2 Introduction (P1)Task2

Introduction:

Hi there, I'm sjors laurijsen and I have a great interest in business ethics. Ive always felt like Customer is King! Am i right? here for I have decided to make this blog to tell you all about what I believe is right and wrong in some businesses. Because not everything is as pretty as it seems..

I will cover different points of view and headings in a line of Posts. Here for you can click on each one and hopefully be able to navigate yourself easily through my blog :)

Business Ethics:

So online it says this: ''Business ethics are The study of proper business policies and practices regarding potentially controversial issues, such as corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, corporate social responsibility and fiduciary responsibilities. Business ethics are often guided by law, while other times provide a basic framework that businesses may choose to follow in order to gain public acceptance.''taken from (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-ethics.asp)  
Now these are all very BIG words and so I will try to break this down a little bit. Basically it is about the moral and social responsibility a business has when making certain decisions. They are always supposed to tell the truth and ''follow the rules''. However some companies try to get around this and often get a very bad reputation with the general public. When people find out a well known corporation is doing something unethical, they can often be very fast to judge and hold a grudge against them. I mean we have al had it right? for example when they all said Mcdonalds chicken Mcnuggets weren't even chicken!! People went nuts! '' Oh I will never eat those little crappy things again..'' said almost everyone who ever ate them. And guess what a few months later people forgot about it and starting chowing down on them again. Anyways the Point I'm trying to make is that the choices that businesses make can impact them either positively or negatively.

Ethical VS Unethical 

An example of a business being unethical was The leading tobacco producer Philip Morris International Inc. In 2014 they tried to persuade the government to abandon its 10 year old law-suit against the tobacco industry allegedly concealing the dangers of cigarettes. Now a days everybody knows that cigarets are bad for you but when the company first started they prompted their product to be ''healthy'' and not a danger for anyone's health. This is an Unethical thing to do because the corporation knew they were not telling the truth. Here for they could be sued by anyone who had gotten a life threatening health problem due to smoking cigarets. It is legally stated that every product must tell the truth about it's ingredients and production. This is why the scandal of Philip Morris became so public and had given the company a very bad name. The other fact was that they tried to persuade the government to abandon their law-suit which is also illegal. Hiding or concealing the dangers of cigarets is a fault and companies shall pay the price for that. 

On the other hand Gap Inc. Was announced to be high in the rankings of the most ethical companies of 2014. Gap has always had a good reputation with their customers and shareholders. As stated by GapInc.com : Wilma Wallace, Vice President, Gap Inc. said: “We view this recognition from the Ethisphere Institute as another example that we are living up to our company’s promise—‘to do more than sell clothes.’” 

I really like this, A simple promise that shouldn't be to hard to follow right? I also shop at Gap and as a customer I have always felt like I've been treated well and gotten whats worth my money. As I did more research into Gap's actual policies and promises I found that they have dedicated a whole page on their commitments to:

- environment

- employees

- community

- human rights

In this page Gap. Inc has given a Fact for each commitment and an impact. This impact is how Gap. Inc tries to do the most ethical thing. For example;

Human Rights

Fact:
Consistent and comprehensive monitoring practices across the retail industry will help create long-term solutions to improve compliance with labor standards and laws.

Impact:
Gap Inc. is engaged in several broad initiatives where we work with governments, workers and other stakeholders to improve working conditions across our supply chain. For example, our 2004 partnership with the International Labour Organization led to the development of the global Better Work program.

From this you can see that Gap. Inc is active with their improvements and communication with governments, workers and stakeholders. They have stated that a global better work program has been developed which indicates that actual work has gone into the human rights section. I appreciate how Gap. Inc has put in the effort and actually explain what they are trying to do in order to be the most ethical company. You can question if all the things Gap. Inc states are true but if you believe their company's promise which is: ''To do more then sell clothes'' Than don't worry about it ;)

That concludes my introduction, please be sure to check out the rest of my blog and don't be afraid to send me a message. Im more than happy to answer any of your questions :)

Signing off

Sjors