...EST1 Task #1 Western Governors University EST 1 Task #1 Company Q is a corporation whose stakeholders have not placed a major emphasis on social responsibility, instead it appears that the primary focus is placed on profit. With their profits on the decline, they are shying away from opportunities to help their community. By placing a higher priority on social responsibility Company Q will have the opportunity to help the community through charitable donations, employee volunteer initiatives, and creating quality jobs for the persons who live in the community. At the same time, Company Q will can also improve their public image and potentially increase profit. Charitable donations by Company Q have been requested by the local food bank, but unfortunately the company turned down this chance to give back to the community. Company Q currently has a position that giving day old food away could encourage fraudulent behavior and theft by their employees. Company Q’s thought process can be redirected with the addition of a food monitoring system that could track the food movement through the store in terms of when it is going to the shelf and leaving the store by purchase or donation. If the employees know that the food movement is being monitored and logged, it would discourage them from fraudulent behavior. This would also eliminate waste and could create tax breaks for Company Q. By donating food to the local food bank, Company Q would make a large...
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...EST1 Task 1 Western Governors University A: Evaluation of Company Q Social responsibility is a vital part any business or organization. Company Q does not display social responsibility as an important part of their company. Social responsibility shows the attitude actions and activities of a business which contributes a major impact on the image of that business. Company Q is a small local grocery store located in a major metropolitan area. This local area has a food bank that has requested assistance from company Q. The Food Bank asked that company Q donate day old products that they no longer need so that they may contribute them to their community. Company Q’s management team has declined the request and instead have decided to throw the food away. Company Q declining the donation request to the food bank shows a lack of interest in the community, which will reflect poorly on the business. Social responsibility is all about having a positive effect on our society. Company Q lacks social responsibility simply because they have denied to assist their community by donating day old foods to the food bank due to concerns of fraud by their employees. The choice that company Q has made will reflect negatively on the company. Shoppers may even choose to shop at other locations and the reputation of the company may decline. Businesses should be socially responsible and demonstrate ethical practices in their organization. Social responsibility within an organization should...
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...EST1 Task 1 Using the given scenario on company Q, I will evaluate whether each of their actions were socially responsible or not. A recommendation for each point will also be given. Overall, company Q’s attitude towards social responsibility is fair and has room for improvement Company Q recently closed two stores in higher-crime-rate areas. If a business is consistently losing money, the situation should be analyzed and a conclusion drawn as to the future of that business. It is possible that hiring security could have decreased theft but at what cost? The decision to close is simply a business decision and is not socially irresponsible. A recommendation would be to offer the current employees a transfer of positions to other stores. After years of customer requests, Company Q offered a small selection of health-conscience and organic products. While it’s concerning that it took years to offer what the customers were asking for, it’s a start to respond to the demand. The fact that it’s a limited supply and considered high margin items is not socially irresponsible. When supplying a new product time, it makes sense to start small and evaluate the demand on each item. Organic products will always cost more due to the process needed to supply. A recommendation would be to start a health conscious promotion with discounts attached. This would promote the new organic products and give loyal customers the opportunity to earn rewards and in turn get their organic products...
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...Assessment code: EST1 Task 1 Company Q’s current attitude towards social responsibility is non-existent. They have closed stores in parts of the city with higher crime rates due to fear of theft and losses. Company Q offers a limited amount of healthy and organic products even though their customers have requested more options. Company Q has a mindset that inhibits an obligation to be socially responsible. They would rather throw food away than to donate it to help feed those that are hungry and in need, for fear of loss due to stealing. It is important for Company Q to devise a plan to maintain their current number of stores through positive contributions to society and favorable public relations. When the commitment is made to be socially more responsible the potential for increased sales, profit and customer loyalty will be exponential. Below are three areas in which Company Q can concentrate efforts and take action towards being more socially responsible. 1. Company Q needs to increase their product line in organic and health conscience products. Offering sponsorships for healthy eating at local children’s organizations and schools will increase their exposure in the community. This can allow for increased logo display and recognition. By offering items that your customers want and supporting that effort through community awareness about healthy eating, will build loyalty with new and existing customers. 2. Donating the day old food to the local food...
