Ethics of John Deer and Caterpillar

Ethics of John Deer and Caterpillar
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Introduction
Ethics refers to the science of rules and morals of behavior (Byers, 2002). In other words, ethics can be considered as the moral principles that govern behavior of an individual or in a group. Ethics play a vital role in that it guides people on how to behave while interacting with others. Business ethics in particular refers to the principles and standards that determine which conducts in business organizations are generally acceptable. The acceptability of a particular behavior is determined by government regulators, customers, competitors, the public, interested group, and also the very significant person’s individual moral principles and values (Byers, 2002). Caterpillar Inc. and John Decree Company are companies that are held highly in the public eyes because of how they relate with their employees and the community at large. The two companies have been considered as socially responsible because they keep public interest above their business operations while pursuing profitability. This paper is aimed at discussing the ethics for both Caterpillar Inc. and John Deer Ethics.
Business Ethics
Business ethics is defined as a form of applied ethics that assess ethical principles and morality issues that arise within business environment. Business ethics applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant when it comes to the conduct of every individual as well as business organization. Every organization is governed by specific set of business ethics which consist of various moral principles and values that govern the behavior of every organization with regard to what is deemed right or wrong. Business ethics spells out the major philosophy and priorities of a particular organization in actual terms. In addition, business ethics provides a framework on which an organization is legally governed because it contains the valued and prohibitory actions within the work place. Business ethics of a particular company can be diverse and they apply to not only how an organization interacts with the world in general but also on one –to –one interaction with an individual customer.
Every business organization should uphold good business ethics. However, many organizations do not think too highly of business ethics but instead are more concerned with how to profits. Failure to uphold business ethics leads to legal action being taken against the organizations for breaking ethical rules. Heavy fines have been imposed on organizations that break such rules as well as anti-trust and environmental laws.
General Business Ethics
This refers to the part of business ethics that overlaps with business philosophy and is aimed at determining the elementary purpose of an organization. These ethics are founded on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) which serves as an umbrella term under which ethical duties and rights that exist between organizations and companies are formed.
Ethics of Finance
In essence, finance is a discipline of social science that is closely related to sociology which is a behavioral science. It is also related with economics, management as well as accounting. The field of finance is concerned with technical issues such as optimal mix of divided policy, equity and debt financing, as well as the evaluation of alternative investment projects, valuation of options, swaps, future, portfolio diversification and other derivative securities. The discipline of finance is not free from ethical burdens. The ethics of finance have been brought to the fore front by frequent economic meltdowns. Economics is considered as a moral science as well as a philosophy which is directed at ensuring ‘good life’ for all. Masters of mankind had developed the notion of ‘having all things for everyone and nothing for some people’. However, some economists under the influence of neoliberalism ideology view the objective of economics as maximization of the growth of finance through accelerating consumption and production various goods and services. Under the influence of this ideology business finance is promoted to include neoliberal economics. It is assumed that liberal financial systems would ensure that there is economic growth brought about by competitive capital market systems which promotes high levels of savings, investment, productivity, employment foreign capital inflows thus welfare which cannot be separated from corruption. This means that governments of impoverished nations operate their financial systems globally with minimal regulation over capital control. Such ideologies are ethically counterproductive. In addition, history of finance fails to show that firms have always observed principles of fairness and honesty under an environment that is not regulated. A firm that is within the paradigm of finance consists of complex network relations that are contractual, mostly implicit and between various interest groups. Within the finance paradigm, an agent that is considered rational is simply the one pursuing personal material advantage. Since business is a game just like any other, the end goal is to win or to succeed, a success measured in terms of material wealth accumulation. Basically, for an agent to be rational in finance, it means that the agent must be materialistic, individualistic and competitive. The journey of rationality in finance leads to questionable acts that raise ethical issues regarding how the organization relates with its employees, stakeholders and the society at large.
Ethics of Human Resource Management
The ethics regarding human resource management involves ethical issues that arise from the relationship between employer and employee which touches on rights and duties owed between employee and employer. Ethical issues may rise as a result of discrimination on bases of gender, age, religion, race, weight, disability, attractiveness, occupational safety and health as well as employment law.
Ethics of Sales and Marketing
Marketing is a discipline that not only touches on the provision of information about products and how to access products, but may also seek to manipulate an individual’s behavior and values. The society has accepted this role to some extent although this where ethics issues are rooted. Marketing ethics overlaps to a large extent with media ethics. This is because marketing relies heavily on media. However, media ethics is much broad extending beyond business ethics. Marketing ethics is part of business ethics which deals with the principles, ideas and values by which marketers as well as marketing institutions are bound to. Marketing ethics is a contested terrain. Marketing ethical issues arises from two major concerns; political philosophy and transaction-focused business practice. Ideologists like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman have argued that ethical issues in marketing are only associated with maximization of shareholder’s profit. Others have argued that market has responsibilities to the consumers, other proximate as well as the distant stakeholders just as much as it’s responsible to its shareholders. Ethical issues may arise when vulnerable areas are targeted with superfluous or dangerous products or services, transparency in regard to the source of labor (sweatshop labor, child labor, and fair labor remuneration), declaration in regard to fair treatment as well as fair pay to the workers, being candid and fair about the environmental risks to the surrounding area habitats, the ethical issues related to services and products transparency (sincerity about the ingredients making the product and standard of the services), appropriate labeling, sincerity in effectively informing the consumers on the risks associated with the use of the product or services (such as financial risk, health risk and security risks), product or service liability and safety, respect for stakeholder’s autonomy and privacy, issues related to outsmarting the rival businesses through business tactics that are not ethical, honesty and truthfulness in advertising information, fairness in distribution and pricing as well as forthrightness in selling. The above are some of the issues that may raise ethical concerns in marketing practice.
Marketing ethics have also been approached in different perspectives such as perspective of virtue, consequential, deontology, pragmatism and relativist positions. However, there are challenges in defining marketing ethics because it is difficult to point out the agency that is responsible for raising ethical concerns. Rivalry among firms, competition, lack of autonomy of the personnel at various levels of marketing hierarchy, nature of the marketed products and services, nature of the recipients of the marketed products as well as profit margin claimed. Since the agency have no autonomy, the hierarchy of marketing hardly have an opportunity to autonomously making ethical decisions and are thus deprived of ethical choices.
Marketing ethics does not only touch on the field of marketing only. It also affects all other fields of life and especially the construction of socially significant identities for people and influences people’s perceptions that are morally significant. Marketing and particularly its visual communication once observed serves as a tool for of epistemic closure restricting viewpoint within stereotypes of class, gender and race relationships.
Ethics of Production
This part...