Leadership is an integral part of any organization that must be handled perfectly for the stability of an organization. A good leader must foster the organizational culture to achieve cohesion and goals set. A leader who believes in the ethical presentation in an organization is bound to be a perfect role model and realize employee productivity since workers will have high levels of motivation to achieve goals and adhere to the set policies. A company that focusses on happiness as organizational culture is bound to succeed as Zappos, an online retailer, has proved. A leader must foster happiness and ethical aspect to realize a happy organization and its stakeholders. The realization of integrity as a culture in an organization leads to success. In addition, the stakeholder satisfaction leads to the achievement of the goals and perfect reputation by a company since it involves strict adherence to ethical procedures.
Q1. Zappos' Actions in Fostering a Culture of Ethicalness
Zappos applies integrity in rendering services to customers for perfect consumer experience. The firm believes in the happiness of the stakeholders, such as customers. Through its leadership and information technology department, it uses websites for direct communication of any issue related to the company's products and services (Farrell et al. 2017). It displays the call number on every page of its websites to enable ease of access to the call number by the consumers to raise their complaints and positive reviews. Honesty and integrity have improved the personal connection of consumers and Zappos. The company also allows return shipping of the products that do not appeal to customers to enhance the company's satisfaction (Farrell et al. 2017). Zappos also apply transparency as an ethical principle that allows freedom of expression in the firm. The policies of the company enable sharing information by the employees and access to every decision made by the management. The firm encourages employees to maintain an open and honest relationship with other stakeholders to improve the reputation of the company since transparency lead to confidence in the products and services produced and sold by Zappos. Companies such as Amazon applies authentic leadership to promote integrity among the stakeholders (Qureshi & Hassan, 2019). Jeff Bezos must continue applying honesty and transparency through continued communication with the stakeholders and engaging them in decision making and access to full information of the company. Improved relationships between employees and other stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers, can also act as a sound ethical principle applied by other companies to emulate Zappos.
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Q2. Impacts of leadership and Ethical Act by Zappos on Stakeholders
The balancing between hard work and play in the Zappo's environment has contributed to improved mindfulness and competence of employees and other stakeholders. The firm has wellness centers and a nap room that contributes to the relaxation of the mind of its employees (Farrell et al. 2017). Such a work environment has enabled productivity and high sales due to the motivation created by this leadership style. The concentration on integrity and freedom of expression has led to the successful corporate social responsibilities since stakeholders believe in the service to the community. Their belief also improves moral principles due to the deviation away from scrupulous acts that might taint the reputation of the firm. Also, the hiring of the right people on merit and training them to understand the Zappy organization culture has led to high-level integrity among stakeholders and their roles in the promotion of stability in the organization and the entire society. The leadership culture and ethical principles applied at Zappos have led to happiness among stakeholders. The firm has a health plan that covers employee health expenses fully and pays 85% of health expenses to employee dependence (Farrell et al. 2017). The benefits improve the level of happiness among employees and realize a healthy employee body. The firm has also succeeded in building a stable family and proper relationships among employees, customers, and other stakeholders by encouraging socialization among employees both in the firm and the external environment. The culture, therefore, improves relationships among stakeholders and leads to a society where people value each other regardless of the social differences.
Q3. Ethical Challenges at Zappos and Recommended Solutions
Laying off employees due to the economic downturn is an example of an ethical challenge that Zappos has faced in the past, mainly in 2008. The Sequoia capital that managed the investors of Zappos proposed the layoff of workers to promote a balance in the business organization due to the economic recession (Farrell et al. 2017). Although Zappos believes in employees and strives to realize their happiness and satisfaction, it has to make such a decision to stay afloat in the business environment. The company should diversify its products to appeal to many customers with different tastes and preferences to avoid losses that might lead to lay off of workers to balance the books. Zeppos has, in the past, faced dilemmas in honoring the happiness of the employees and improving sales when it came to loggerheads with the Sequoia capital venture. The impasse forced Hsieh, the CEO, to sell the firm to Amazon to buy the Sequoia capital board and continue with the culture of satisfaction to the customers, employees, and other stakeholders (Farrell et al. 2017). Every company that faces such a dilemma should form a merger with a company with similar culture to move the principles forward to maintain a perfect relationship with the stakeholders. Theft of customer's information leads to a test in the integrity, data security, and the customer's loyalty to a firm. In 2012, Zappos faced a cyber-attack that led to the theft of critical information of 24 million customers. Companies such as Zeppos should encrypt and back up data to render them useless in case of cyber-attacks as a sign of prevention of the stakeholders' vital information.