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...Deletha Wright EST1 - Task 1 (Revised) Philanthropy or Bust While customers are the backbone of any business, small businesses turn away from social responsibility while they struggle to make a profit. Company Q, a small grocery store chain is no different. They have stores located in a major metropolitan area, which is good for business. However, until recently a couple of their stores were situated in high crime areas. With Company Q already operating on small profit margins, the risk associated with high crime areas make it difficult to sustain the business in those areas. Therefore, Company Q shut down a couple of these stores. In addition, by customer demand, they had recently started carrying healthy and some organic products in all their stores. While these were high margin items, they are being carried in all the stores, including the stores located in the high crime areas. There is higher risk to carry these products in those stores. Lastly, the local food bank had requested donations of Company Q’s day old or outdated products. Due to fear of lost revenue from employees stealing or mismanaging donations, Company Q turned down the donation request and instead decided to throw the food away. Smaller grocery chains have a tough job of keeping up with competitive product pricing of larger businesses. The larger businesses have more buying power so they are able to keep larger inventory and are able to keep their prices down, which is a great recipe for higher...
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...EST1 TASK 1: Company Q and Social Responsibility When analyzing ethics in a business environment the examiner must evaluate the stakeholder system of morals, values and judgment of the organization in question to determine its collective ethical stance on a situation. Based on the prompt of this task we can derive a list of these stakeholders and use them to construct a current and future representation of Company Qs social responsibility attitude. From the prompt we can group the stakeholders on this issue in question as the: metropolitan community, company shareholders, company management, store customers, local charity and employees. Based on these groups, in terms of social responsibility fact pattern, it can be said that Company Q’s stance on social responsibility is unbalanced, limited and weak. The actions described of the company suggest that the bottom line and revenue are the drivers of company policy and operations. This is especially shown from the cost and loss control decisions made by the company when faced with ethical situations that involved social responsibility in the metropolitan community and local charity arenas. The decision of the company to ignore the opportunity for an increase of social conscience in both situations for revenue control exposes its limited approach to social responsibility. Furthermore the only action by the company that could be deemed as socially responsible was motivated by the possibility of higher revenues through the offer...
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...EST1 Task 1 In this business example Company Q has shown several socially un-responsible and un-ethical traits. In order for business Q to be successful and leave a positive mark on the surrounding community they must keep in mind business ethics. Company Q has several stores in the metropolitan area and has decided to close a couple stores in higher crime areas because of lost profits. Also they have begun carrying health-conscience items but have priced them at high profit margin. Lastly they have refused to give day old food to the local community because of fears of fraud. Company Q made three obvious un-ethical or socially un-responsible decisions about its business practice, In this essay I will point out these un-ethical decisions and give solutions to solve them. The first problem is the closing of stores in higher crime rate areas that have proven not as profitable as others. Instead of figuring out a solution to the problem Company Q has decided to close stores in order to survive. A solution to decreased profit in a high crime rate area would be to increase security in order to keep items from being shop lifted and to detour vandalism. Another problem Company Q has been faced with has been the demand for health-conscience food. In response to this they now carry high profit margin health items that financially benefit them. The socially responsible response and ethical response to these demands would be to find a way to supply the needed items and manage shelf...
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...I am tasked is to evaluate Company Q’s current attitude toward social responsibility and recommend three actions that Company Q could take to improve their attitude toward social responsibility. In evaluating Company Q’s attitude towards social responsibility there are a couple of examples that displays the company’s lack of social responsibility awareness. Company Q closed a couple of stores in higher-crime-rate areas with a claim that the stores are consistently losing money. The issue here is that closing these stores can create the perception that Company Q does not care about customers in these areas. In addition, after years of their customers requesting they start offering health-conscience and organic products, the company went ahead and stocked their shelves with the requested products but only a very limited amount. This can be seen as a half hearty attempt to please their customers, and a disregard for supplying healthy and possibly environmentally friendly products. Company Q also failed at another social responsibility initiative by declining to donate day-old products to a food bank, and further degrading their employees by projecting the possible loss revenue may result due to employee fraud and theft. The steps to make Company Q a more social responsibility aware entity can be achieved by putting immediate processes in place for the key points stated above. Company Q has the advantage of being a small local grocery chain and can follow examples...
