With recent news that student loved Koerner’s pub will be re-opening before the beginning of the next school year, I opted to choose Koerner’s as the controversial subject of this post.
Koerner’s is not a worldwide known example of bad business ethics, or even a severe one compared to examples such as the Enron scandal or the Nike child labour scandal, however it is none the less an example of bad business ethics. For those who do not know, Koerner’s had a reputation of serving alcohol to underage students on campus. Run by the Graduate Student Society, it was warned multiples times in 2008 and 2009 until finally it was shut down in 2010 when a minor drunkenly fell off the roof.
Quoting Mr. Freeman on What is Stakeholder Theory, “Think about a business that is not a good citizen in the community, that routinely ignores or violates local custom and law…that is a business in decline.” By Koerner’s attempt to make extra money selling to underage students they not only failed to abide by stakeholder theory, they broke the code of business ethics. Many business’ with bad ethics fail as they did, but Koerner’s will get a second chance.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/04/30/bc-ubc-koerners-pub-under-aged.html
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