Hello, class. This is a three-part assignment. Please remember that all assignments are separate and MUST have their own references. NO TITLE PAGE PLEASE!!
The first part of the assignment
Instructions
Categorical Imperative
In the fall of 2016, Samsung Electronics experienced a massive public relations disaster when its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones started exploding due to faulty batteries and casings. Initially, the company denied there were any technical problems. Then, when it became obvious the exploding phones posed a safety and health threat (they were banned from airplanes), Samsung accused its suppliers of creating the problem. In reality, the rush to beat Apple’s iPhone 7 release date was the most likely reason corners were cut in production. Samsung finally owned up to the problem, recalled more than two million phones worldwide, and replaced them with new, improved Galaxy Note 7s.
The company’s response and its replacement of the phones went a long way toward defusing the disaster and even boosting the company’s share price. Whether management knew it, its response was Kantian. Samsung focused on the end (i.e., customer safety and satisfaction) with the motive of doing the ethically responsible thing. Although some might argue the company could have done far more and much more quickly, perhaps it still acted in accordance with the categorical imperative. What do you think?
How might the categorical imperative become a part of organizational culture? Could it ever work in business?
Do you see the categorical imperative as applicable to your own interests and hope for a career?
The second assignment
Instructions
Corporate and Personal Choices Regarding the Environment of the Future.
The car manufacturer Tesla is developing new technologies to allow people to reduce their carbon footprint. In addition to a line of electric cars, the company makes other renewable energy products, such as roofing tiles that act as solar energy panels, and promotes longer-term projects such as the Hyperloop, a high-speed train project jointly designed by Tesla and SpaceX.
Of course, if businesses are to succeed in selling environmentally friendly products, they must have consumers willing to buy them. A homeowner has to be ready to spend 20 percent more than the cost of a traditional roof to install solar roofing tiles that reduce the consumption of electricity generated by fossil fuels (Figure 4.9).
Figure 4.9 Although solar panels can reduce your carbon footprint, the tiles are much more expensive than standard roofing tiles. (credit: “Typical Solar Installation” by Tim Fuller/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Another personal decision is whether to buy a $35,000 Tesla Model 3 electric car. While it reduces the driver’s carbon footprint, it requires charging every 250 miles, making long-distance travel a challenge until a national system of charging stations is in place.
Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, is also the founder of SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer that produces and launches the only space-capable rockets currently in existence in the United States. Thus, when NASA wants to launch a rocket, it must do so in partnership with SpaceX, a private company. It is often the case that private companies develop important advances in technology, with incentives from government such as tax credits, low-interest loans, or subsidies. This is the reality of capital-intensive, high-tech projects in a free-market economy, in which government spending may be limited for budgetary and political reasons. Not only is SpaceX making the rockets, but it is making them reusable, with long-term sustainability in mind.
Should corporations and individual consumers bear joint responsibility for sustaining the environment? Why or why not?
What obligation does each of us have to be aware of our own carbon footprint?
If individual consumers have some obligation to support environmentally friendly technologies, should all consumers bear this responsibility equally? Or just those with the economic means to do so? How should society decide?
third assignment
Instructions
Overseas Manufacturing
How can the purchase of a pair of sneakers be seen as an ethical act? Throughout the 1990s, the U.S. shoe and sportswear manufacturer Nike was widely criticized for subcontracting with factories in China and Southeast Asia that were little more than sweatshops with deplorable working conditions. After responding to the criticisms and demanding that its suppliers improve their workplaces, the company began to redeem itself in the eyes of many and has become a model of business ethics and sustainability. However, questions remain about the relationship between business and government.
For instance, should a company advocate for labor rights, a minimum wage, and unionization in developing countries where it has operations? What responsibility does it have for the welfare of a contractor’s workers in a culture with differing customs? What right does any Western company have to insist that its foreign contractors observe in their factories the protocols required in the West? What, for example, is sacred about an eight-hour workday? When Nike demands that foreign manufacturers observe Western laws and customs about the workplace, arguably this is capitalist imperialism. Not only that, but Western firms will be charged more for concessions regarding factory conditions. Perhaps this is as it should be, but Western consumers must then be prepared to pay more for material goods than in the past.
Some argue that demanding that companies accept these responsibilities imposes cultural standards on another culture through economic pressure. Others insist there should be universal standards of humane employee treatment, and that they must be met regardless of where they come from or who imposes them. But should the market dictate such standards, or should the government?
The rise of artificial intelligence and robotics will complicate this challenge because, in time, they may make offshoring the manufacture and distribution of goods unnecessary. It may be cheaper and more efficient to bring these operations back to developed countries and use robotic systems instead. What would that mean for local cultures and their economies? In Nike’s case, automation is already a concern, particularly as competition from its German rival, Adidas, heats up again.12
Add as many rows for narrative as you need to set up the scenario before reaching a decision point — a Choice students must make.
You can repeat the narrative / decision pattern as needed by adding more rows for each.
What ethical responsibilities do individual consumers have when dealing with companies that rely on overseas labor?
Should businesses adopt universal workplace standards about working conditions and employee protections? Why or why not?
What would be required for consumers to have the necessary knowledge about a product and how it was made so that they could make an informed and ethical decision? The media? Commercial watchdog groups? Social-issues campaigns? Something else?
