*Disclaimer*
“Ethics involves learning what is right and what is wrong and then doing the right things – but the ‘right thing’ is not nearly as straightforward as it is conveyed in a great deal of Business Ethics literature. They are more than, ‘Should Bob steal from Jack?’ or ‘Should Jack lie to his boss?’” – (McNamara, 2008)
Carter McNamara laid excessive importance on ‘ethics.’ This is no different rest from the business world. Ethical issues – in any area whatsoever - are not completely black-and-white. They all depend on the way you look at the issue. Our perspective on an issue might be totally outrageous in your opinion and vice-a-versa. However, we generally have the tendency to paint things with a broad brush and ignore all lines of thought that refuse match our own yardstick of what’s “ethical”. We have written the following blog based on our own perspective and we would be glad to know the other dimensions.
Before we move on to the actual meaty issue on McDonald’s we have some junk food- whoops- food for thought for you all. Consider this:
“A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track while the rest were on the operational track. The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?”
You must be wondering what does that have to do with our topic, right? Well, in fact, it relates to our topic- ethics. Ethical Decision making is what we are looking at! Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make.
Most of you would choose to divert the course of the train to save a bunch of kids and sacrifice one kid. We guess. To save most of the children at the expense of only one child is a rational decision- morally and emotionally. But, let’s think again, hadn’t the child made the right decision by choosing to play on the disused track because it was a ‘safe place’? Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. Is it an ethical decision? This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. Is it ethical for us to choose to kill him instead of the other ‘ignorant’ kids? Sometimes, it takes a paradigm shift in the thinking to address the ethical/moral problems- a rigid definition of “ethical” just won’t fit the bill. Hold on to these thoughts as you read more about McDonald’s!
McDonald’s- Criminals or Scapegoat?
“McDonald’s”- when one hears this word, what is it that strikes your mind? Big Mac? French Fires? Sundae? Happy Meals? Double Pounder Cheese Burger? Ronald McDonald? How many of these edible things are healthy? Aren’t they guilty of making people obese? Aren’t they responsible for increasing the number of health problems amongst their entire target customer? Is it ethical for them to sell a ‘junk food’? Isn’t it their responsibility to take ‘care’ of their customers? There are a lot of questions related to ethics and decision making that we would come up with throughout the blog. We would first want you guys to have a look at this video:
That was a sneak peek from the movie "Super Size Me" wherein McDonald's was openly criticized for being socially irresponsible and unethical since it promoted unhealthy food. It might be fallacious for them to assume that McDonald's was solely responsible for the problem of obesity because other outlets like Subway and KFC play an equal role in this problem. However, comparing McDonald’s with KFC or Subway would be, as they state in ethics, incommensurable as they do not share a common standard of measurement. But that doesn't take the blame away from McDonald's! The lucrative promotions about their products have caught many eye balls and led to innumerable people fall prey to the addiction. If you are born in HK, you are bound to watch the advertisement produced by various local media promoting not only McDonald but also other types of junk food like KFC, soft drinks, potato chips, fries, chocolates burgers, pizza and ice cream. As, “ideas, customs and cultural movements all follow closely after the exchange of goods across national boundaries,” (Kluver) it is not a surprise that
The other way of looking at this issue would be the responsibility of the customers towards their own health. Aren’t they equally responsible for making themselves obese? Junk food is deep-rooted and ineradicable in HK because HK has western culture: fast food. All McDonald’s is doing is satisfying the wants of the people via the utilitarian approach even though the morality of this approach may be questionable. “The Utilitarian approach to ethical decision making focuses on taking the action that will result in greatest goods for the greatest number of people.” (Poznak Firm Ltd., 2009). In order to hunt down the culprit you might first want to know about the culture of
Peek-A-Boo into the Hong Kong Culture
Before solving the problem, it is essential to understand the cultural perspective. The decision to save one kid or a bunch of kids would vary depending on the cultural background of the decision maker. If the decision maker comes from a society like
Not really. People have chosen it. McDonald’s never imposed its culture. McDonalds is a prestigious and global brand with standardized production method, tastes and the menu. “It reduces customers’ search cost and perceived risk by standardization of images, messages, communication, attributes and features” (Roll, 2009). It grew because of popular demand! Consuming McDonalds is viewed as hip or trendy because everybody consumes it. It is a result of the simulacra effect and this image that has been created world-wide. Possibly due to globalization? We wonder. Before taking you through the dilemmas faced let’s swiftly glance through the list of assumptions that we paid heed to while formulating an approach for this problem!