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...Corporate Social Responsibility Social Responsibility is an obligation to any business to help improve the community or society in a positive way. In this scenario Company Q is introduced as a local grocery store that has not been having a positive impact on the community that it is serving. Company Q has closed stores in the metropolitan areas that have a crime rate in order to minimizing losing money and have denied donating day old food to charities. The company claims that if they start to donate day old product then the company employees might start to steal the food and claim they are donating it to the charity and the loss of revenue that might occur. In my opinion, Company Q has taken a non-philanthropic attitude or approach in society. Being a non-philanthropic company you are more worried about your shareholders instead of the community that provide your business. Some changes that Company Q can take in order to change their attitude in society are: donate the day old food to charity, believe in their employees that work for them, re-open the doors in the metropolitan area with more security in order to prevent the loss of profits, offer more organic products at a more efficient cost to the public, and reintroduce the company missions, values and statements to encourage the community to be proactive and shopping at a company that gives back to the community. By opening the doors to the metropolitan areas, with improved security allow the community to lower...
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...A. Company Q recently closed two stores that were located in higher-crime-rate areas of the city due to consistently losing money. Company Q has experienced loss of business because of the community that it served in and because of that, its attitude toward social responsibility is more on the cautious side. Some may say because Company Q closed two stores down, that it is not being socially responsible because of the jobs that were loss, however, Company Q also has an economic responsibility to be profitable and its responsibility to the safety of its employees. Hypothetically, if Company Q continued to keep its stores open in the higher-crime-rate area, then they risk losing more money through damages and loss of profit. Is it worth it to keep the two stores open? Is it economically feasible? Company Q recently fulfilled the demands of its consumers by offering health-conscious and organic products, however, they were marked very pricey. Local food banks asked for donation of day-old products and management declined; worried over lost revenues due to possible fraud and stealing by employees who may claim they are donating the food. Company Q is not being socially responsible instead they have taken a cynical approach. Being socially responsible is defined as an organization increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects (O. C. Ferrell, Fraedrich, L. Ferrell, 2008, pp. 12). By declining to donate its day-old food to the local food...
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...Company Q’s attitude towards social responsibility is negative and it seems to me like they operate out of fear. Some of their recent actions such as, closing stores that are losing money and being unwilling to donate day old food may lead customers to believe that they are only interested in making a profit. This also seems like there is a breakdown in the employee employer relationship relating to trust. In my opinion, Company Q needs to improve their social responsibility to their customers, community, and employees. This can be done by simply changing their attitude towards social responsibility which could lead to a boost in consumer confidence and revenue. This day in age it seems stakeholders, namely customers and employees, prefer to support businesses that have strong social responsibility. One of the first things Company Q could do to change the way their social responsibility is perceived would be to re-open one or two of the stores they closed. The reason they gave for closing the stores was due to losing money. This creates a public perception that the company is only worried about making a profit and nothing else. These stores were located in a high crime rate parts of the city which typically goes hand in hand with lower income areas. By reopening the stores they could show the community that they are concerned about these parts of the city and want to help by creating jobs and at the same time improving conditions in the community. It seems like one...
