Business Ethics After reading the case study involving Ms. Alexander and her opportunity with Next Step, I would advise Ramona to pray, even fast, about accepting the position. Hopefully she was already prayed up before she went to the ‘Meet and Great’ at Next Steps Headquarters (HQ). As Christians, we must ‘…be wise as serpents, but gentle as dove’s…' (Matthew 10:16, ESV), and one way we get wisdom is to be in constant communication with our one heavenly Father, whom is all knowing. Before leaving, she read up on Next Step. When Ms. Alexander arrived at Next Step’s HQ, she was showered with all sorts of gifts and treated to lunch by the Corporate Recruiter who told her of the circumstances that makes it possible for advancement and the money she could be earning with those advancements. Within Ms. Alexander’s research of the company, she found a mix of different opinions, regarding Next Step. One article, and interview with the CEO, has the CEO talking about how he wants to create a healthier America, making it seem that he truly loves and cares for the people. But, when Ms. Alexander was present at the companies pep rally at Next Step’s HQ, he seemed to be disrespectful and scornfully abusive to his clientele, calling them ‘fat, lazy, lethargic Americans’ who needs to be saved. Turning the spectacle into a religious one. The CEO also talked about being an industry leader in the ethics code in his interview. Ms. Alexander mention that to the corporate recruiter, and she said that they have to include verbiage such as that because they have “…to attract investors and pacify government regulators.” Explaining that their lawyers made sure to cover all the basis of that area. These two situations are a prime example of Dobson’s (1997) explanation of ethics in business, “The economic benefits to be derived from superficially ethical behavior can be significant. Firms can reap significant profits from building reputations for such attributes as social responsibility or trustworthiness.” I take this to mean that a business can appear to be moral and ethical, but the in the end the business is only looking at their bottom line. Dobson (1997) also discusses that businesses only see ethics as a level of success and profitability and not actually a virtue to aquire. In addition, the behaviors of the CEO and recruiter could give the impression that this would be the corporate culture norm for Next Step. Therefore, giving the assumtion that each employee would have to assimilate to that type of behavior. Ms. Alexander also found gripe sites, a type of website devoted to the critique and or mockery of a person, place, politician, corporation, or institution, with some of Next Step’s prior distributors of their product, complaining on how Next Step forced them to purchase a minimum of their product. This was brought up at lunch the corporate recruiter and Ms. Alexander had and she dismissed it, saying that the company was going to force those sites down. That action could potentially violate the websites administrator’s first amendment’s rights, Freedom of Speech.

Braswell (2007) states,
“Gripe sites pose a significant threat to companies because they can spread truthful as well as untruthful information about the company with great speed and to a wide audience, which could devastate the value of a company's trademark and damage a company's reputation.”
He discusses the fact that sometimes a situation can be over dramatized and exaggerated on these websites. Business’ send ‘cease and diesis’ letters to the administrators of these sites, who are mostly layman, and cause fear in those who are not familiar or ignorant of their First Amendment rights, and take down the website. However, in my research, I have found that the complaint some of the distributors have with Next Step is not all that uncommon. For example, Wal-Mart, one of the largest retailers in the United States, forces their vendors to except Wal-Marts prices or else they will no longer do business with those vendors. Fishman (2003) states in his article, “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know,” that, ‘…the price Wal-Mart will pay, and charge shoppers, must drop year after year,” causing the vendors Wal-Mart uses to lay people off and most of the time, send their products offshore where they can pay almost nothing for their products to be manufactured. In some case, the demands that Wal-Mart created on their vendor’s results in companies being forced to go bankrupt, laying off more people and creating an economic problem by raising the unemployment rate. When considering the job offer that Ms. Alexander received, it could be construed as over whelming and deceptive. She has to attend a two-week job training. There wasn’t any indication that she will have a job after the training. What happens if she doesn’t pass all the tests or trials? The recruiter also points out that she has had a religious education and back ground, which could again give the impression that the company is ethical because they hire wholesome Christians. While in reality, the recruiter is just showing more and more of how the company operates and uses people such as their distributors and employees, just for profit and their over all success. In conclusion, with all that have been demonstrated through the company recruiter and the CEO himself, there is no reason for Ms. Alexander to sign the offer of employment. Both the CEO and recruiter have demonstrated that they are dishonest, cultivating a corporate culture of dishonesty and falling short of what would be considered as having any respect for any of their employees, distributors or clientele. In my opinion, if Ms. Alexander was to take this position, I believe that she would be unhappy and quickly looking for another job. The environment and atmosphere of this company would be one that could potentially demoralize and depress her. She would be walking into to a situation where she cannot trust her employer, making it very hard to get contented.

References
Braswell, R. (2006-2007). Consumer Gripe Sites, Intellectual Property Law, and the Use of Cease-and-Desist Letters to Chill Protected Speech on the Internet. Fordham Intellectual Property, Media Entertainment Law Journal 17(4), 1241-1288.

Dobson, J. (1997, July). Virtue ethics as a foundation for business ethics: A MacIntyre based critique. In Unpublished paper presented at the second international symposium on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education, University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Fishman, C. (2003). The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know. Fast Company, 77, 68-80.

Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles.