Section 1: What is Ethics?

“Ethics is a series of beliefs and principles held by a person or group about how to

determine which human inter-actions they believe are right or wrong” (Bycel, 2013, p. 01).

Why do you like this particular definition?

I like this definition because I believe it clearly states what ethics is about. Ethics

involves good morals, but it also requires an individual to decide what they believe to do is right

or wrong (Bycel, 2013 & Fryer, 2015). Ethics involves moral obligations along with doing things

with positive intent to be considered ethically correct, but at Bycel stated ethics involved beliefs

and principles as well (Bycel, 2013 & Fryer, 2015).

Section 2: What is your Chosen Profession?

My chosen profession is in the retail/hospitality field as this is where I currently work in.

I chose this field because I am continuing to grow and hold a leadership role in the corporate

division. I want to continue to grow and develop my skills as a leader in this industry to get to

the next level in my journey. My end plan is to be an executive in the corporate sector and

learning ethics will ensure I am a fair leader that creates an inclusive, diverse and equitable

environment for my business and/or company.

Section 3: Case Study 1

In this case study, I researched a particular incident in regard to a retail coffee giant

Starbucks. The CEO of Starbucks at the time, Kevin Johnson, was put under the microscope

when one of his company store managers called the police on two African American customers

that were waiting for a business meeting (Tangdall, 2018). This issue would test the ethical
leadership of CEO Kevin Johnson and his ability to navigate through the practices his store

leader took against the two innocent black men.

According to Tangdall’s article, two black men were waiting inside a Philadelphia

Starbucks for a business associate to arrive and had not purchased anything. The store manager

singled out the two men and requested that they leave and when they refused the manager called

the police. Other people who had not purchased anything had been waiting in the Starbucks with

nothing stated toward them and voiced concern of the situation. A video was recorded of the

incident and people labeled this as discriminatory. After the release of the video, the public

protested Starbucks (Tangdall, 2018).

Kevin Johnson, CEO, stated the manager was removed from the company and that the

company itself had no policy about asking customers to leave; he as well took full responsibility

for the actions performed by that manager (Tangdall, 2018). Tangdall continued to share that

Johnson acknowledged the behaviors were not representing the company’s mission and values.

Johnson apologized and created steps for the company to address these issues with more training

and bringing in the two black men for dialogue to create change at Starbucks (Tangdall, 2018).

Tangdalls article suggested the Johnson created options on sharing the companies’

mission and values and what their beliefs were. Starbucks decided that they would close all their

stores after collaboration with the two men to conduct unconscious bias training and to introduce

their new Third Place policy that took aim at creating a warm and welcoming environment where

everyone was welcomed (Tangdall, 2018). The goal was to ensure the company was taking

proper steps to provide training to their teams, so that their managers are better equipped to

handle situations in the right ways that are ethically responsible. The company even aligned that
no purchases are necessary and provided training on how to handle disruptive behavior

(Tangdall, 2018).

This article shows ethical dilemmas in doing what is right or wrong by a manager

handling a situation in a wrong way that showed a bad ethical practice that lead to the

discriminatory act. The article also shows the ethical leadership of CEO Kevin Johnson on how

he created community, encouraged ethical conduct, disciplined roles, clarifying culture and

designing a new ethical system. He created community by the creation of the Third-Place policy

and through trainings like the unconscious bias training. He took ethical conduct by taking

responsibility and taking actions on that leader. He had disciplined roles by taking responsibility

in the stores actions as his personal actions and worked to help fix the problem though trainings

and collaborations and so on (Tangdall, 2018).

This article caught my eye because as a leader, you have to take on responsibility of your

team. You as a leader may have to deal with concerns that you were not apart of but ethically

have to make a right or wrong decision on actions that are performed through the company. This

issue was twofold for ethical decisions for both in store through how the manager handled in the

wrong manor and the CEO on how he led through the situation. I feel that learning more about

how CEO Johnson handled can help me be a better executive leader for my journey down the

road. Johnson made hard decisions to close all his stores, but it was worth providing training that

was no existent and created policies that helped ensure an ethical approach toward its customers

was in place (Tangdall, 2018).

Section 4: Case Study 2

 In this second case study, I examined retail clothing store American Apparel and its

founder Dov Charney. In this particular case that author Skeet wrote, Dov utilized sex to sell

clothing as a marketing strategy. Dov was scrutinized for his personal behavior as a leader in the

organization and for actions he took during business transactions (Skeet, 2018). Specifically,

Skeet talked in the article about an interview Dov Charney had with a reporter from Jane

magazine. During this interview, Dov Charney masturbated while navigating this interview with

the reporter’s consent. Dov also performed other sexual actions at the time the reporter was near

(Skeet, 2018). Dov even had the American Apparel company have employees sign forms that

would indicate they would be working in a sexual environment.

