Project

An appreciation of the types of Ethical dilemmas in an Australian business

Title
Blundstone Footwear/ Consumer goods/ Footwear/ Hobart-Australia

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HI6008 Business Research Project – Assignment 1 - Topic Development

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Project Title:
Blundstone footwear
Ownership - Type: Private company
Industry - Type: Footwear
Headquarter: Hobart-Australia
Owners: Family business of Blundstone

Introduction:
A family-owned business (Harris, 1994) for shoemaking was started in 1870
by a small family known as Blundstone’s, in Hobart, Australia. It is a growing
company, especially since 2007 with most shoes manufactured overseas. Today the
Blundstone Chelsea also known as “Blunnies” across Australia, are its signature and
are known far and wide across the globe.
The topic interests me because it has come a long way to reach its potential
and also a sense of fashion along with brand loyalty with its consumers.
Furthermore, Chelsea is famous because of its hard work and commitment
throughout the time it begins.
Ethical Dilemma
According to Blundstone itself, they follow and ensure their policies along
with legal and ethical practices. These practices are throughout put into the
betterment and growth of the company, to create a trust and bond between
consumers and the company to work in a fair legal manner to avoid any illegal
activities in the workplace.
If the ethics are not maintained in a company the entire organization can
perish along with all of its shareholders and personnel.
However Australian ethics (Kaye, (1992)) in the 1980s were an in a very critical state
where child labor was normal, people on very low wages barely kept their belly full,
with very rude attitudes toward customers and low brand loyalty, but it sure has
come a long way from being aa back western time to modern times with some very
good implemented ethics.

Australian ethics:

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  Equity: (Steven Pike, Constanza Bianchi, Gayle Kerr, Charles Patti, 2010)an
important and most valuable factor in Australian business is the talent to
work and performance abilities as a sign of competence irrespective of their
qualifications and their self-bragging. So, everyone has a chance to shine
and put their skills to use.
 Gender Roles: Equality in gender roles Is also a very crucial aspect of
company growth and in Austral, if women are given an equal chance to
show their talent and show the world they can out as much if not better
than someone women who hold positions of authority.
 Privacy and relationship: one of the best aspects of Australian-based
companies is their private life and business life is separated by a fine line.
But in the workplace Australians do have small talks to gain certain
confidence and a good relationship with colleagues, especially before
meetings.

The values of the Blundstone company are:

 Family: As it is a family-owned business, naturally they care for their family
and ensure the respect they are due.
 Customer and community: their mission is to satisfy their customers and
build a trusted community that would live up to their consumer’s and
customer's expectations
 Design: According to them the designs are authentic, innovative, quality,
and honest products to give the best experience for their consumers.
 Integrity: Their go-to is to stay original with their designs and stay ethical
and true to their customers.

However, these dilemmas are designed to stand well in the public eye, but there are
some rumors which are causing trouble for the company, which takes us to the next
point of our research.

Research Problem:

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 The problem with owning a business especially that is well known is to stay
good in public view, if the public view is shattered or turned negative the entire
business can face consequences.
There is a very recent incident of a company that faces negative public
emotions. A compass knew now by the name of “Fair and Lovely” is a beauty cream
that focuses on whitening the skin of consumers as their selling point, which the
public caught the wrong advertisement as it seems a bit “racist” according to the
public opinion. As they only focused on fairness and degraded black skins multiple
times. Ultimately the company had a massive lead down and faced consequences.
The main idea of bringing this to attention is if the allegations are wrong and
the public took them as true the company could still face a massive drawback
therefore dealing with these allegations or negativity is a matter aspect of running a
business’s ethical point of view.
There are currently many allegations including labor abuse, child labor, low
wages, and no health checks for labor even during the COVID-19, furthermore, there
are allegations of using rare animal hide for shoemaking.
These are just allegations for now but these caught the public eye and
Blundstone is keeping a stronghold with its consumers through customer loyalty and
trust, which is a key aspect of the growth and well-being of the company.
However, Blundstone is rated as “Not good enough” on many websites and
critics’ reviews but their consumers are still true to them.

Blundstone policies:
According to the policies of Blundstone (Craik, 2015) in the eyes of the above
allegations are:
 Ensuring that neither adult nor child labor is abused, is very vague and
hence caught the eye of critics for child labor event home-based labor
exploitation, which is very common in Australia.
 Environment standards: making sure the entire process of shoemaking is
environmentally friendly and animal friendly, making sure no rare animals
are harmed in the process, minimizing the use of raw chemicals, materials,

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 and fossil fuels proving the above allegation of animal endangerment
wrong.

What’s so good about this whole scenario is that these allegations are just
theoretical and no actual proof is given to the public to ensure the trust and binding
of consumers even deeper.

Research Question:
While researching the main question I want to focus on and bring the sight of
people to this as well is, how to keep a positive impact even in the crises or how to
gain public trust and customer value while running an organization or company.
There are some tough times in the uprising of a business but facing these
fears and tough times head-on is a key to moving towards the success and growth of
a company.
Some key features to keep in mind to maintain a public trust are:
 Ensure the quality of your product
 Keep the customer satisfied
 Think good of the workers
 Always follow your policy guidelines
 Reward loyalty of the customer in different ways (discount coupons, sales,
etc)
 Feedback from customers

Sometimes these implementations can be proven very tricky and hard to maintain or
implement but if done correctly and promptly can prove very effective.
In the case of Blundstone being in Australia, the culture of cowboys can be proven in
favor or against as these men are loyal to their cause and it’s the culture of Australia
to have good trusty shoes. Among various companies, Blundstone stands strong in
its consumer’s eyes it is because of the trust between consumers and the brand.

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References
Craik, J. (2015). Challenges for Australian fashion. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 50-
65. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JFMM-03-2014-
0017/full/html
Harris, D. (1994). Is Strategy Different for the Family-Owned Business? Family Business Review, 34-45.
Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-6248.1994.00159.x
Kaye, B. N. ((1992)). Codes of ethics in Australian business corporations. Journal of Business Ethics
volume 11, 857–862. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00872364
Steven Pike, Constanza Bianchi, Gayle Kerr, Charles Patti. (2010). Consumer‐based brand equity for
Australia as a long‐haul tourism destination in an emerging market. International Marketing
Review, 23-24. Retrieved from
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02651331011058590/full/html

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