1.

Explain how Apple’s philosophy and organizational culture have impacted how
it handles ethical decisions.
Witnessing many challenges such as: lawsuits, being replicated by some
companies,... throughout its business history. The success of Apple is based on a
combination of several factors, including the remarkable leadership skills of former CEO
Steve Jobs, the continuous innovation and improvements in its own products and an
organizational culture. Apple now is a giant corporation in the technology field in the
world. Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 with an effort to save the struggling
company. The return of Steve Jobs created a new era for Apple.
Being visionary leaders, Steve Jobs immediately began to change the way Apple
operated. Apple’s employees kept no secret about their company project for which Apple
is known. But after Jobs’ return, he introduced a “close door” policy. This policy can protect
its technology innovation in its products and ensure information remains privately- operated
which allows Apple getting fewer opponents having the same features. Beside that, they
believe that Apple has maintained its stellar reputation as one of Fortune magazine's
World's Most Admired Companies by upholding the highest standards of integrity in all
of its commercial dealings. Honesty, respect, secrecy, and compliance are the four values
that go into having integrity. When supplying goods and services to Apple, Apple requires
its vendors, investors, and other business partners to adhere to these standards. The
Foxconn company, for instance, is one of only a few facilities capable of building iPods
and iPads in the world and that makes it difficult for Apple to change suppliers. This can
lead to the more attention of Apple to its labor conditions, Apple worked with Foxconn to
improve the working environment for employees and meet the standard of integrity.
Apple also shows respect and decency to all parties, including customers, partners,
suppliers, workers, and others.
Employees who work in Apple have a feeling of motivation because Apple
provides them some massive training. This may be an opportunity for employees gaining
some academic knowledge and improving some required skills for their positions. Apple
directly takes part in the wages and benefits of its workers, this is demonstrated by the
fact that Apple pays its employees more than other employees may at comparable
businesses, which might assist people in overcoming their own obstacles. And Steve Jobs,
who always makes employees feel appreciated and welcome, should be directly credited
for this kind of honesty and respect. They are allowed to voice their ideas regarding the
advancement of Apple's services and products as well as the direction the business is
taking. Their contribution to the business was greatly valued by Steve Jobs. Even if they
are only customer service representatives, retail employees, or interns, he was willing to
sit down
and listen to ideas from his team members. This encourages them to believe they are capable
of more than they realize, and Steve Jobs has embraced this philosophy throughout
Apple's history and up to the present day.
Customers who utilize Apple's services and products are always given preference
when trying out new features. Apple invests in refining customer experiences as evidence
that it values its consumers and treats them fairly. Apple also makes an effort to provide
users cutting-edge items that will help them to set their own life. Moreover,
On the basis of compliance and ideologies, the ethical decision is addressed. Apple
continued to stand by their principles while facing legal challenges relating to supply
chain management, various intellectual property rights, and trademark infringement.
 2. Why is Apple’s industry so competitive and how could this affect the ethical
risk in Apple’s operations?
In the technology industry, there are a bunch of companies which provide products
and services suitable for every customer in the world, so the decision to transition to the
consumer electronics company of Apple can make it get more formidable competitors like
Samsung, HTC,... Being led by Steve Jobs since 1997, Apple gave prominence to
innovate Apple’s products and improve its services which created barriers to replicate.
Steve Jobs is a visionary and able to recognize customer needs and develop revolutionary
products to meet these needs in dynamic ways. One of the reasons which made Apple the
first place in the technology field was based on Steve Jobs’s creativity. So Apple
considered intellectual property theft a key concern, an issue the company aggressively
pursues. Apple tries its best to keep exclusive information a secret to prevent other
companies from stealing its ideas. This may lead to some lawsuits between Apple and
other corporations. There were some noticeable lawsuits which Apple needed to meet. For
instance, the trademark lawsuit between Apple and Cisco Systems in 2007, Apple was
filed by using the Iphone trademark, which was owned by Cisco since 2000. Apple also
followed steps respectively to get the permission using this trademark. However, Apple
skipped the discussion, the way Apple dealt with this issue seemed to be deceptive to get
around negotiation procedures. In conclusion, Apple and Cisco both used the Iphone
name, but Apple’s actions in this conversation still caused many controversies. Another
notable case was the lawsuit between Apple and chaebol in Korea, which is known as
Samsung. Apple filed a lawsuit with Samsung because Samsung infringed on multiple
intellectual property rights, consisting of trademarks, patents, user interface,. After this
lawsuit, Samsung lost 1.049 billion dollars
to compensate for Apple and these allegations were dismissed within the United States. In
2007, Steve Jobs introduced the Iphone, which is one of the most well- known devices in
Apple’s business history anđ ever since then the product has been in extreme demand
regardless of the device’s price. When Apple
launch new products and services, every customer in the world may make a bunch
of pre-orders with any price. Although Apple makes some mistakes, it has a history of
unethicalness that fails to address the risk that is within their supply chain. Apple provides
its supplier code of conduct for its supplier to ensure compliance, some serious supply chain
issues threaten to undermine Apple’s status as a highly admired and ethical company.