After an awareness was made to the board of directors, they chose to remove Dov

Charney as chairman of the board along with the consideration of termination (Skeet, 2018). The

board gave Dov an option to resign, while giving up shares. Charney violated the company

sexual harassment policy and improperly used company funds, which led the board to officially

remove him (Skeet, 2018). Charney shared concerns with governance and ownership as he was

the founder of the company and another investor came in, eventually separating Charney down

the road (Skeet, 2018).

The ethical dilemmas here were that Dov Charney used his position of power to have

sexual activities occurring through the work atmosphere and inappropriately use company funds.

Doing this caused lawsuits and company losses (Skeet, 2018).

I chose to review this case so understand how leaders can abuse their positions of power

and the implications that follow in the business sector. What caught my eye here was that this

was a CEO performing unethical sexual activities in the workplace for a retail clothing company.

It really surprised me that these sexual activities were going on for such a long period of time
and even contact form were being signed that acknowledged this in the workplace. What was

even more surprising was that this was going on for multiple years until any actions were taken

or at least discussed here. I feel that understand that if you or in a position of power, your

leadership to do what is right and ethical is important not just for your employees but your

company and image. Here American Apparel was eventually sold off to other investors after the

dispute Charney put up and he lost his company (Skeet, 2018). Making ethical decisions would

have also prevent lawsuits and may have grown a successful company. I think it is important to

understand as a leader, your marketing strategies matter and that perception and responsibility to

your people and customer is key to success for growth.

Section 5: Case Study 3

For this case study, I examined retail banking company Wells Fargo. Santa Clara

University discussed this article by sharing that Well Fargo lead in a cross-selling avenue to

existing customers and the company itself had some high equity returns and stock prices. In

2016, Well Fargo announced that more than 2 million accounts were opened without customer

knowledge and was orders to pay $185 million dollars. These accounts were opened as Wells

Fargo set quotas and its employees needed to meet those targets. This forced unethical behaviors

to achieve quotas for employees to hit bonus (Santa Clara University, 2017).

The article stated that over 5300 employees were separated by Well Fargo for

questionable practices in its business. The CEO John Stumpf blamed bad employees who did not

live up to their mission and committed these unethical actions (Santa Clara University, 2017).

The article continues to discuss that employees tried to speak up and share concerns on the

unethical practices, but either quit or were fired by leadership for reporting the concern (Santa
Clara University, 2017). To make matters worse, upper leadership was fully aware of the

concerns and practices that were going on. Eventually the board of directors lead an independent

investigation to identify improper sales practices in regard for its business across cultural,

structural and leadership; in which they found concerns in every category that lead to the

unethical practices (Santa Clara University, 2017).

The sad part is that the CEO took zero responsibility for any of the actions that occurred

and that his leadership team was fully aware of. With unauthorized accounts being open in

customers names, these shady unethical practices are what lead to the $185 million dollar fine for

the company (Santa Clara University, 2017). The company did not discuss any course correction,

other than its internal investigation to identify their causes of pressure to create accounts.

I chose this case study to understand the impacts of employee behavior when faced with

stress and the impacts of culture set in an environment. What stood out to me was culture when I

selected this article. I wanted to see how culture specifically can impact employee engagements

or actions in the business and how a company may pursue actions to overcome unethical

behaviors. I feel that learning about how to be in the know about my business as a leader, will

help ensure that I am successful in my future career. What I took from this article was the CEO

made excuses and was not aware of the actions his upper leadership team was engaged in. For

me, I would take actions that allowed me to be in the know and to have advisors sharing

structure of things like bonus or incentives for employees to ensure we have fair, equitable and

ethical practices in place for operations.

 Reference List

Bycel, B. (2013, May 23). How do you define ethics?. The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2013/05/23/how-do-you-define-ethics/

Fryer, M. (2015). Ethics Theory & Business Practice (1st ed.). SAGE.

Santa Clara University. (2017, May 10). Wells Fargo Banking scandal. Markkula Center for

Applied Ethics. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/business-ethics/resources/wells-

fargo-banking-scandal/

Skeet, A. (2018, July 30). Case on executive integrity. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/business-ethics/resources/case-on-executive-

integrity/

Tangdall, S. (2018, August 29). The CEO of Starbucks and the practice of ethical leadership.

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. https://www.scu.edu/leadership-ethics/resources/the-

ceo-of-starbucks-and-the-practice-of-ethical-leadership/