Ethics †Hamburger Essay

Finance is an essential part of Business. It is imperative to be ethical in this sector as it’s the area that handles the money, various ethical issues fall under this sector for example, unlawful conduct (bribery). Health is also a imperative part of business as a business needs to have a sanitary area for employees to work, it’s even more important for McDonalds as they make food. Kitchens & the restaurant need to be sanitary. It’s rather unorthodox that I put Finance and health together, but the combination can bring out an ethical issue which is Bribery. Restaurants Get Health inspections on a regular bases to ensure they are kept to a good standard, it’s not uncommon for a Inspector to be bribed by an owner to give them a good result. Jacksonville October 2011[1] is a perfect example; two men were arrested for receiving bribes. The men were giving good results to poor standard restaurants. These restaurants were named within Jacksonville this means they will receive much less business, they will be lucky to get a few customers. These Restaurants have acted unethically which is part of the reason for the major decline in customers. McDonalds have had one issue of bribery, this was in Hong Kong. The managing director for McDonalds Hong Kong[2] was arrested for accepting bribes. The suppliers of McDonalds Hong Kong were bribing him to ensure McDonalds used them to supply the major fast food restaurant. This was a major hit to McDonalds as their reputation was tarnished, this had an effect on them, and Chinese investors did not want to invest in an unethical company. McDonalds Finance department need to ensure they don’t bribe inspectors or other bodies that have an impact on McDonalds, as that can hurt their reputation by a very large amount. McDonalds finance should also allocate money to ensure stores are sanitary; this will give them no reason to be bribed. McDonalds UK are on the right track as they own the farms that supplies its stores. Ethics: Marketing & Human Resource Many Ethical issues occur in Marketing such as discrimination. The implications this can have are catastrophic. McDonalds being a fast food need to ensure that they don’t discriminate when advertising a new product (promotional burger). If they discriminate then the person subject to discrimination will feel emotionally hurt, which is bad as people around that person will stop going to McDonalds, this will lead to a massive decrease in customers. as they will not want to eat at an unethical restaurant. A prime example of an unethical advert is that of Sony [3] Sony were put under the microscope in recent years as they displayed an unethical advert. The Advert was for the PSP (Play Station Portable) the first issue was the fact that they vandalized New York City in order to create its advert, the images painted on the walls was also discriminating to certain races. Sony was lucky that people never saw this as the sales of their PSP would have been much lower than it was. McDonalds Have a menu just for Children, this means advertising towards them, in doing this they are hooking young children to the temptations of Fast Food. This is an ethical issue as they are increasing the rate of obesity. McDonalds have now made their child menus healthier by giving fruit and veg with each meal. They also advertise the fact that fruit is tasty and healthy. They are trying to get children to eat more fruit. Competitors of McDonalds have no such philosophy, for example KFC advertise family meals, which is good for social backing but, the food they advertise is high in salt, fat and oil. All of which are bad for the body. McDonalds need to ensure that when creating a new meal they don’t discriminate against a race. For example if they make a New Mexican Meal, then they need to make sure they don’t advertise in a way that discriminates against Mexicans and they don’t use any labels within their advert. The HR department helps the marketing department. They tell them various things like, what is considered as discrimination. The HR department must ensure this advert does not discriminate against anyone. HR and marketing also work together when it comes to recruitment, the HR department tells marketing what the criteria for a job is, they must ensure no bias and discrimination is involved within this criteria. The Marketing department will then advertise this to the public. If the advert discriminates against someone then the public will think McDonalds is a poor place to work. Food Production Food production has many Ethical issues especially for McDonalds as they are a Fast Food business. Selling their food means their will be an increase in obesity which is a major ethical issue, as the life expectancy of people will drop. This Issue is perhaps the biggest yet. McDonalds have done well to counter this issue (selling healthier meals) they also warn customers what they are eating. The salt content of the Big Mac [4] is 2. 1g this is 42% of a persons daily allowance. Their Medium Fries has 0. 6g of salt this is 12% of a person’s daily allowance. Therefore a meal will have 2. 