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...Company Q has it’s fair share of ethical Dilemmas. They were recently forced to shut down stores in Low income areas, suffered losses, failed to meet the rising demand from health food, and refused to donate “day-old products” to a food bank recently. Sometimes it’s hard for a business to explain the reasons behind it’s decisions especially when so many issues arise every day. Company Q should indeed evaluate their conflicts and resolve them as socially responsible as possible. Although, I don’t feel they have he worse of issues, there are several things that should be evaluated prior to expanding any more. Company Q had such a great loss which resulted in the closure of two stores. The stores were in high crime areas and had been losing a ton of money hypothetically. Company Q should designate a team of current employees to manage loss prevention, increase floor walks, award employees for tips that lead to apprehension of thieves or co-workers who are contributing to losses. A company can’t do much of anything to prevent these types of happenings. No matter how much food give a ways and donations they make, someone with always steal. In this case I hope it’s not the employees. Since it’s not clear, I suggest that team of loss prevention employees be educated and possibly rotate Crim J interns to save money. In addition, Company Q could place priority on improving operations auditing procedure including inventory management. Implement more policies regarding how...
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...Task 1 Part A Social Responsibility has become increasingly important in recent years. Many companies strive to do as much for their customers and the community they serve as possible. Although profits are important, socially responsible companies take more into account than just the bottom dollar. Company Q showed a great lack of social responsibility in several different ways, leading consumers as well as stakeholders to assume that the company’s attitude toward social responsibility is that it is of little importance to them. Company Q closed the doors of two locations located in higher crime areas, citing consistent loss of income as the reason for closure. More likely, the closings were due to the company’s refusal to invest in greater security or risk management services. In general, Company Q seems to care little about their consumers, or their community. Consumers asked repeatedly that the store start carrying more health-conscience and organic items, only after years, did the company finally start carrying a small selection of these items, and then they were the highest margin items the store could stock. As for the community, when asked to donate day-old items to a local food bank, the company decided instead to throw the items away rather than risk an employee taking the items home. Company Q has done nothing to increase their positive effect on the community, and seems to only be concerned with their bottom line. Task 1 Part B The lack of willingness on the...
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...Introduction This manual sets forth the official compliance policies of Edward Jones. All individuals employed by or working at the firm are required to familiarize themselves with the content and review the manual at least annually. While the manual addresses policies of a compliance nature, individuals are expected to conform to the laws, rules and regulations of the industry and their particular jurisdiction regardless of whether they are covered in this manual. Standards of fairness and good business practice apply in all circumstances. Violations of laws, rules, regulations and firm policies can result in disciplinary or regulatory sanctions against an associate, as well as fines or responsibility for consequential losses resulting from the violation. References to "associate" or "associates" in this manual include general principals and financial advisors unless otherwise specified. Such references also include individuals working both in the home office and in a branch office. Please do not keep the printed manual as a reference as it will eventually be out-of-date. Commissions and Sales Background FINRA Rule 2121 requires prices and commissions charged to the client be fair and reasonable. Policy The firm and vendors with whom it has dealer agreements has either set commission amounts or a range of commissions that may be acceptably charged to a client. Individuals may not make any arrangements with clients outside the parameters set by the firm in its commission...
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...Social Responsibility is a concept that lends the idea to companies and corporations that they should have practices and act upon things that have a positive outcome or repercussion is society, rather than be solely focused on maximizing profits (Investopedia, 2015). Company Q is facing an ethical dilemma by not wanting to donate left over food, specifically the higher-priced health foods, to food shelters because they believe their employees may lie about donating it. Company Q is demonstrating a negative social responsibility. They are demonstrating this in two ways. First, by closing their branches in high-crime areas, they are leaving a void for the public. Higher-crimes areas are typically littered with low-income areas and families. When Company Q sells their healthier items at a higher-price in high-crime/low-income areas, there will be a need that people cannot have met which may result in theft, which could explain Company Q’s loss of profit. Secondly, by refusing to donate excess food to food shelters, Company Q gives off the impression that a profit of any kind is better than helping a neighbor in need. Company Q does not demonstrate compassion in the act of throwing out the food, which is still edible, because this action will result in the food not being used by anyone. Company Q can implement three strategies of thinking to help improve their social responsibility, reduce employee theft, and better their reputation for their brand; those strategies are nurturing...
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