Operations Management homework help

Operations Management homework help. Directions:
Review your classmates’ answers and find two with which you do not agree. Explain how these classmates might revisit their ethical determination based on your perspective.
Ethics of Spying on Competitors
1. Buying competitors’ garbage (U, L)
2. Dissecting competitors’ products (E/L)
3. Taking competitors’ plant tours anonymously (U/L)
4. Counting tractor-trailer trucks leaving competitors’ loading bays (E/L)
5. Studying aerial photographs of competitors’ facilities (E/L)
6. Analyzing competitors’ labor contracts (U/L)
7. Analyzing competitors’ help-wanted ads (E/L)
8. Quizzing customers and buyers about the sales of competitors’ products (E/L)
9. Infiltrating customers’ and competitors’ business operations (U/I)
10. Quizzing suppliers about competitors’ level of manufacturing (E/L)
11. Using customers to buy out phony bids (U/I)
12. Encouraging key customers to reveal competitive information (U/L)
13. Quizzing competitors’ former employees (E/L)
14. Interviewing consultants who may have worked with competitors (E/L)
15. Hiring key managers away from competitors (E/L)
16. Conducting phony job interviews to get competitors’ employees to reveal information (U/I)
17. Sending engineers to trade meetings to quiz competitors’ technical employees (E/L)
18. Quizzing potential employees who worked for or with competitors (E/L)
“Business ethics can be defined as principles of conduct within organizations that guide decision making and behavior” (David and David, 2017). The law often guides business, but at other times business ethics provide a basic guideline that businesses can choose to follow to gain public approval. Some issues that come up in a discussion of ethics include corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, social responsibility, and fiduciary responsibilities (Twin, 2020). Companies believe that to enhance attractiveness and survivability, it must gather and utilize strategic information about competitors. But how that information is obtained can raise concerns.
One ethical example that I struggled with was the first example, buying competitors garbage. I was confident that this was a legal act but unsure if it was ethical or unethical. At first, I thought that this example could be ethical. Then after reviewing other examples and the characteristics of unethical business actions, I determined this action is unethical. It is the use of the company’s funds for gain. “Competitive intelligence gathering is an increasingly vital tool in today’s global marketplace, but pressures to gather intelligence have resulted in some unethical practices” (Rittenburg, Valentine & Faircloth, 2007).
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Operations Management homework help