Ethics Around the Globe: Project
for Business and Accounting students
You
are the controller at a medium sized sports apparel company. Your sales manager
has just signed a contract with the US Olympic committee to produce warm
weather clothing for the downhill ski team. This contract would increase your
revenues by 20% for next year as well as create exposure for your name and
brand. In short, you think it would bring in future business. Your business
model focuses on American Made products as well as quality.
As
you investigate the sales manager’s proposal to the Olympic committee you find
that the mark-up on the products is just 10% of total costs. This concerns you
because on average, your mark-up percent is 40% of total costs. This means if
anything unexpected happens with production, this contract could quickly go
from being profitable to losing money for the company.
As
you gather a team to discuss the risks and opportunities associated with this
project, the sales manager is strongly pushing to accept the contract and to
“let production deal with the risks”. The Vice President (VP) of Production
states that if the cutting and sewing were outsourced to an emerging market
producer, the labor costs could be reduced and the risk of the project losing money
would be greatly reduced. He reasoned that the materials are still American made;
just the assembly is done in another country. The VP of Production has a
country in mind. The wages paid in this foreign country are one fifth those
paid in the US and there are no benefits attached to those wages. This country
does not impose any tariffs so shipping and importing costs would be very low.
The VP’s knowledge is coming from his brother-in-law who works in this country.
He could take care of any government fees, setting up the factory and finding
workers. The VP has never seen the workers who would be hired or the working
conditions in the factory.
Part 2:
You
have been introduced to additional ethical perspectives since you last
considered the scenario presented to you for this project. Reconsider the
scenario originally presented to you.
1. How would someone
who follows Aristotle’s virtue ethics act regarding this situation? Why?
2. What would a
Confucian do in this situation? Why?
3. Which of these two
perspectives do you believe presents the better moral action and why?
Please
present your summary in APA format. The total length should be 1-2 pages.
