entering into universities and acquiring the higher education needed for many jobs. However, with so many graduates each year, it becomes questionable as to what merit university diploma’s hold. Chloe Chow summed up the situation nicely with the comment “A degree nowadays, certainly does not guarantee you a high paid job, or any job in fact” .

see blog here

However, while she believes that experience, social life and leadership skills are just as important as a university diploma, I believe on the contrary that diplomas are one of the most crucial things to obtain.

Society is constructed in such a way that a legal merit is required to advance to most jobs. University diploma is an example of a legal merit proof. Most intellectual and advanced jobs require some form of a university diploma. Therefore, leadership skills and social connections are insofar important if that person also has the university diploma to ensure entry into a job. The latter cannot exist without the former while the former can stand independently.

Greater significance should be given to the diploma for the reason stated above, and the attributes to become a successful employee should not all be weighed on the same platform.

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Zara is currently considered to be one of the most innovative in the field of supply chain for a clothing firm. One of its main distinctions from other firms in the same field is its high turnover rate and the artificial scarcity which results from the high turnover rate.

Zara consistently introduces new products as part of its strategy. It can better adapt to the new fashion trends by responding rapidly to it instead of trying to predict the trend. It is innovative not because it differentiates itself from other firms by establishing its position first into the market.

This strategy was made possible from Zara’s new form of organization which emphasize on the supply chain and its high turnover rate. Zara resupplies its stores across North America on an average of seven days, and keeps its inventory at a constituent low. This strategy, although costly, has several benefits. Firstly, it creates an artificial scarcity in the store where the demand exceeds the inventory in stock. The inventory also changes on a weekly basis, which induces a high customer return rate.

This new form of supply chain strategy is the reasoning as to why Zara is one of the most innovative firms in the clothing market who emphasizes on the supply chain.

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In response to Derek Huang’s blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/derekhuang/

Contrary to Derek’s opinion that iPhone is being unethical; I believe that Apple has every right to patent such technology. Touchscreen unlock is by no means a simple function that is obvious to the average person to discover. Firstly, the touchscreen unlock consists of two components, the pressing of the home button to light the screen, and then sliding the finger across the screen to unlock. If efficiency and rationality is taken into consideration, the touchscreen unlock feature is entirely redundant and the phone can simply be unlocked through pressing the home button. Yet despite this redundancy, other firms are essentially copying Apple’s touchscreen feature. Most notable is the Android system.

One of the reasons for the existence of a patent is to encourage innovation, which provides the rational to why people do research and development. Touchscreen unlock seems to be a simple function because our mind unconditionally associated two concepts together: sliding the finger across the screen and unlocking the phone. However, upon a closer examination on this scenario, a third step is required (the pressing of the home button). Therefore logically concluding, touchscreen unlock is an innovation because it is an add-on, not a simple, obvious function.

Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind the ipod, iphone, ipad and imac, and the CEO of Apple, died on October 5^th, 2011. Steve had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and stepped down from the CEO position on August 24, 2011.

The death of Steve Jobs corresponded only a few days after the release of iphone 4S, to which many disappointments arose from apple fan’s due to its lack of innovation. The question is then, how will apple perform in the future?

The problem Apple faces right now is the need to reclaim its legitimacy in the market. The release of the failed product iphone 4S arrived at a very bad timing, as it corresponds to the death of Steve Jobs. Consumers tend to unconditionally associate product with CEOs, especially on merchandises in the mainstream culture. A typical response would be that Apple released the failed product, the iphone 4S, because Steve Job has died and therefore Apple lacks the superb leadership it experienced before.

Apple currently needs to innovate and distribute a product which legitimizes the position of the new CEO Tim Cook. If this does not happen, customers and stockholders will begin to lose faith in Apple’s future.

Source:

ABC News. “Steve Job Dies: Apple chief created personal computer, iPad, iPod, and iPhone” Yahoo! News. extracted from the internet October 6, 2011.

http://news.yahoo.com/steve-jobs-dies–apple-chief-created-personal-computer–ipad–ipod–iphone.html

Recognized by customers around the world for its stylish and affordable furniture， Ikea has been criticized for performing unethical practices in a small American town, Danville.

Ikea workers in Danville complain of eliminated raises, a frenzied pace and mandatory overtime. At least 1/3 of the workers are drawn from temporary staffing agencies, who receive little to no benefit along with minimum wage.

Although Europeans are guaranteed a wage of $19 per hour while Americans are guaranteed a wage of $8, this is not an indication of if that specific firm is being ethical or not. The comparisons between these two wages simply reflect the political attitude between the two continents. Sweden is in comparison more politically left oriented than USA, therefore firms in Sweden are required to provide for many of the benefits they are not required to provide elsewhere. Ikea is not being more ethical in Sweden than in the United States, but rather it is simply of the difference in political attitude in the two countries.

Ethics, in my opinion, should not be a comparative attitude across states, simply because ethical values tend to fluctuate diversely because of the difference in political attitude.

Source:

Nathaniel Popper. “Ikea U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers”. Los Angeles Times. Extracted from the internet October 5, 2011.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/10/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410

Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, is not only one of the most influential person in the technological world, but also emerged as one of the most powerful gay man in America as rated by the Out Magazine

In January 2011, the Apple management team stated that they would support Cook if publicity acknowledged his sexuality

Despite gay rights being acknowledged more and more in our society, there are still a large amount of people who are politically conservative. By hiring Cook, Apple risks losing valuable customers who do not support gay rights. Even if Tim Cook may prove to be extraordinarily talented, there are still vast amounts of talented people in the world who are willing to compete for the CEO position. Talents are easily replaceable; all it requires is to fire one person and hire another. In contrast, brand image is not easily replaceable. Although apple is performing extremely well in the technological field, in my opinion the benefit of hiring Tim Cook as CEO is simply not worth the risk involved.

Source:

IBTimes Staff Reporter. “Is New Apple CEO Tim Cook Gay?”. International Business Times. Extracted from the internet October 5, 2011.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/203853/20110825/tim-cook-gay.htm