MSLD 634 Module 5-Is Marketing Evil?

When it comes to business, people often times immediately assume that the primary goal is to promote and sell products or services. Mostly true, but as a former business student, I’ve learned that businesses are so much more than selling. One of the most common reasons why organizations fail to lead effectively is because they view decision-making as a one directional, monolithic process (Anthony & Schwartz, 2017). While selling is indeed a primary operation, it is important to remember that people are what make business possible. And with people, there are always social aspects to consider and implement in decision-making: one of which is ethics.

Ethics and ethically decision-making is a bit of a "no-brainer": we have to understand and do things that’s considered right and agreeable by the people to effectively run our organization. This relationship is seen on Ferrell’s (2005) chart from Marketing Ethics (p.4):   

The important thing to consider from the table above is that this doesn’t show how to make a decision, but rather how decisions are made (Ferrell, 2005). Another thing we can draw from the table above is that how ethical decisions are depends on how the company internally approaches ethics. To ensure that ones don’t go off track, it is critical to establish strong and clear ethical guidelines throughout the company.

            While ethics is one critical thing to consider in marketing, it is also important to maintain positive relationships with consumers as well as understanding what people need, want, and like in general. One way businesses gain such information is through what Herb Weisbaum (n.d.) labels as “behavioral tracking”. Behavioral tracking is the way where organizations builds a detailed profile about people based on the information on what sites you visit and the things you buy and search. In most cases, this is done without ones knowledge or consent (Weisbaum, n.d.). To me, consent and being informed is very important, and I’d find it very unethical if ones have unauthorized access through my personal information. So here we might ask, if some business think this way, how can ones gain useful information for their business? If I played a role as a marketing manager, I’d try to gain information based on consumer feedback while maintaining a good company reputation by quickly responding to consumers.

While participation may be a bit of a struggle, I personally believe that feedback is a more reliable source of information as it comes directly from the consumer. In addition, feedback informs consumers about our request for information and gives them the option on whether or not to give consent to the company. To maintain a good reputation for the company, communication and timely responses are critical. If consumers were dissatisfied or received a faulty product or service, we need to accommodate them as soon as possible. If we see a trend that effects our consumers, take notice and take action. Just as Ferrell (2005) mentioned, companies can also get involved and give to the community to maintain a good company image (such as Home Depot providing support to Habitat for Humanity in response to Hurricane Kathrina). When this all comes down together, I personally believe that marketing isn’t necessarily evil as long as the company responds and meets consumer demands, needs, and preferences.  

References:

Anthony, S. & Schwartz, E. (2017). What the Best Transformational Leaders Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-the-best-transformational-leaders-do

Ferrell, L. (2005). Marketing Ethics. Retrieved from http://college.cengage.com/business/modules/marktngethics.pdf

Weisbaum, H. (n.d.). Who’s watching you online? FTC pushes ‘Do Not Track’ plan. MSN News. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42239031/ns/business-consumer_news/t/whos-watching-you-online-ftc-pushes-do-not-track-plan/#.WjriM1VKuUl

MSLD 634 Module 4-Is Affirmative Action Ethical?

Affirmative action, or the practice of giving special consideration to minorities (LaFollette, 2007) may appear ethical for those in consideration, but we may ask ourselves: is it really ethical? Looking into our history, the general idea of affirmative action was ideal. American women once did not have equal rights with men and blacks once did not share equal rights to whites. Eventually, such discrimination were prohibited and affirmative actions (a plausible form of compensatory justice) were taken to ensure equal qualities of life to those involved (AAAED, 2015). Over the course of years however, racism and other forms of discrimination has declined: which changed the way we view affirmative actions.

The whole concept of affirmative action reminded me of a personal situation I’ve been involved with during a mid-season tryout for my high school varsity tennis team. During these tryouts, top rank players from the junior varsity team had a chance to play several matches against the varsity players. Depending on the result of these matches, players had the opportunity to move up and even join the varsity team. As the top-rank player in the junior varsity team, I participated in the tryouts and managed to win a match against a varsity player. Upon winning, my opponent and the entire varsity team got into a very emotional state and were deeply sadden by her loss. Despite my hard efforts, the coaches eventually made the ultimate decision to not swap ranks due to the “friendship” involved. When this decision was made, I was confused (and very upset) since I didn’t understand the difference between my opponent’s friendship to the varsity team and mine. What made my opponent stand out more than me? If I were my opponent, would I be getting the same treatment? While the probable reason may be for the two of us to avoid any negative impacts (the opponent dealing with embarrassment and the varsity team treating me badly due to winning), the real reason to this decision remains unclear.

