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Ethical and Moral Dilemma: McDonald’s Essay
In the contemporary business environment, many companies are embarking on the corporate social responsibilities to not only enhance a positive public image but also show an act of social responsibility and moral obligation to the society. In particular, McDonald’s fast food company embarks on an aggressive social responsibility strategy.
The company has suffered criticism over junk food. Nonetheless, the fast food giant continues to make substantial amounts of revenues notwithstanding the health issues raised regarding fries and junk. Should a company bear the social obligation to meet the demands of the society despite making profits from hazardous goods to consumers? Using the perspectives of such thinkers as Yukl, Machiavelli, Plato, Hobbes and Rand, this paper will focus on the analysis of the organizational dilemma.
Standpoints of Various Thinkers on the Issue
The moral challenges of power and self-interest raised by the above issue is dazzling. Judging the organization from Yukl perspectives of leadership, the leaders of McDonald’s have assumed various ways in which they exercise power not only on the employees and teams but also on the society (Yukl, 2006).
Corporate social responsibility reflects reward power to the society where the company reaps benefits from sales and rewards the society through the initiative (Spence et al., 2004; Zaccaro et al., 2001). The use of reward power by McDonald’s has helped the organization to meet its objectives amidst calls for a paradigm shifts in eating habits.
Further, the concept of power and self-interests elucidated by Plato could infer that McDonald’s has centralized power of influencing both the employees as well as the society.
Plato sees no rationale for embarking on such strategy since it would imply that people have power. He distances himself from ‘people power’ and argues that the company, which in this case represents the ‘Republic’, should not bear any moral obligation for the society (Bostock, 2000).
Due to the power of self-interests, McDonald’s should focus on its objectives, which is to increase the wealth of its owners rather than distributing its revenues to people (Annas, 1981).
Contrary to the views of Plato, Hobbes could judge the dilemma from different perspectives. His perspective of power, which in this case is wielded by McDonalds, should be in relation to other people. In his masterpiece, The Leviathan, Hobbes says that power is relational to other people without whom there would be no any phenomenon referred to as power (Ellis & Harper, 1997). Hence, McDonalds has wielded relative power given that the consumers continue to have faith in the company.
Niccollo Machiavelli would argue in line with his premise that human nature is typical of endless competition. In fact, the essence of life is to ensure that every person gets an edge over others. Applying this argument to the context of an organization, McDonalds should not relent on its current strategy whether or not the food they serve are healthy.
Antonakis et al. (2009) assert that the company should focus on ensuring that it maximizes on profits without considering the consequences of its operations on the society or consumer. This is in lieu of the fact that an organization should aim at posing the increased competition with other food industry despite the means it uses (Davis & Blomstrom, 1975).
To the contrary, Rand conceptualizes the concept of power by elucidating that practical power is important and inherent aspect of human beings (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2006). Therefore, McDonald’s consumers should be able to question the motives of the organization and demand the company to give back to the society through corporate social responsibility.
References
Annas, J. (1981). An introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Antonakis, J., Ashkanasy, N. & Dasborough, M. (2009). Does leadership need emotional intelligence? The Leadership Quarterly, 20 (2), 247–261.
Bostock, D. (2000). Aristotle’s Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carroll, A. & Buchholtz, A. (2006). Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western.
Ciulla, B. (2003).The Ethics of Leadership. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Thompson-Wadsworth Publishers.
Davis, K. & Blomstrom, R. (1975). Business and Society: Environment and Responsibility. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ellis, A. & Harper, R. (1997). A Guide to Rational Living. Hollywood, California: Wilshire.
Spence, L., Habisch, A. & Schmidpeter, R. (2004). Responsibility and Social Capital. The World of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. New York: Palgrave.
Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Zaccaro, J., Rittman, L., & Marks, A. (2001). Team leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 12(4), 451-483.
