Ethics Management Case Study After having read a case study, it appears to me that the Sears’ scandal, related to its unethical profit-boosting policies, can be evaluated in terms of contradiction between the right-based ethics and the goal-oriented ethics. On one hand, Sears is the commercial enterprise, which has only one priority to make as much profit as possible. From this prospective, applying an innovative methods to boost companies profits, might be considered as fully justifiable. Nevertheless, this comes into the conflict with customers’ right to receive the best possible service for their money, which is also backed up by the law. Sears’ auto service division managers designed a system of incentives for its workers, which emphasized the quantity over quality. Mechanics’ commissions were directly related to how many spare parts they were able to sell and to how many hours they could put into the each individual job.
The more, the better. This approach, however, failed to take a very important fact into consideration customers’ satisfaction. But in this case, the right-based ethics, should have been thought as having the status of priority, by the Sears’ executives, who proved to be a little too eager, in their desire to boost company’s profits. And the reason for this is not purely moral. Basically, Sears’ managers, in its auto service division, had brought the company to the brink of commercial bankruptcy, because the amount of money it was forced to pay, as part of the settlement. Therefore, we cannot even say that such behaviour is fully justified, in terms of goal-based ethics. This is because their goal of being able to make more money failed miserably, resulting in huge financial loses for the Sears, as well as in damaging its reputation among the customers.
In my opinion, the case study is the unique example of when goal-based ethics actually do not contradict the right-based ethics, in the true sense of this word. Although that it appears to be the case, in the beginning.
Bibliography:
Chandler, S. Meet Sears’ Mr. Fixit. (June 15, 1997).
Business Week. Retrieved November 12, 2006 from http://www.businessweek.com/1997/04/b351177.htm.