Management Theory and Practice Apple Inc

Question: Discuss about the Management Theory and Practice for Apple Inc. Answer: Introduction: This essay highlights the ethical dilemma faced by an eminent organisation. This case study has been chosen for this essay is Apple Inc. In the organisational development approach, this organisation has been suffering from different challenges as well as several ethical problems. These ethical problems will be discussed in this study. As per the statement of Azim et al., (2016), business ethics is a process of applied and professional ethics, which determines the ethical principles as well as morale that arise within the organisational environment. During the operation, Apple Inc. were accused that they treat their employees inhumanly and treat them as machines. In addition, in order to increase the profitability statement and also to reduce the cost structure, Apple Inc. has hired 500000 workers. As a result, the productivity has started to increase in these two factories, which are located in Southern China(Ciulla, 2014). However, after the investigation, it can be observed that th e actual situation of the organisation was worsened than the prediction. There are several cases of unethical behaviour, which have faced by Apple Inc. and the dreadful things, which they put on the workers. This study described two theories about these organisational ethical issues to examine the dilemma. Ethical dilemma makes an effect on the organisational decision making procedure. On the other hand, ethical leadership as well as decision making is the important section of corporate social responsibility of a global company such as Apple Inc. In this essay of managerial ethical theory, multiple theories describes regarding the ethical issues. In this context, this study will describe Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills Rule based ethical theory during eighteenth century (Conway Gawronski, 2013). Other theory is Virtue based ethical theory, which is older, compared to the Rule based ethical theory. Plato and Aristotle developed this ethical theory. Ethical behaviour of an organisation is affected by different organisational factors. As per the statement of De Wet (2015), the factors are such as business policies of the organisation, behaviour with the employees, organisational culture influence the ethical behaviour of the organisations. The senior decision makers of a company can highlight the organisational ethics. Doyle, Frecknall-Hughes Summers (2014) opined that ethical decision-making is needed to understand the impact of an action plan on the stakeholders. Therefore, it can be inferred that an ethical leader is essential to implement the cost benefit analysis before execute the project especially during the organisational development. Finally, Goetsch Davis (2014) mentioned that during the time of ethical decision making process, organisational ethical leader requires to have courage to implement the ethical action. On the contrary, it can be stated that sometimes organisations suffer from ethical dilemma, as a decisio n can be benefitted for the company, however, conflicts the willingness of the workers. In the opinion of Hair (2015), ethical theory can be differentiated into three categories. These theories are agent centred theory, consequentialist theory and non-consequentialist theory. Consequentialist theory concerns with the ethical outcome of a definite action. On the other hand, non-consequentialist theory highlights the purpose of person making ethical decision compared to the effect of the actions. Lastly, agent centred theory deals with the entire ethical status of the individual employee. Apple Inc. is one of the renowned technology companies in the world. The basic moral principle, which is followed by Apple, is honesty. In this context, Hoffman, Frederick Schwartz (2014) cited that Apple Inc. speculates honesty and also performs ethical behaviour during making business dealings. Apple expects that its workers require to avoid the situations if any confliction or difficulties occur. On the other hand, Apple expects that all of the partners, workers to respect the confidentiality of the organisational information not only to the staffs of the organisation, but also the consumers. According to Hsieh Kramer (2012), Apple also expects that its workers, including the parties whom the company can maintain the greatest standards of business conduct in the global market. Therefore, this organisation is concerned in making of partnership regardless to social disparity in different countries. The above figure depicted that social responsibility of an organisation is depending upon some definite factors such as economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. It is known that social responsibility of Apple Inc. is developing around the world. Recent surveys show that Apple Inc. has been following the above-mentioned four responsibilities. As per the statement of Johnson (2013), Apple is the first company in its class in this field. The growth sales of Iphone have increased by 143% from the last year and revenue earning by this organisation has reached to double from the previous year (from 15.70 billion to 28.57 billion).This proves that Apple is an ideal example, which fulfil its economic responsibility. On the other hand, Apple Inc. has taken step against the unethical conduct. Therefore, Apple has stopped to recruit underage labour in their organisation. Jordan et al., (2013) opined that Apple does not consider dangerous working circumstance in two facilitie s as well as bribery in one facility. Lastly, Apple has done a higher job related with the environmental issues, which range from the removal of toxic material from the manufacturing goods to recycling and also the use of greenhouse gas emission. However, Jussila, Goel Tuominen (2012) argued that Apple Inc. has been suffering from the practice of unethical behaviour in their business. After the employees get hired, they had to work excessive amount of overtime, almost three times as much. In addition, the workers can only take one day week off in each of the two weeks. However, they also do not