Question One

Organizational ethical culture entails the attributes of decision-making strategies that

employees use to define their response to ethical issues that they consider wrong or right. Ethical

culture is an aspect of organizational culture that captures the norms and values that a company

considered as appropriate conduct (Warren, Gaspar, & Laufer, 2014, p.86). Specifically,

organization ethical culture binds the employees in the context of shared assumptions that

regulate what happens in the company by defining appropriate behaviour for various situations.

The main advantages of business ethics include employee commitment, investor loyalty,

customer satisfaction and profits. First, trust and performance among employee increase when

they are committed and trust their organization. Ferrell et al. (2013, p.19) note that ethical culture

matters to the workers as employees who consider the organization to have strong community

participation will be loyal to the company, which will boost their confidence and positivity.

Second, investors seek to safeguard their investment at any cost. In case of adverse issues that

impact the company, the investors will be interested to understand whether their investments are

at risk. Ferrell et al. (2013, p.19) agree that investors are highly interested in the organization’s

reputation, ethics and social responsibilities. As such, investors understand that an investment in

an ethical, cultural organization generates the foundation for effectiveness, profit, productivity

and efficiency, which benefits them in the long run. Third, the organization will not be able to

gain profit without satisfied customers. Since customers are business stakeholders, companies

should achieve their needs and wants. Specifically, Ferrell et al. (2013, p.19) advise that

customer is drawn to ethically correct organizations and those who are responsibly socially. The

customers may change their stance when the organization is drawn to wrangles with the

regulators or attracts bad publicity. Finally, profits are the lifeline of any business. Profit
organization need to realize revenues to provide their shareholders value for their investment.

Companies can realize a profit by valuing their employees, developing trust with the

stakeholders and serving the needs of the customers. This will result in strong competitive

advantages which affect the image of the organization positively.

Question Two

1)

The trip in the case can be perceived as the organization retreats for the workers to thank

them for their hard work. It is an incentive for effectiveness, productivity, performance or a

benefit from the new incentive program the Acme is seeking to implement.

The situation depicts Amber’s strategy of winning clients. While there is nothing wrong

with this approach, it is how she did it that generated an issue. Specifically, it is ethically right to

thank the clients, but it is not ethical when it comes to the use of the organization’s resources in a

faulty way to achieve popularity. For instance, all the accommodation were paid during the trip

to Las Vegas and $500 was allocated to each of the clients. The funds were provided to thank the

clients for their business. About attending the adult entertainment club, Frank and Amber made it

clear that the funds given to the clients were in their discretion and not of the company. Ferrell et

al. (2013, p.26) advise that Acme Corporation should have provided a waiver for the clients to

sign which freed them from any outcome that may arise among the clients that may harm the

company’s image.

Question Three

The case of Avid Life Media (ALM) is about whether it is acceptable to promote a legal

but socially irresponsible product to the stakeholders. Avid Life Media own website brand that
encourages married women and men to register on the website to openly promote infidelity. The

company has recruited hundreds of marketers, designers and programmers and has generated

private placement for the investors. The website has many people concern as to helps individuals

to participate in cheating on their spouses, including availing email address to which one’s

spouse cannot have access. Although there nothing illegal with this business, many stakeholders

argue that the reasons for the website are wrong.

There is nothing wrong with developing legal products that many people desire. Care

about the wellbeing of stakeholders results in high profits. Avid Life Media has gone at great

lengths in covering their members’ tracks by availing them with discrete tools such as

inaccessible email address. Resulting, these safeguards investments generated by the

stakeholders. However, the generation of socially irresponsible product is not right as it has a

more negative aspect than the positive. Avid Life Media’s products undermine respect and ethics

to the institution of marriages where couples need to be faithful. Avid Life Media undermines the

meaning of marriage by encouraging unfaithfulness, which as a vice that society discourages.

Although the products are legal, they harm families as infidelity may lead to divorce. The

divorces generate psychological torture to the children, which results in a change in their social

interaction. An acceptance of Avid Life Media’s products will increase the development of the

more social irresponsible product that will finally erode the good moral in society. The model of

social responsibility suggests that companies have to act for the benefit of society at large.

Therefore, stakeholders should consider the long term welfare of the society and have a

minimum focus on the profit. In the context of the stakeholder, it is not right to provide a socially

irresponsible product.

Question Four
1)

The first ethical issue is that Karl is under pressure from family, parents and his boss to come up

with the best marketing strategy for his creation. Bounce Corporation promotes games that have

player interaction, fast action gameplay and unique qualities. As such, Karl developed

“Breakaway” which focused on mature audiences. The second ethical issue is that Karl is

involved in marketing research that established that most gamers experience a hypnotic impact

when interacting with role-playing games online. Karl found that gamers desired to transition

through the existing stages were likely to spend money to advance through the stages. The

players were likely to use credit to progress through the game at a quicker pace. The final ethical

issue is that Karl introduced nudity and violence at a significant level to appeal to the male

gamers, which in turn increased profitability.

2)

The acceptance and commercial use of violence and sex depend on the religious beliefs, culture

involved and Karl himself. While some religious beliefs accept the blatant use of sex in

advertising, others consider them repulsive. Besides, the acceptance of commercial violence and

sex differs from men to women. If Karl seeks to market the game to the general population, he

can eliminate some violence and nudity that is perceived as offensive. He should also consider

providing the game to different platforms with different attributes included or removed. He can

also opt to provide the full version through the online to adult only. This approach will enable

“Breakaway” to keep the violence and nudity it contains at the moment. Other markets will

accept the game with a lowered degree of violence. However, other markets prefer increased

violence and nudity to their gaming population. Karl to decide to stand up to his parent, friends
and his boss on what he believes is important. He may also stick to his beliefs and eliminated the

extreme nudity and violence, or he can go along with Will’s recommendation.

 References

Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making &

cases (Ninth Edition ed.). South-Western Cengage Learning.

McFarlane, D. A., & Alexakis, G. (2016). Sustaining an ethical organizational culture: A systems

approach. Journal of Ethics & Entrepreneurship, 6(2), 143-157

Warren, D. E., Gaspar, J. P., & Laufer, W. S. (2014). Is formal ethics training merely cosmetic?

A study of ethics training and ethical organizational culture. Business Ethics Quarterly,

24, 85-117