Final Project for Business Ethics: comparative analysis of two companies that are direct competitors. I am asking you to evaluate and then create a summary for comparison of the following material from both company web sites that answers the below questions.
1. Give a very brief history of each company.
2. Does the company have a formal outline "code of ethics" program outlined on their web site?
3. Does the company have a formal "social responsibility" statement/program outlined on their web site? If they do what components of the business enterprise are outlined in their social responsibility programs?
4. Does the company outline a formal "statement of values" or “code of conduct” documents for all stakeholders to follow.
5. Does the company acknowledge the existence of an ethics audit/social audit officer? What is this person's job duties and how long have has this position been with the organization. Or is this a new position with the organization. Or does the organization hire someone from outside the organization to perform the duties of a "social auditor".
6. Does the organization have only domestic distribution of their products or is there an international presence and if so, what standards of compliance get mentioned for both the domestic and international distribution marketplace.
7. Do these companies only focus on one product line or do these companies offer a broad product mix in their marketplace. Please provide a brief outline of the company product line/mix that you are comparing.
8. What has been the company’s profitability standards based on the last 5, 10 or 15 years? If stock prices are available for review from the web site. What are the stock index letters that represent the company on the stock markets?
9. Summarize your beliefs about which company you feel has outlined their intentions to create, maintain and to continue to develop an effective ethical evaluation of their business operations. Has either/both companies been challenged by multiple charges of unethical/illegal allegations by their stakeholders? What has been the impact of these allegations and were any changes made by the organization?
10. Simple "yes" or "no" answers do not fully answer any of these questions. You must provide a summary of the information that you find on the web site. Submitting links to the information on the company web site is NOT an acceptable submission.
11. In summary do the two web sites contain: a code of conduct, the role of ethics officers and the appropriate delegation of authority, effective ethics training, systems for monitoring and supporting ethical compliance, and the importance of continual efforts to improve the ethics program. Summarize and compare the two web sites for their similarities and their differences.
12. Review the competitors for financial success/failures that you find associated with the success or failure of compliance with the existing or past “ethical decision making practices”.