Business ethics are the moral principles that a business is obligated to have while undertaking its business activities. It is also defined as the aspect of a business to act morally in all its business operations in order not to harm the customers and other competitors. Business ethics has proved to be a complicated field where battles related to different opinions have been witnessed. This paper will, therefore, focuses on outlining the moral business principles expected in consumer production and marketing.
Consumer Production and Marketing
According to Velasquez, (2012) consumers are the most important stakeholders for a business enterprise to exist and therefore should be treated with utmost care. However, some manufactures often provide unfair trade practices such as producing substandard products, increased prices, deceptive advertising, and poor after-sales services and warranties among other unjust business practices. Theories such as due care, contract view, and commercial advertising views have been established to protect the consumer by burdening manufacturers in achieving them.
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The Due Care Concept
As described by Velasquez, (2012) p roducers have the sole responsibility of preventing harm affecting their customers from the products they sell to them. When manufacturers act ethically by processing products with raw materials that can hardly harm their consumers they are practicing the concept of due care (Munjal, 2016). During the designing of goods, producers take into consideration the aspect of safety during usage. Regular quality control check-ups are made where the majority of manufacturers pass the test, an indication that they are ethical in their production operations.
However, some manufacturers practice unethical behaviors in their labeling and warnings (Munjal, 2016). Instead of putting clear and easily understandable directions of use, they use complicated language. Consider the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies which use complicated language to describe the benefits and side effects of both dispensable and non-dispensable drugs.
The world has revolutionized and people no longer deal with their doctors directly, instead, they seek information concerning their ailments online. Considering the easy accessibility of information regardless of whether it is correct or wrong, these medicine producers should use easy language on the labels of their products since through dispensing pharmacies and chemists everyone has the access to these drugs.
While some may argue that patients should first seek medical guidance before reaching out to pharmacies or chemists, the practicing pharmacists at the dispensing stores have a code of ethics of no maleficence. Therefore they should act ethically by providing full information on the harm or benefits of using the types of drugs consumers plan to purchase.
However, due to the promise from the manufacturers of material favors and financial kickbacks on high sales of their drugs, these practicing medical practitioners act unethically by selling and prescribing medicines from manufacturers that they will have kickbacks. They forget their code of ethics and the importance of the life of their consumers. The misconception that accidents and injuries only happen due to product misuse and abuse should be forfeited. Therefore, manufacturers should provide safety-related information during the advertising of their products to help consumers have prior knowledge of usage to complement the complicated language on usage labels when they purchase them from the dispensing stores.
The Advertising Concept
Advertising is a form of communication that targets consumers in order to inform, persuade, and influence them to purchase a company product ( Brusseau, 2011). Advertising usually involves a large degree of concern in marketing a company's products and consumer protection. To cater to consumer expectations in an ethical manner, manufacturers are expected not to be deceitful, manipulative, or conceal important information as this would ruin the company’s reputation and success.
Though producers benefit from advertising sometimes during the activity they act unethically, therefore, going against what is believed as morally right (Velasquez, 2012) . It has been noted that for century’s companies use women to advertise for household products such as toiletries, kitchenware, and food among others. Using women to advertise these products is promoting stereotyping of gender roles. Media is one of the modes of communication that is used by a large number of people to gain information, advertisement portrays a world charged with socially defined and constructed gender roles. Men and Women are shown as different in terms of the roles they play in these advertisements and as a result, promote stereotyping.
Though some consumers may only take the theme of the advertisement, others may critically analyze the advert and come up with the conclusion of what position women play in society. Using these advertisements, the reality that exists in the world about sex roles is displayed and as a result, all the hard work that groups fighting for gender rights and equality do is distorted. Surprisingly, while some people argue about how such advertisements are unethical and generate stereotyping about how women are limited to kitchen and house chores alone, others find them fit and ethical.
The Contract View Theory
Since the purpose of a business is to make goods and/or services and sell them at a profit, business ethics are required to exist in all its operations. Right from the production all the way to marketing, producers only interact with their consumers through sales activities. To achieve its goals of making profits a relationship must be established. This relationship is termed as contractual where both parties have responsibilities ( Mandal, 2010).
As described by Mandal, (2010) w hile manufacturing, producers must comply with the implied claims of reliability, maintainability, service life, and safety of the products. Consumers have minimal if any information concerning the design of complex products. It is with this respect that failure to disclose all material facts by salespersons is considered unethical behavior (Velasquez, 2012). Consider a woman consumer who plans to purchase an electric vehicle and has no basic information about automobiles and at the same time is single. Such consumers use their hard-earned money to purchase a product that can satisfy their needs in a reliable and safe way. They take time searching for information regarding quality since the product is complex from various sources before purchase. However, due to the existence of asymmetric information, it becomes difficult for them to distinguish a quality vehicle especially because the price is pegged on quality which cannot be experienced before purchase.
Though producers offer warranties and after-sales services it has also been established that they do so for reputation purposes. Such a consumer may be promised a warrant and aftersales services for the purpose of bookkeeping. A mass of vendors from rogue companies does not disclose full information about the sale agreement to the consumers aiming to make more profits. However, whenever the need for after-sales services or claiming of warrantees come, the dealer offering them will not fulfill their promises or they will be charged. Due to the existence of imperfect asymmetric information, to differentiate a genuine company from the rogue ones may be difficult for such a consumer.
Conclusion
Production and marketing are significant in society because through their collaboration people are able to get products that satisfy their needs. Additionally, the close relationship between these two functions aids in the performance of an organization while providing more wealth to the shareholders. However, to prevent producers from taking advantage of customers with the aim of earning more profits and other market malpractice, consumer protection laws are established. Such laws protect consumers from unethical practices such as a contractual agreement between buyer and seller, commercial advertising, and liability law. Malpractices from pharmaceutical companies, commercial advertisements, and asymmetrical information can be capped by practicing business ethics.
References
Brusseau, J. (2011). The Business Ethics Workshop, v. 1.0. Flat World Knowledge, Washington, DC .
Mandal, S. K. (2010). Ethics In Business & Corp Governance . Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Munjal, N. (2016). A Study On Ethical Issues In Advertising And Analyzing Different Unethical Advertisements With Results Of Asci Decisions: An Indian Perspective. Eco forum Journal , 5 (2).
Velasquez, M. G. (2012). Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Edition Seventh.
