Law & Ethics essay

  1. Description of the ethical dilemma faced by the person interviewed

The ethical dilemma he faced was about the weather to fake the expiration date of a particular product. For obvious reasons I would not indicate the name of the person in present paper, because the interview was held under condition of full anonymity.

So, production manager was asked to fake the expiration date of facial lotion. The product was due to be recalled the company ”“ producer from retailers when the expiration date had passed.

But the boss claimed that the expiration date is way too short for the product, meaning the product was still good for a least a year or so even after the expiration date printed on the packages had passed. Thus the persona that was interview was asked to be in charge of disposing the old packaging and put new packaging (with new, extended expiration date) on the same exact inventories that they recalled.

  1. Description of the options for resolving that dilemma

There are several options for person in such situation:

  • To do something to avoid the fake the expiration date of the lotion, because customers may suffer ”“ it is clear that the situation may have negative circumstances and that the behaviour of company’s boss is unethical. Therefore, a person that was asked to do illegal things may confront the boss and explain that the situation is inappropriate and make a request to stop faking the expiration dates on products.
  • To obey the boss instructions and agree to fake the expiration date of this product.
  • To walk away by firing from this cosmetic lab because of the unethical principles of its operations.

 

  1. Application of the life principles to the options for resolution of the dilemma and final conclusions about resolving the dilemma

In my opinion, any professional needs to think about ethical questions in their everyday activity and find new ways to understand and resolve the all of the conflicts and dilemmas he or she encounters at work.

Therefore I’m going to apply my individual moral values in order to improve my ethical decision making in the future. I aim to develop capacity for moral reasoning by learning to sort out all of the arguments that bear upon moral problems and apply them to concrete work situations. As for the described ethical dilemma, according to my views, the establishment of the high ethical standards in the organization is an important condition of effective work. Therefore if the management is not likely to follow the basic ethical norms our cooperation will be ended.

But before it, I will have to discuss the situation with the boss in order to explain that it was the unethical decision and will require the explanation if is it a rule for this company to do illegal things. If it’s not systematical ”“ the situation in the company could be changed by applying the ethical principles of behavior that define moral aspects of companies’ organizational cultures and ethical values.

Because ethics is not only individual (the ethics of the individual employee), but it is also may be corporate (the ethics of the whole company) and it influences all processes in organization. I’m going to explain to the boss that the corporate ethics can actually have a great impact on organizational success. For instance, small cosmetic lab/manufacturing company may claim it follows the ethical standards and it will lead to the increased loyalty of its customers. If boss refuses to accept these new ethical rules, I’ll leave this job.



Leave a Reply