BMA250 Managerial Social Responsibility Management

Question no. 1

Facts of McKinstry Advertising Agency:

McKinstry Advertising Agency is a firm that deals with marketing strategies, analytical studies on market policies, organizing distribution channels and promotes materials on behalf of industrial companies. The agency chalks out market plans for the companies that want to launch any product in the market. One of the industrial agencies, who are the client of the agency, has developed a radar detector that can detect the speed level of a car and it will help the driver to control the speed limit to avoid accidents and the fines too (Bernstein 2013). Although, in some states, the governments prohibit the use of radar detector in a car, but the production or marketing of radar is not banned (Zhou et al. 2015). Later, it was observed that the light waves are faster than the radio wave and these are used in police cart. Those laser detectors can easily detect any interference by any driver in radio signals (Hall 2016). If those radars are used privately, any driver can evade the police interference. The company came to the agency named McKinstry Advertising Agency and asked them to provide a market plan regarding the radar.

The associate of that company said that it is not right to promote marketing the radar system (Zhu et al. 2017). It can lead to more severe road accidents in the near future and due this moral ethics, she refused to work on this project. When she expressed her views to the account executive, he suggests her to leave the job as she (the associate) denies providing service to the client and a conflict arose in between them. Both of them came to the President of that agency to sought out the problem. Now the president has to solve the problem and an ethical dilemma takes place (Anderson and Anderson 2014).

Question no. 2

The decision maker in the case is the president of this agency, McKinstry Advertising Agency. The conflict between the two officials of the agency arose regarding the promotion of the radar through the agency. The associate of the company denied working on the same from her ethical point of view. As per her opinion, by personifying the radar, which is used to detect whether the police are monitoring their car or not, the crime rate regarding the road accident will not be reduced, rather it will increase and may cause serious accidents in near future (Yildirim-yenier, Lazunen and Ozkan 2016). The effect of that will be detrimental in nature. The crime rate regarding the road accident is increasing day to day and the same has resulted in a huge toll of innocent people as well as drivers (World Health Organization 2015). Installing a Radar system in a car will help the driver to know if police are chasing him or not, and by taking the advantage, they will drive the car more casually and the accidents will be at rise. It will not be a good option for the agency to promote such a thing as an ethical submission is involved here (Liu, Qu and Zhang 2017).

On the other hand, the account executive of the agency, Mr. George Sarbo expressed a different view. According to him, as an employee of this agency, one should maintain the professionalism. She/he should not follow her/his personal ethics and denying doing a particular work based on such ethics. As per the policy, for over 20 years, the agency is providing service to the clients and promoting market plans as their wish (Couldry 2015). The agency has a reputation regarding the same and gained the trust of the clients. The firm that developed the radar is an old client to the agency, they had made plans from this agency on previous occasions, and being satisfied with the work of the agency, the firm reveals their wish to promote the new system with the agency. Now at this stage, if the associate deny working on the same, that will create negative impression on the client. This may affect the good will of the agency too.

Question no. 3

The ethical dilemma contained in this case is to decide the acceptable idea. From the side of moral imperatives, the associate of the agency is right (Falk and Tirole 2016). It is obvious that if anyone can install radar, especially laser radar in their car, it will give him an opportunity to detect the radio frequency of the police and he can evade the police with some bad intention. This will cause a great injustice to the society and the crime rate will be at hike. From the case, one thing is clear that the accidental offences in the city have become fatal in recent days. The most common reason behind those accidents is speeding. Speeding causes deaths and several injuries. Intoxicating drive is reason behind traffic accidents. Police use radar to detect the car speed to curb the accidents. Radar detectors help the driver to calculate the speed limit of the car before the police and the drivers become cautious when the speed limit gets high. Radar detector enables the driver to avoid situations like being stopped frequently and give fine for breaking traffic norms like speeding. Thus, to promote this kind of market material is no good from the side of ethical point of view.

On the contrary, from the aspect of business, promoting radar is quite profitable. As per the recent census, road accidents are at hike and drivers are failed to control their speed due to certain circumstances like bad weather, lack of maintenance of vehicles or intoxication (Morgan et al. 2015). Radar detector will help the drivers to avoid the accidents as whenever the speed of the car will go beyond the maximum speed limit, the radar detector will warn the driver with flashing lights or buzzers sound. Those radars can calculate the speed of the car before the police equipments and they can get rid of traffic fines or breaking traffic rules. Moreover, U.S government has prohibits the use of radar, but the manufacture or marketing of the same is not illegal (Ehrkamp and Nagel 2014). It is a growing business too. Thus, to promote the market plan regarding the same is a profitable one. The ethical dilemma over the issue is that to choose the right one as both the employees hold serious post and obey one will result in degenerate other.

Question no. 4

Utilitarian Ethics

The utilitarian theory developed by Jeremy Bentham is a significant theory with respect to ethics and morals (McGee 2014). According to this theory, best action is the action that gives maximum utility. This theory states that if the consequence of any action is right or bring happiness, then the action is acceptable or in the right path. This theory is based on the moral thinking and normative ethics. In utilitarian theory, it is stated that pleasure exists only when there is good and in absence of pain. This theory is called as the greatest happiness principle. By comparing this theory with this case, it can be said that the society as a whole will suffer by the radar system. As such, there is no good to promote a system like this.

