Unethical Dilemma

Unethical Dilemma

A pubic-related company that behaved unethically

Public owned companies have their shares publicly available. Apple is an excellent example of the public-related companies that have been performing well, globally. Also, Apple being a public company, it has to disclose what it knows, accordingly. Apple company has been performing well, thus holding its value for many years. Both the market capitalization and the stock to Apple Company have been rising proportionally. Innovation, which has stolen our culture, made Apple Company grow rampantly with time (Gonzalez-Padron, pp.22). Some of the products that contributed to the rise in the value of Apple Company include the Apple Watch, iPod, iPhone, and iPad too. Apple Company has always made its customers anticipate more improved products, which they would be ready to purchase at any cost. Despite the excellent image of the organization, economic analysts wonder if the fir would maintain its market value or depreciate in the presence of its competitors like Amazon.

Contrary to the thoughts, Apple has still maintained its atmosphere of success, meaning any product from the organization leads to an improvement of its market value. Thus, more innovation increases the demand for goods and services from the organization accordingly. Positive recommendations from various nations like the U.S.A about products from Apple company have also contributed to the maintenance of its market value.

The unethical dilemma

Apparently! There was an unethical dilemma that was practised within the Apple company. There was misconduct in the line of supply of goods and services. Apple Company had to dig into the issue and get the possible solution to save time, resources, and image to the public. In May 2018, Apple made and investigation on the allegations of poor handling of the supply chain. It was claimed that the suppliers could bribe the employees to have swift entry into the organization’s services (Hofmann et al., pp. 115). Also, there were kickbacks, which were realized in the process of illegal supply chain conduct. Most of the suppliers were from China and were believed to have an idea of producing parallel produce of the Company. These suppliers were highly trained in technology too. When asked, one of the Company’s officials, Apple Company, claimed that there were neither kickbacks nor bribes were taking place in the organization. Though, the staff member failed to open up on why the investigation was genuinely done. The staff member continued covering for its organization by saying that the Company has an approximate of 2300 of its operation employees from China. Thus light bribing could be handled with utmost seriousness. Some turnovers ensued the misconduct in the Company in 2018. Some top officials resigned concerning the allegations of the undisclosed supply chain misconduct. These officials were from the supply management team, who were competent due to the many years they worked in the organization.

Economic impact on the company

Activities were carried on as usual because the companies that used to supply Apple company before the allegations continued with their normal daily activities. The central notion of maintaining the same suppliers was to avoid disruption of the iPhone production by the organization. Both Apple suppliers and people who worked for Apple company and retired protected the Company is saying that the organization has strict rules and nothing shoddy would happen. The allegations were vivid, but the truth was hidden from the public. The concerned officials knew exactly what was going on, in the supply chain department (Gualandris et al., pp.13). There was a more negative economic impact on the organization than the positive ones. On economic grounds, depreciation of the profits describes everything.  Thus, some members of the organization resigned. The competent members left the firm under the hands of inexperienced personnel who could not strategically run the Company. The second economic failure due to the misconduct in the supply chain was losing loyal customers. The customers began doubting the transparency of the organization in their products. Customers had the notion that counterfeit goods could be sold if the suppliers had kickbacks and bribed the employees in the organization. Most customers shifted to other companies that offered the same healthy products.

Due to inconsistency in the supply chain and hence the production level, there was reduced creation of jobs. Apple company has been participating in innovation and the establishment of new products and services. These new outputs create more jobs for the unemployed in that; people would be taught how to come up with such products and work for the organization, mainly to have the products out. Thus, when issues raised in the supply chain, the focus was diverted, and more time and resources were invested in probing for the presence of the kickbacks and the bribes accordingly (Wu et al., pp.6732). The other economic failure that Apple realized was a loss in the market value. Slightly in 2018, Apple was not surfacing as it used before, in terms of financial performance due to lost market value. The depreciated market value was contributed by losing loyal customers and competent workers and reduced innovation. These were the negative economic impacts, having reduced the wage pay bill as the only positive impact due to the resigned staff members.

What I could do

Suppose I was in charge of the organization, there are various things I could do. The first step to make could be probing the situation. I could take time and go deep down the issue to get the truth. I could have a meeting with the suppliers and the employees and read their minds by asking them critical questions (Burlea et al., pp. 152). Also, to have evidence, I could organize for the installation of the cameras at places where the two, suppliers, and employees mostly meet to have footage of the truth. After getting a fact, the next step could be changing the system. Since the people working in the department cannot be trusted and have experience of what they are doing, I could swap the employees from other departments with the ones in the supply chain lot. All the workers in the organization are trained in what is required for the organization. Therefore, swapping the employees would not take much of their time to grasp the activity they were going to perform.

Finally, I would cover the excellent image of the organization when trying to make things right. Covering the image would be for the sake of maintaining loyal customers and winning more consumers. The cover would be through stopping the media from broadcasting the mistake to the world, accordingly (Burlea et al., pp. 152).  Also, another way of covering for the error would be by discussing the issue within the department and not letting any information spread. I will also ensure that the advantage is not taken for the cover-up. Mostly, when cover-ups are done, people tend to relax and not act upon the matter. Contrary to the mass action, I would seek for a cover-up and make corrections on the spot.