Assumptions on human nature
We are going to base our suggestions based on the inductive reasoning and in order to avoid the hasty generalization fallacy, it is very important to clarify all the underlying assumptions that we believe in.
Taking the moral perspective into account it may be stated that because McDonald’s is often correlated with happiness whatever it sells is to make the others happy and people consume it because it makes them happy. Happy meals make one happy, don’t they? Individuals including children, teenagers, and adults, are postulated to be maximizing happiness, friendship and saving their time when they visit McDonald’s.
Children are happy when they see junk food items like ice-cream and chocolate. So, they demand junk food frequently. Teenagers like to buy junk food because they are cheap and delicious. For instance, many students go to McDonald’s because it provides cheap food cheaply and a great place to sit and chat. They also save a lot of money because they do not need to go to cafés like Starbuck and Pacific Coffee wherein a cup of drink costs around HK$30.
Adults may need to save time during lunch so as to work more and be more productive. Some adults in HK earn lower income because they are unskilled workers. So, it is reasonable and understandable for them to buy junk food that is cheap and filling. Furthermore, some elderly people in HK are underprivileged. A few of them even rely on comprehensive social security assistance scheme provided by HKSAR government. In other words, they have little money to spend and they cannot afford to have a lavish lifestyle. If they do not have much money, they can only find a place like McDonald’s that sells cheap food and allows them to hang out with friends.
Now, what if the abovementioned assumptions change, our analysis would also change completely!
Mcdonald’s = Immoral?
If they were immoral, there would never be any healthy food or vegetables in junk food shops. For example, McDonald might not have vegetables in hamburgers or a vegetarian burger. Similarly, there will not be any nuts, fruits or other nutritional content in the junk food. Also, there would not be any coke zero or coke light. In 2003, they offered healthier options, including salads on its menu, and revealed how they had brought in a full time nutritionist to alter the menu. Possibly the most poignant move was to phase out the Super Size option in all restaurants. McDonalds also added new options to Happy Meals for children, so fries can be substituted for healthy alternatives like apple slices and offers milk, fresh orange and water instead of soda. McDonald’s new stance also involved promoting the importance of exercise. (Tanner, 2004). Moreover, in the last two years they have also included healthy items like the fruits, yogurt, and other low fat options into their menu. This is something that the video ignored altogether!
McDonald’s = Moral?
However, if companies are postulated to be ethically moral, there may be no ads related to junk food in the mass media. The shops would have tried to stick to the spirit of the word when they tried to position themselves as a ‘healthy meal’. They would have never tried to falsify by stating that they are ‘healthy.’ Interestingly, there is no value meal for the salads. Drink and salad must be purchased separately. This might sound unimportant to some but one cannot get a discount for a value meal if one has salad. This is important because a salad alone is priced comparably to entire Big Mac meal! People with low incomes may be affected as they may not be able to afford the healthy option.
McDonald’s = Relativistic?
Well, what exactly is its perspective then? Assuming that McDonald’s has a relativistic perspective may be the most feasible. People gain satisfaction and McDonald’s gets the required customers via junk food. Although junk food is unhealthy, it is meaningless and unreasonable to blame junk food producers, sellers as well as supporters because everyone has the right to choose what to eat. All the aforementioned consumers are not the one to be blame either. Children eat junk food because it is tasty, delicious and attractive. Teenagers consume junk food because students are always under the influence of their friends and classmates i.e. peer pressure and this leads them to buy food in McDonald’s. Adults purchase junk food due to the fact that junk food is convenient, quick and cheap. They can save time and use the time saved to relax themselves. Thus, it is a win-win situation for both the parties- consumers as well as sellers.