Foxconn, the supplier for Apple in China, met multiple accusations involved in the bad
condition of working, underage labor disputes, and worker abuse. As a result, this was an
opportunity for Apple’s protestors to give negative opinions and then requested Apple’s
consumers stop buying its devices to object to Apple's unlawful practices. Apple makes
an effort in selling at the highest price and producing its devices at extremely low cost to
get
a peak in profit. Suppliers claim that they need to follow slim profit margins in
manufacturing standards. This can lead to the reduction in the condition of suppliers’
workplace such as longer hours working and the replacement of the standard chemicals by
the cheaper and more dangerous ones, which could make their employees feel ill and the
rate of working under the standard level, in some cases, some potential workers chose to
leave this company. In the past, Apple faced some difficulties in the supply chain. In
order to meet the continuous demands of customers, Apple needs to always have a large
number of products. This event has caused Apple's suppliers to push their employees to
work as hard as possible to provide enough goods for Apples. And this led to some
unwarranted events. First, it is when an employee is under great sales pressure, that
employee may skip some of the testing stages necessary for the production of the product
or use some unscrupulous behavior to get the amount of revenue they expect. There are
more and more people who are in demand using private devices to set their own life and
save their time, so knowing about customer information can help Apple create products
which are suitable for customer’s needs and understand its customer. Especially, meeting
the customer demand, it can attract more loyal customers. However, the firm must still
show respect for customer privacy and a perceived breach in privacy is likely to result in a
backlash against the company.
 3. How do you think Apple has handled the various ethical issues that it has
faced in the past?
Apple still has many actions that its protestors considered as unethical. Although
Apple has policies and business conduct codes for stakeholders, employees and suppliers
to follow. In some cases, partners who cooperate with Apple also make some unnecessary
mistakes. These things can be easily seen in Apple's supply chain, despite having issued
business codes and checked monthly, there are still some suppliers that do not adhere to
the supplier code of conduct. According to Apple, more than half of supplier companies
fail to comply with worker hours, and more than one-third of suppliers fail to meet
Apple's standards for limiting work-related problems. Besides, there are many suppliers,
which do not obey other Apple standards such as safety issues when utilizing poisonous
chemicals, underage workers, overcrowding in dormitories where there are a lot of fights
among workers. Although, Apple always makes sure of the quality of suppliers and gives
specific measures for such actions. If within 90 days the cable suppliers cannot solve the
problems they meet, Apple will suspend the contract with them. But there are some
incidents that make Apple receive a lot of criticism. Typically, Apple's main supplier is
Foxconn , in January 2010, more than 135 employees felt unwell after using an
environmentally unfriendly chemical to clean the iPhone's screen. Not only that, in 2011,
with the subjective chemical materials such as aluminum dust and negligence in the
quality of the ventilation system caused two explosions that left four people dead and
seventy seven injured. With a high intensity of work to be able to meet the needs of
providing products to the market, suppliers must always motivate their employees to work
hard to complete it and Foxconn is not an exception and this led to the number of workers
committing suicide is a troublesome. With the power of media and consumer scrutiny,
Apple has also paid more attention to the ethical issue of suppliers. With such specific
handling solutions as Apple's direct monitoring and tracking, it is possible to improve the
conditions of suppliers and make sure about the standard of the employees' work rather
than the quantity. These things are evidenced by the fact that CEO Tim Cook had a trip to
Foxconn personally to be able to see directly about the working process of employees.
Apple has worked directly with Foxconn to improve employee safety during work,
including improving employee working hours and regularly inspecting working machines
regularly and periodically. In addition, Apple also pays attention to environmental issues.
As an electronics manufacturing company, Apple releases tremendous CO2 emission, and
if Apple does not have methods dealing with this issue, it will have a negative impact on
the environment. Apple has specific policies in this regard. The first is the policy of
minimizing emissions in the fabrication process of products. Apple tends to use less
environmentally harmful chemicals and recyclable materials. Moreover, as a company
which always pursues innovation, Apple
has always been seen as a pioneer in the field of technology. And it has caused a
continuous need for customers to constantly change their private electronic devices,
which makes them willing to give up the current devices. Apple has solved this problem by
building a recycling program. For the purpose of encouraging their customers to recycle,
Apple has introduced policies regarding return changes and discounts for some of their
products, such as iPods, phones, and Mac computers..The program offers a 10 percent
discount to customers who trade in their old iPods to sign up for it in order to receive a
discount on the newer version. Gift certificates are available for consumers who trade
Mac computers. With an aim to minimize its impact on the environment, Apple
subsidizes the transportation cost for its employees who commute to work. The
Cupertino facility includes a free shuttle service, as well as a free bus service from the
train station to the Apple headquarters. This bus is powered by biodiesel and runs on
compressed natural gas. Providing these incentives to employees reduces fuel cost for
them while also reducing emission into the atmosphere as a result. After facing criticism
from customers over the issue of customer privacy awareness, Apple is likewise concerned
about the issue of customer privacy. Users now have the ability to adjust the setting that
disables this feature, according to Apple. Despite not being the best policy, it has
demonstrated Apple's quick thinking.