Ethical dilemma is a situation that brings a conflict of interest between two situations that could be right and wrong at the same time. When you choose to take one option you disadvantage the other. In business, ethics is a major factor that shapes a company in terms of its conduct in relation to the surrounding environment (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). The company strategy, rules and regulations can be ethical or unethical depending on the perception of the business owners and the stakeholders. If an organization decides to implement a policy that happens to expose the employees’ privacy, it would be unethical, but still it can be ethical from shareholders perspective by supporting that it reduces fraud and dishonesty in the organization.
Potential ethical dilemma from a real-world organization
Soft Petal Hotel is a hotel established by people from a particular race. The hotel is located in a local town near the coastal beach that attracts tourist from all over the world. The hotel specializes in Chinese food as the main dish. The owners of the business declared that the hotel employs Chinese nationals only who are given the work permit (Crane, Glozer & Spence, 2019). Also, the guests in the hotel are supposed to be Chinese nationals only. This issue raised a hot debate as to how a foreigner can invest in one’s country and locals fail to become a beneficiary of investment. Owners they argue that people from their country are familiar with the type of food prepared (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). People from other parts of the world may not enjoy their sumptuous food since it is a rare type of food. Also employing people from their country would be more efficient since they will understand each other better, other than locals who understand and speak their language.
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Issues Involved
The stakeholders of the business
According to the owners of this business, it is ethical to employ and retain people from their race. This is because they feel that by allowing locals in their business, the sales would plummet due to factors such as language barrier and technicality in preparation of food. It is also ethical to only welcome guests from the same race and origin, since what is served in the hotel is their home meals. The shareholders of the business claim that allowing other people to taste their food, would make them end up disliking them when they learn the ingredients. Additionally, they claim the owners want to preserve their culture from any part of the world. The stakeholders from outside claim this is unethical since it hinders proper interactions with foreign visitors, brings an aspect of discrimination and refuses to embrace the society in which it operates by employing the locals (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016).
The concern of stakeholders
The shareholders of the business are in ethical dilemma as they fear that sales might go down when the company decides to involve the locals of the town. The reason is because they are unfamiliar with the type of food being prepared, and its technicality of preparation. Ferrell and Fraedrich (2015) noted that the company feels that it is right to retain its people and maintain good sales. However, the local people feel it is unethical to be left out as if they are being discriminated even if that is not the intention. The government on the other hand claims that as long as the investor is paying tax, it cannot interfere with the decisions made in the company. Furthermore, the company does not break any law in its decisions and it helps to bring more tourists to our country by making them feel at home.
The reason why I choose this issue and why it is important
The reason I choose this issue is due to increasing number of hotels that are being set up in various local beach towns which have the same characteristics of employing foreigners only. It makes me fail to see the benefit of foreign investment in such countries. The government could be the beneficiary but not its people. According to my opinion, the locals who are trained should be absorbed in the hotels as employees to gain value from investors in such countries (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). Keeping silent when I realize something is not adding up, would only make this issue get worse. The locals despite minimal associations with foreigners would never experience the value of investors with direct benefit to them. I got the audacity to bring this issue to the public limelight.
Raising this issue is important to enlighten people about what I see is unethical conduct of foreigners’ hotels that are doing injustice to our people. Still in my opinion, we value investors since they are able to set up businesses in various countries but should also consider locals in their investment decisions (Crane et al., 2019). The coastal town people would benefit and learn new skills by working in the investors hotels. The population would then invite more to invest in their town to create more job opportunities to the local people.
Current relevance of the issue
The company outside stakeholders should be concerned more by the activities of the companies being set up by investors. It should be a win on both sides; for investors and the local people. Shapiro and Stefkovich (2016) noted that local people should not deny investors business opportunities available in the country since by doing so they would be developing the economy, but should also be ready to absorb the local community where their business operates ( Bainbridge, 2007) . The people would acquire skills as they work until they become experts of the same. It would be source of livelihood for the local town people. As Rendtorff (2009) noted, it is also part of corporate social responsibility of the business towards the local community in which the business is set up.
The media intervention
The issue was covered by a local television that enlightened the local town people sparking different opinions among them. The media analyzed how the hotels have turned down the offer to employ the locals claiming that they do not have the minimum skills needed to operate as chefs and catering jobs. The media gave examples of local graduates who had gone to request for job opportunities with hospitality management courses but were turned down on grounds that the applicants were not nationals of their country (Crane et al., 2019) On contacting the hotel management they claimed that language barrier could have been the reason that would likely deter the graduates from getting the job. Surprisingly the graduates were fluent in the language they required but on informing them that that they were literate they hanged up the journalist call.
Reasons why the issue attracted the public attention
The issue got to public to domain when two students were denied internship opportunity in the hotel thus sparking range to the parents who spread the news to other members of local community. Peaceful demonstrations were later held attracting the media to cover the issue with hotel management who later declined the interview with the media. The local authorities claimed they are paying tax and license and that those issues are internal affairs which the government cannot meddle with (Farrell & Fraedrich, 2015).
Conclusively, business ethics sparks different opinion from most people. The regulations intended to create fair standards in the business environment may be viewed as ethical or unethical depending on who is favored by those policies (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). It is hard to define parameters of ethics since suggestions and solutions may lead to ethical dilemma. There is no defined approach to ethical issues in analyzing the best solution to ethical dilemma.
References
Bainbridge, S. M. (2007). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: How we got here, and what it means . In The complete guide to Sarbanes-Oxley (pp. 1–37)
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S., & Spence, L. (2019). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization . Oxford University Press.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases . Nelson Education.
Rendtorff, J. D. (2009). Responsibility, ethics and legitimacy of corporations . Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.library.capella.edu/lib/capella/docDetail.action?docID=10465558
Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas . Routledge.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right . John Wiley & Sons.