Kantian Ethics

Another principle is Kantian ethics propounded by Immanuel Kant (Bowie 2017). This theory follows the highest moral level and humanity index. According to him, the judgment of an action should not be only by its consequences but by the motivation behind the action. An action will be a good or favorable action only if the motivation behind that particular action holds good or positive value. Here in this case, the motivation lying behind the marketing is based on immoral gain. It is not good to dodge the law by using devices like radar. From the social perspective, the effect of the business is detrimental in nature. Thus, may be radar is profitable but it is not good for the society.

Distributive justice

The concept of distributive justice is based on proprietorship of goods. This principle has its origin based on equality. According to the theory, equal work has an equal outcome. It helps to acquire the goods on equal basis. The principle has three sides such as equality, correlation and fairness. John Rawls, in his book named The Theory of Justice, stated that there must not be any inequality and the goods should be distributed to all. In this case, if radar is distributed to everyone, this will cause serious effect on society.

Right ethical approach:

The ethical approach can be well settled by some doctrine, among which Rights approach are one. The cornerstone of the theory is based on human position. According to the theory, dignity of a human being is located on the capability to choose the right option about the way of life. It is our moral duty to express our choices freely and equally and the moral duty is reciprocal in nature. Some countries have articulated the theory in the provision of their constitution. Rights like life, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom to practice own religion, freedom to own property are the examples of such rights. The freedom to enter into a contract or to abide by all the norms related to the contract is the instances of such theory too. The object of this theory is to identify the rights and legalize them. Rights ethical approach is based on morality. In case of ethical dilemma, we should choose that option, which has greater merit than the other does. Right means a justified claim. A claim can be justified by the society in general. Thus, if an approach opposed the morality of a society, that need to be rejected.

Thus, from the above discussion, it is noted that all the principles are based on the principle of equity, morality and good conscience. From the moral point of view, marketing of radar could harm the society and is not based on morality and thus the promotion regarding the marketing of radar detector should be rejected.

Question no. 5

The president of an agency has the power to take final step in regards to decisions. The conflict arose between the two officials are based on a moral question. When the associate of the agency expressed her opinion on the promotion of radar detector, the account executive told her to leave the job. According to him, the statement of the associate is opposing the business criteria of the agency. On the other hand, the associate of the agency thinks that no one can be fired due to one’s moral belief. It is her right to maintain own belief. The account executive thinks that the agency has been providing good service to its clients for several years and if someone will deny doing a job for his/ her personal belief. This creates a negative impression on the good will of the company.

Both the employees are quite competent in their own sphere. The representative of the electronic company that develops the radar detector wants the associate to promote the radar. The account executive is one of the loyal person towards the clients. Therefore, there is a great dilemma takes place in choosing the correct notion. However, from the ethical aspect, the opinion of the associate is more acceptable because society is more important than any business and we have to think about the society first. Radar detector will cause serious injustice to the society if it is used as an instrument to evade the justice system of a nation. Radar can reduce the rate of accident, but if a driver takes benefit of that, it can cause grave injustice to the society. Therefore, from the view, if I were the president of the agency, I will go with the opinion of the associate of the agency.

Reference:

Anderson, M. and Anderson, S.L., 2014, July. GenEth: A General Ethical Dilemma Analyzer. In AAAI (pp. 253-261).

Bernstein, A., Weinstein, U., SHARVIT, V.C. and Oppenheim, D., Kyma Medical Technologies, Ltd., 2013. Location tracking of a metallic object in a living body using a radar detector and guiding an ultrasound probe to direct ultrasound waves at the location. U.S. Patent 8,352,015.

Bowie, N.E., 2017. Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Couldry, N., 2015. Listening beyond the echoes: Media, ethics, and agency in an uncertain world. Routledge.

Ehrkamp, P. and Nagel, C., 2014. “Under the radar”: Undocumented immigrants, Christian faith communities, and the precarious spaces of welcome in the US South. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104(2), pp.319-328.

Falk, A. and Tirole, J., 2016. Narratives, imperatives and moral reasoning (pp. 707-711). mimeo Toulouse School of Economics.

Hall, E.D., Frolov, T.C.V.V., Müller, H., Pospelov, M. and Adhikari, R.X., 2016. Laser Interferometers as Dark Matter Detectors. arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.01103.

Liu, M., Qu, Y. and Zhang, Y., 2017, June. Multi-target Detection of FMCW Radar Based on Width Filtering. In International Conference on Emerging Internetworking, Data & Web Technologies (pp. 747-755). Springer, Cham.

McGee, R.W., 2014. Applying Utilitarian Ethics and Rights Theory to the Regulation of Insider Trading in Transition Economies.

Morgan, G.A., Macheca, C.M., Rossetter, A.E. and Schwarz, S.G., Gordon* Howard Associates, Inc., 2015. Methods and systems of rule-based intoxicating substance testing associated with vehicles. U.S. Patent 8,928,470.

World Health Organization, 2015. Global status report on road safety 2015. World Health Organization.

Y?ld?r?m-Yenier, Z., Lajunen, T. and Özkan, T., 2016. Driving in the fasting month of Ramadan: an observational study on speeding, horn honking, and using seat belts. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 42, pp.562-568.

Zhou, S., Chen, Y., Liu, H., Hu, Q., Cao, D. and Xu, L., 2015, October. Distributed detection with initial thresholds in local sensors. In Radar Conference, 2015 IEEE (pp. 244-248). IEEE.

Zhu, H., Pan, Y., Wu, W., Tai, N. and Yuan, N., 2017. Effects of Compound-Distributed Sea Clutter on Angle Measurement of Wideband Monopulse Radar. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2017.