Similar thoughts and questions arises in the case of student admissions: which I personally find to be a long time and fairly popular topic related to affirmative action. A recent article I came across is in relation to Harvard University and their lack of admission for Asian-Americans. Recent statistics show that more than half of the university’s freshmen class were women, more than one in five were Asian and nearly 15% were African-American (BBC, 2017). While it is unclear if race is involved in the admissions process, some claims that education standards in Asian countries may be the primary reason to lower admission rates. In a 2010 statistics from the Program for International Assessment (PISA), eight of the top ten countries that ranked in education were from the Asia-Pacific region (Desai, 2010). If Harvard’s decision-making were based on this, this would be a form of reverse-discrimination and hence unethical for the Asian-American population. While there are many other factors involved in the admissions’ process, I generally believe that affirmative action is unethical: as there will always be two different sides in a situation.

References:

American Association for Access Equity and Diversity. (2015). More History of Affirmative Action Policies From the 1960s. Retrieved from https://www.aaaed.org/aaaed/History_of_Affirmative_Action.asp

BBC. (2017). Harvard affirmative action ‘investigated by Justice Dept’. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42070493

Desai, V. (2010). The U.S. must start learning from Asia. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/07/school.results.us.asia.desai/index.html

LaFollette, H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics. Blackwell Publishing.

MSLD 634 Module 3- The Harder They Fall

The leadership program so far has taught me many tips on what it takes to be a great leader, and I once again sharpened my understanding this week. For this week’s module, we read Roderick Kramer’s article The Harder They Fall: which primarily focused on power. Many people desire to move up and be successful, however often times they are not aware of the potential risks involved and as a result struggle to maintain efficient leadership. For this blog post, I will be briefly discussing some of Kramer’s points and suggestions, in addition to relating the topic to my current work experiences.

Despite being constantly reminded how the world is getting flatter, I personally believe that strictly following the traditional top-down styles of leadership is one common mistake in many organizations today. According to Obolensky (2014), different levels of an organization tend to have different kinds and amount of information. In his study, he finds that approximately 60% of the information required for decision-making are found at the bottom level of an organization versus 30% in the middle and 10 on the top level (p.37). As a result, he concludes that it’s important for ones to encourage communication (including external stakeholders) to make more effective decision-making (Obolensky, 2014).

Obolensky’s points adds up to Kramer’s points on the danger of over relying on power. By doing so, ones come to believe that normal limits don't apply to them and that they are entitled to any spoils they can seize. This behavior then causes them to become less aware of the things happening around them, which can eventually lead them to corruption (Kramer, 2003). To ensure that leaders can avoid the traps that power can bring, Kramer (2003) suggests leaders to implement several common psychological and behavioral habits. Some of the suggestions included that ones should simply live their lives, be “ordinary” like everyone else, shine a light on their weaknesses instead of trying to cover them up, and to always be reflective (Kramer, 2003). The suggestions Kramer made reminded me of Obolensky’s concepts of leading as a polygarchy (where everyone works and has a leadership role). By reducing the power barrier in the workplace, it encourages ones to communicate with one another. This can establish more of a learning environment in the organization: which can serve growth opportunities for the organization (Obolensky, 2014).

This week’s topic reminds me of a time when my workplace was in the early process of simplifying and centralizing campus operations. Some of the changes revolved around the low levels of the university: which caused a lot of issues with student advisement. Eventually, the university established a month-long training session: where we received new and refresh training to clarify and improve campus operations. During our sessions, many of the lower-leveled employees including myself were given the opportunity to speak out and even provide suggestions to individuals from various departments and levels of the organization. Despite higher levels having their own preferred way, our opportunity to speak provided them opportunities to consider additional information to a procedure or standard. Since this training, I personally believe that top leaders have improved their understanding of listening and hence been making improvements for the university.

References:

Kramer, R. M. (2003). THE HARDER THEY FALL. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 81(10), 58-66.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2nd ed.). UK: Gower Publishing.