receive the eligible remuneration, they receive only $17 to $22 as the per day wage rate. This is lower as per their eligibility. With the passage of time, the demand for the products of Apple has been increasing. In order to meet the demand of the consumers, the organisation requires to increase the level of production and hence, the employees are working overtime. As a result, life of the employees is getting miserable. The events in Southern China are disturbing and also upsetting. In this point, Ke Wang (2014) opined that Utilitarianism or rule based theory can maximise the happiness for the employees. On the other hand, the management of Apple Inc. disrespect their employees and also made hard their life. Kennedy, Herring Pieplow (2015) criticised that Apple run their organisations only for their personal gain and therefore, are not concern about the profitability of the individual labour. With the help of Virtue theory, Apple Inc. will be able to gain four virtues such as courage, honesty, justice and temperance. Apple did not have any courage to stop the abuse, as it was wrong and unethical. In addition, they were also not honest to the stakeholders. Temperance was also violated due to the expectation of each of the worker was unreasonable. Lastly, it can be stated that Apple Inc. was not justice for the workers as they did not apologise or reimburse their labours for their terrible treatment. In the words of Reamer (2013), business ethics in an organisation can be regulated by an individual or also by a set of individual. However, it reflects the overall business culture. Ethics highlights the actual course of business action. On the other hand, ethical behaviour is able to boost the sales of an organisation, product development and can also expand the organisational operation. In this present study, the rule based ethical issues and virtue based ethical issues are explained. The rule based ethical issue or utilitarian ethical theory describes the interest of all of the stakeholders of an organisation, who are reflected by the external and internal actions. Therefore, this theory mainly highlights the trade-off between the different decisions of the management and stakeholders. On the other hand, virtue based ethical theory illustrates some definite qualities, which define the ideal behaviour and determine the right action to take. Utilitarian ethical approach is a form of consequentialist theory. As mentioned by Ciulla (2014), if the consequences are moral, then the actions will be good and vice versa. This ethical based theory has developed by Jeremy Bentham. From the above study, it can be observed that business actions in Apple Inc. are not moral. In this point, Bentham mentioned that an act will consider as a moral act if the act has the capacity to produce greatest result for the greatest mass. The mission of Apple is to earn highest profitability as much as possible. Apple universalises technology and information. Hence, the largest number of people worldwide facilitates large unit of information. Chinese government in terms of imposing invisible trade barrier limited the ethics followed by Apple Inc. The decision of the government of Chine restricted the utilitarian ethics trailed by Apple Inc. Now the ethical dilemma in this stage can be discussed if Apple would agree the Chinese government, the organisation would violate the rule-based norm. Moreover, if the organisation would follow its own business ethics, it would violate the code of conduct not to violate the political laws. As a result, Apple Inc. has been suffering from ethical dilemma in case of decision-making procedure. On the contrary, Shin (2012) argued that utilitarian ethics has some limitations in the production of greatest outcomes. However, this ethical approach is great as long as it does not damage anybody. The outcome of Utilitarian approach is restricted if any company reduces the utility of the other stakeholders in case of increasing the companys own utility. In addition, Strom, Sears Kelly (2014) added that utilitarian ethical theory would provide that this approach needs to highlight all the possible courses of action as well as their consequences. Execution of this procedure needs greater interpersonal skills of the organisations managers as well as the leaders. According to the critics of utilitarian theory, it is not possible to measure the happiness of the other employees and also their satisfaction level(Hair, 2015). As a result, it is hard to measure the greatest benefit. Nevertheless, it can be stated from the example of Apple Inc. that the political and complexity makes it di fficult to formulate utilitarian theory based ethics in the purpose of maximising the benefits of the community. Virtue based ethical theory has focused to the internal characteristics of the individual. This theory also describes that within an organisation, it s necessary to develop the connection of trust. The final goal of virtue theory is to take right decision at the right time in the right way. Virtue is a positive behavioural trait, which is helpful to make its possessor a good human being. In addition, Weiss (2014) opined that virtue is differentiated from the single actions as well as the feelings. As per the concept of this theory, a virtue is related with the honesty and it is not just a tendency to do what is honest. Moreover, it can be said that a virtue is not helpfully specified as the desirable or as the morally valuable character trait. According to Zuber Asheim (2012), a virtue is concerned with several actions such as emotions, emotional reactions, choices, desires, attitudes, interests, expectations of the individuals of an organisation. In the words of Nicomachean, it can be mentioned that he highlighted that moral virtues of an organisation is connected with 11 moral virtues. These virtues are such as courage, temperance, liberty, magnificence, magnanimity, appropriate ambition, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, righteous indignation. Among these 11 moral virtues, Apple Inc. did not follow four major virtues and they are courage, honesty, temperance and justice. In the opinion of Conway Gawronski (2013), Apple Inc. were not honest towards the consum ers as well as towards the other stakeholders of the organisation. As per the concept of temperance, it can be noticed that Apple Inc. did not fulfil the expectation of each of the employees. The employees expect that they would receive higher wage rate as they usually got one week off in each of the two weeks. In addition, they had huge work pressure in order to increase the organisational productivity. Therefore, they were suffering from depression. Lastly, the employees did not get justice (Hsieh Kramer, 2012). The organisation did not apologise for this type of organisational practice towards the employees. The employees also did not get the compensation against this type of inhuman practice. Human rights employees work for documenting the human rights violation within a nation. Hence, this activity in Southern China would hit the willingness of some people as well as government (De Wet, 2015). As a result, the virtue activists aim to the social, economic as well as on the cult ural factors. Business ethics is the moral value of a company, which is necessary for the success of an organisation. Business ethics is appropriate for each of the business unit and also for the society. Business ethics are related to the all of the stakeholders of the organisation. The major stakeholders of Apple Inc. are such as consumers, suppliers and also the subordinates. Goetsch Davis (2014) opined that organisation ethics not only reflect the code of conduct within the organisation, but also includes the willingness of the associates and the employees. Moreover, it can be mentioned that each of the strategic decision has ethical values. The objective of a business is to provide the stakeholders an approach, so that they can deal with the moral complications. On the other hand, Hoffman, Frederick Schwartz (2014) cited that some of the ethical values could make a business successful. The first argument is related with the protection of the employees. The company requires to focus to the h ealth, safety as well as the environmental standards of the business. Another ethics can increase the product and service line in order to enhance the resource utilisation. Courage of accumulating new ideas within an organisation and receive the review from the consumers is the ethical practice, which are followed by the organisations in the competitive type market structure. Ethical behaviour requires to highlight the business practices towards the organisational leaders. Ethical behaviour of people will be benefitted to influence the workers as well as to the other stakeholders of the organisation. Ethics shapes the quality of the strategic management of an organisation. Ethics highlights the sustainability in case of decision making procedure. On the other hand, ethical leaders include the positive and the negative values simultaneously ((Doyle, Frecknall-Hughes, Summers, 2014). The leaders also require to consider the rights of the other staffs during the decision making procedure. Therefore, it proves that ethical culture of an organisation considers the other staffs accountable. It raises the collaboration between the co-staffs. Therefore, it can be inferred that the decision-making procedure would be easier. Ethics is related with the communication skill of the managers. In this connection, it can be mentioned that appropriate communication of the managers with the other staffs is needed to follow in the decision making approach. The leaders also require motivating and encouraging the performance of the employees. However, Jordan et al., (2013) argued that ethics and strategy cannot be taken together. Strategy is considered as the rational approach for the company to achieve the success and also face the challenges during the organisational operation. Therefore, critics concludes that strategy conflict the business ethics. Ethics only considers the moral values. Therefore, strategy is highly aggressive in character than the other ethical principle. In addition, Hsieh Kramer (2012) cited that strategy is assumed to be flexible and it can be changed based on the organisational circumstances. Therefore, on case of organisational dilemma, leaders require to have greater interpersonal traits , which can reduce the scope of the development of business risks. Ethical behaviour in a company is influenced by the different organisational determinants. They are policies, regulations of a company. The course of action of a leader affects the stakeholders. An ethical leader requires to perform the cost benefit analysis before formulate a project in case of the organisational development procedure. Apple Inc. has faced ethical dilemma more than one time. This essay has highlighted two ethical concepts, they are rule based ethical theory and virtue based ethical theory. Business operation in Southern China is attractive to the organisation like Apple Inc. However, the company treated with the employees as a machine. Thus, Apple has faced ethical dilemma in the decision making process. Utilitarian theory follows appropriate action in order to produce most feasible goods. Therefore, the morality of this organisation will be developed and also agree to compromise the repressive policies and regulations of the Chinese government. This above mentioned example violates the utilitarian ethical approach regarding the business ethics of Apple Inc. The, morality of this organisation did not sustain during the decision making procedure. As a result, this has a negative impact on the organisational behaviour and thus, the employees of the organisation have been suffering from depression. On the other hand, after analyse the virtue based ethical theory, it can be observed that Apple Inc. did not follow four virtues such as courage, honesty, justice and virtuous in their business. Therefore, it can be inferred that these two examples have restricted the ethical cultural practice of Apple Inc. Lastly, this essay has also described the relationship between the leadership, ethics and the decision making process within a company. Bibliography Azim, M., Sadiq, M. W. 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