6g of salt which is 54% of your Daily Allowance, and this is just one of your daily meals and yet you have taken in 54% of your daily allowance. As you can see the health risks are very bad. McDonalds have tried to make a healthier menu but the fact is people love the taste of their burgers, and reducing the salt content can have a monumental effect on the taste. Another Major debate is the meat used within Beef burgers. In recent times there has been a major controversy about Horse meat [5]. Horse Meat has been found in Beef Burgers at Various stores such as Tesco, Burger king etc†¦ These Companies have made Customers afraid of Beef Burgers as they do not know the true ingredients. This issue is big because Tesco was feeding Horse meat to customers without the customer knowing. To make things worse Tesco and other Supermarkets also have traces of Pork within their Beef Burgers, this is a mega breach of trust as people from a Muslim Household are prohibited from eating Pork. Doing this Tesco and other super markets have affected all types of people. McDonalds major Competitor Burger King has also been selling Beef/Horse Burgers, this has ruined the reputation of Burger King, and it has also made people wary of most Fast food stores, as they are not sure what kind of meat is in their products. The Implications of Fast Food are both good and bad; the good part is that it is fast and convenient. The food itself is also made to be a quality meal, for a small price tag. The bad part of Fast food has already been spoken about, health risks. McDonalds need to create even more variety when it comes to healthy meals, as the burgers are still favourable they need to make healthy meals more competitive. Environmental Implications Global Warming is a huge issue. All people in the world contribute to Global warming, even breathing contributes towards it. Global warming is the melting of the polar icecaps, this raises the sea level which means sea level countries will soon be under water. The destruction of the Ozone layer is another issue, if the ozone layer is destroyed then the suns rays will be at full strength which means ultra violet radiation will increase causing a high increase in skin cancer. Businesses have been warned about this and are expected to reduce their energy consumption; they can do this by finding an alternative power source. McDonalds spends millions on energy and water. But money is not the issue, the environment is seeing a major decline, McDonalds have tried to counter this by finding and alternative energy source for their stores. So far they have only got one which is in America, this store uses geothermal energy to heat the store and light it. McDonalds use a lot of packaging; it was smart of them to switch to recycled packaging as this helped the environment. They should tell their customers how important Recycling is. Recycling [6] is the process of reusing paper, glass etc†¦ It is an essential part of our eco system as it saves trees from being cut down, this means more oxygen in the air, which helps the planet in various ways, such as prolonging our resources, this helps cut down Global Warming. Food Production also contributes to Global warming, as they use machinery to produce it, this increases their carbon footprint, taking the size of McDonalds into account it would be hard to acquire the figure of their carbon foot print, but we can assume that it is a very large amount, McDonalds is doing various things to reduce it (environmental projects). Global warming is also very dangerous now as its melting away the homes of various animals such as Polar Bears, the species is in danger because of this. Companies need to cut down on the use of energy to save these animals, and to prolong the life of the Earth Corporate Implications Corporate implications are related to ethics. There are rules and regulations put into place for businesses to follow. These rules are to ensure companies act ethically. McDonalds is doing a great service to the UK as they provide lots of money to government (through tax) they also promote healthy eating, some say this is ironic as they sell fast food, but they are minimising the effect of the ethical issue that is Fast food. Staff at McDonalds needs to know how to act ethically, McDonalds can train staff to do this. McDonalds have been subject to some ethical issue e. g. Hong Kong director arrested for accepting bribes. McDonalds manages need to ensure they comply by the rules put into place to protect both businesses and customers. They must Ensure their legal patents are taken seriously, what i mean by this is the use of their name and logo. Small businesses sometimes copy the brand image of McDonalds as it helps bring in customers due to the customer thinking the store is part of the renowned restaurant. McDonalds has patented their logo to ensure other businesses and competitors can’t use their logo in a professional manner. They have also patented all their products meaning people can’t use the same recipe to make their products. They’ve also patented the names of each product e. g. Big Mc. In doing this they have ensured people can’t copy their brand. Sources [1] http://jacksonville. com/news/crime/2012-05-01/story/jacksonville-police-arrest-2-state-inspectors-restaurant-bribery-sting [2] http://www. chinacsr. com/en/2007/08/14/1599-mcdonalds-executive-arrested-for-taking-bribes-in-hong-kong/ [3] http://www. ethicsscoreboard. com/list/sony2. html [4] http://www. mcdonalds. co. uk/ukhome/more-food/savers-menu. html [5] http://www. telegraph. co. uk/earth/agriculture/supermarkets/9844352/Horse-meat-scandal-Now-Tesco-and-other-supermarkets-admit-to-pork-traces-in-beef-burgers. html [6] http://www. benefits-of-recycling. com/whyisrecyclingimportant/.