Q4. The Effectiveness of the Core Values concerning Developing a Culture of Ethicalness
The building of an open and honest relationship with communication is one of the core values that lead to integrity and transparency in an organization. Transparency in the sharing of information among stakeholders’ leads to improved moral principles since employees, and other stakeholders will fail to shy away from openly discussing their grievances with the management (Black & La Venture, 2018). In the case of Zappos, the employees have mastered the art of honesty and confidence when dealing with customers and promoting ethics in an organization. Stakeholders perceive a business organization as a venture that contributes to more information or exposure to a business environment. Open communication will, therefore, lead to perfect exposure and satisfaction of the services offered by a specific firm. Building a positive team and family spirit improves the culture of unity and togetherness, where handling challenges and benefits in an organization (Black & La Venture, 2018). The employee and other stakeholders involved in the relationship building will adopt high level understanding in case a company faces challenges. The core value supports stakeholders' perspectives since stakeholders believe in the welfare and promotion of unity in a firm. Approving and driving change in an organization is also another essential core value that promotes ethics. The transitioning world can lead to several challenges that might not augur well with the employees in a company depending on age and skills. For instance, the introduction of technology in a traditional firm setting can lead to challenges. Employees must, therefore, embrace and drive change to realize moral aspects through adherence to policies in an organization. Stakeholders believe in positive change. Accepting and driving change will conform to the perspective of the stakeholders regarding global transitions.
Q5. The Major Ethical Challenges that Zappos has Faced
The technical difficulties that Zappos faced when it upgraded its processing systems that led to delayed shipments. The situation is an ethical problem since it questions the security of the consumers and other stakeholders' data. Zappos offered perks to affected customers and corrected the shipment procedures by delivering the goods to rightful owners (Farrell et al. 2017). I would have also applied the same method since the affected consumers must realize the brand loyalty to continue engaging the firm. I would have used compensation perks for the time wasted and shipped to the goods to the rightful owners within the shortest time possible. Customers' information is a vital component of a business organization. Consumers are the integral members of the stakeholders that must be taken care of by ensuring their security and the security of their personal information. The theft of data through cyber-attacks is an ethical challenge that Zappps faced. It contributed to the loss of almost 24 million consumers' personal information (Farrell et al. 2017). Zappos contacted customers and informed them of the security breach and also disconnected its call centers situation that led to suspicion by consumers. I would have alerted the customers but left the call center functioning to have constant communication with the customers and improve loyalty and integrity.
The stakeholders' satisfaction, therefore, requires maintenance of ethics and the decisive leadership culture that maintains cohesion, unity, productivity, and happiness. Zappos, an online retailer, has achieved the stakeholders' satisfaction by concentrating on integrity and employee, customer, employee, and other stakeholders' welfare. The company has faced ethical challenges but weathered them through perfect procedures such as prompt communication to consumers and compensation of the damages, promotion of cohesive culture and engaging in family, and team building. Every firm must adopt perfect strategies to enhance ethics and solve ethical issues that might arise in a transitioning business environment.
References
Black, J., & La Venture, K. (2018). "The Human Factor to Profitability: Leveraging People-Centered Cultures as Meaningful Organizations". Public Integrity , 20 (5), 444–458. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2017.1364949
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell. (2017). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases (11th Ed.). Cengage Learning.
Qureshi, M. A., & Hassan, M. (2019). "Authentic Leadership, Ethical Climate & Workplace Incivility: How Authentic Leadership Prevents Deviant Work Behavior-A Case from Pakistan". Abasyn University Journal of Social Sciences , 12 (1), 144–163. https://doi.org/10.34091/AJSS.12.1.13
