In initially evaluating Company Q's actions it is relatively easy to identify that social responsibility and therefor ethical behavior, are secondary to fiscal directives. Company Q has survived as a small player in a large market because it is exactly that, a small player with an identifiable brand with community roots. These circumstances could provide Company Q with an advantage over its 'big box' competitors. But what Q has not done is seized upon its ability to relate to its local consumers. Instead it has chosen to be socially irresponsible and to fail in its ability to understand customer demand. It's failure to act with a responsibility towards these consumers has left Q with a public relations concern and a fiscal uncertainty. It is my opinion that with some simple adjustments and a business acumen that includes a social responsibility ethic, Company Q can adjust its current trend of store closures.

Currently Q seems to be heavily focused on supplying bottom line profitability without any sense of responsibility to two of its major stakeholders: its employees and its local consumers. By doing so they creating damage, not only to the stakeholders mentioned, but also to all other stakeholders. To its employees Q is failing to create any kind of moral buy in by its employees. By demonstrating a lack of responsibility I believe that it is possible that its employees may well be left feeling alienated from the corporation goal and subsequently, as front line employees, from the paying stakeholders, the consumer. These employees are locals, individuals living in the local community. If they feel that the company has no responsibility to the consumer then it stands to reason, that as employees and consumers themselves, the company has no responsibility to them. With that 'air' in the workplace a buy in by the employees is likey to be missing. Whilst buy in is