Zappos is a company that believes that a healthy, positive organizational culture will increase the productivity of workers and therefore lead to a raise in customer satisfaction of the products and services. In order to achieve such values within the company, Zappos considers their employees as a very important asset by regularly hosting parties for their employees, offering free snacks during breaks, and treating each of their employees equally and fairly through not having job titles and managers. From my analysis, I do not agree with the fact that a healthy, positive organizational culture will lead to increase in productivity of workers. Instead, I believe that without a certain extent of negative discipline and punishment, there will not be growth for the company because since employees know that no matter how hard they try in work, there will not be promotion to higher ranking and that the benefits they receive are still the same as if they do not work as hard. This type of workforce is comparable to the system of working in a communist state because in a communist state, everyone gets the same pay regardless of the different work load and professions. This encourages people to become unwilling to innovate due to the fact that there is no potential increase in status and ranking in society. In short, it is ineffective to increase productivity of workers through having a healthy, positive organizational culture in a company.

Reference:

http://qz.com/161210/zappos-is-going-holacratic-no-job-titles-no-managers-no-hierarchy/

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/14/happy-feet

Even if the United Nations was fully funded, there is still a definite need for social enterprise and programs, such as Arc Initiative. This is due to the fact that social enterprise in more focused on the smaller details of the problems and would concern more about the citizens, while United Nations would attempt to implement plans to assist countries as a whole and the ideas would be diversified since there are multiple issues for the United Nations to address on. For example, United Nations would be assigned to implement plans on solving poverty in Africa, so one of the way would be to lend money to countries in Africa and hope that poverty issue would be lessened. On the other hand, social enterprise would be more localized and understand the situation more thoroughly, such that it is easier for them to get legal permission to take action by offering money, supplies, and moral support. This shows that there is no conflict between the two organizations. Furthermore, United Nations tend to have a delay in action after recognizing issues due to the fact that they need to first pass the legislation with the majority agreements from countries, while social enterprise is a smaller entity and therefore can perform the action at a more efficient rate. In short, United Nations and social enterprise are both essential and important entities that serve similar services at different approaches.

References:

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

Regardless of what I have been introduced to about sustainability in business, or business ethical numerous times, I feel like it is easier said than being done. From my own interpretation of the course content, there are businesses that are being sustainable and business ethical for the sake of the environment and society. However, based on my analysis, I discover that most businesses are doing this for a marketing reason, such as building a “greener” image for the company, or attracting customers that support sustainable actions. Ultimately, businesses are trying to be sustainable and business ethical, such that it will yield a maximized profit in the forms of money, brand image, or long-term marketing effects. Furthermore, if companies focus too much on doing business ethical activities, doesn’t investor , or lender feel like that companies are wasting money on activities that doesn’t generate profit, nor benefit both the investor, or lender and the company financially? Therefore, I am more supportive on Milton Friedman’s theory about corporate ethics, which suggests that the business should maximize profit while following social responsible customs. In short, a business without a solid foundation will not follow business ethics as they cannot stay competitive against rival companies , nor to last long enough for the financial effect of business ethics to be apparent.

Reference:

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=10187339&ppg=171

In Seth Godin’s blog post, “No such thing as business ethics”, the speaker suggests that business ethics is equivalent to doing right things in such a way that the business will maximize its long-term profit. He also states that business ethics does not actually exist and “only people can have ethics”. This is an interesting blog post because instead of thinking about the topic from a point of view that businesses are being business ethical for the good of society and environment, the speaker looks at the topic of business ethics from a more realistic, convincing perspective in which businesses are trying to maximize profit in short-term and long-term. From my analysis, I agree with the fact that business ethics is performed by corporation for the reason of generating more profit in forms, such as brand image, brand loyalty, or money. Since profit-maximizing is the only incentive for corporation to stay in business due to the fact that in order for corporation to stay competitive, they must be making significant profits as well, yet being able to use that profit to grow their corporation in a long-term period. As to whether business ethics actually exists, I believe that it only exists if the organizational culture of the company promotes such values and beliefs. In short, this blog post criticizes the existence of “business ethics” and the true reasons behind business ethical actions.

Reference:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/no-such-thing-as-business-ethics.html

In Peter Kelly-Detwiler’s “IKEA’s Aggressive Approach To Sustainability Creates Enormous Business Opportunities”, IKEA demonstrates the concept of sustainability by “[following] its commitment to develop and own renewable electricity supplies”. By doing this, IKEA is able to balance the importance of three basic elements of sustainability, environmentally responsible, socially responsible, and economically responsible. Through such implementation, IKEA will “reduce CO2 emission by 10% over 5 years”. At the same time, IKEA is also moving towards socially responsible by selling more environmental-friendly products, such as LEDs and water efficient taps and attempting to take on the leadership role in sustainability. Moreover, IKEA considers this as a long-term investment that will decrease the overall cost and provide “good returns with manageable risks”.

Even though the effects of IKEA’s action may not seem apparent, but if every stakeholder is willing to do their parts in sustainability, it would be make a huge difference in the big picture. While as a household, one can support sustainability by growing their own fruits and vegetable at their backyards, or regularly recycling plastic bottles. Firms can further choose to use renewable resources similar to IKEA, or even by turning the light off whenever there is no one in the office. By implementing such routines in the daily basis, the Earth will be sincerely thankful.

Reference:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/02/07/ikeas-aggressive-approach-to-sustainability-creates-enormous-business-opportunities/