In order to ensure that it does no harm to either party, it is essential to make everyone aware about the pros and cons of the junk food along with giving them more options. Children have little knowledge about the details, ingredients and content of junk food. They are living with mass media promoting junk food such as McDonald, KFC, etc. on TV. So, they may fall in love of junk food easily because they do not know the bad impact of junk food. Teenagers nowadays like to gather in a public place to chat with friends. Some of them even enjoy studying in these shops. Working adults have little choice if they wish to have a quick meal and spend time at leisure. Some of them are very busy all the time during a normal working day such as HK. Adults wish to save time and it is very convenient for them to find junk food sellers. There should be a list of unwritten “dos” and “don’ts” for junk food for the people’s well being.
This leads us to the range of dilemmas that is associated with Junk Food!
Dilemmas- Junk Food dilemmas!
The following video gives us an idea about the ‘junkism’ that is promoted by McDonald’s. However, it is essential to bear in mind that the video merely highlights the negative aspects of McDonald’s and tries to convince the viewers by using the ‘appeal to emotion’ concept:
This brings us to the list of dilemmas associated with junk food:
- It has a high profitability margin BUT has a huge amount of fat, salt, sugar and calories.
- It is popular in developed cities because many people need to save time. If they buy junk food, they wait less and save more time BUT harm their bodies!
- Eating too much junk food brings in nutritious imbalance in our body and it is unhealthy BUT junk food is delicious to children teenagers and some adults.
- The cons of Junk food far out weight the pros so they should be stopped BUT they are cheap and tasty and some people can only afford to buy junk food.
So, there cannot be “no junk food” in the world. This brings us to the question how much junk food should McDonald’s produce? Which approach should they use to decide their production methods? Utilitarianism approach? Cost-benefit approach? Moral rights approach? Let’s check it out!
Utilitarianism- McDonald’s approach?
Let’s go back to our opening problem of ethical dilemma to understand McDonald’s approach. A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to change the course of the train. Simple Utilitarianism would state that changing the course would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option as it would save a lot of lives as opposed to just one life. The fact that you are present in this situation and you can influence the outcome of this constitutes your obligation to participate. As a result, deciding to do nothing would be considered as an immoral act.
Now, McDonald’s is present in the food market where junk food is sold. The fact that they have the ability to influence the decision constitutes that their participation is obligatory. They can either change their meals to completely healthy meal or just stick to the old regime of selling junk food with slight modifications.
It can be said that McDonald’s has taken a Utilitarian approach. HK is a mixed culture metropolitan where the east meets the west. It is a public knowledge that HK is a challenging city where everyone tries one’s best to work in order to earn a living. The labor structure in HK is mainly dominated by tertiary services like sales, restaurants, hospitality, and tourism. However, there is more unskilled labor in HK than the skilled ones. A huge income gap, therefore, exists in HK. So, many people only afford to buy junk food as their main meals. So, junk food is somewhat necessary because there is no cheap substitute which is less harmful than the junk food. This income gap can also be regarded as income inequality. So, people in HK, in general, do eat junk food and McDonald’s has been satisfying this need of large number of people.
This, from a consequentialist’s viewpoint would be a morally right action since McDonald’s is an organization that aims to make profit and if they can do so by satisfying people’s wants then what’s the harm? It is understood that from consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good consequence and affirms the aphorism "The ends justify the means." Private junk food companies are assumed to maximize their profit. As junk food is characterized by high mark-up, profit margin, quick production time, low production cost, simple production procedures, high popularity, high demand and high turnover of customers, it is definitely attractive for a company like McDonald’s to produce and include junk food in their product lists. For McDonald’s, having a large customer base is a good consequence because it gives them higher profits. Similarly, in the rail track problem a consequentialist would change the route of the track to kill one kid instead of a bunch of them because it is the decision that produces the better action and saving more than one individual as opposed to a bunch of them would be immoral.
.. or is it the Moral Rights approach?
It seems more feasible if McDonald’s went in for a Moral Rights approach instead of Utilitarian approach. Such a approach is directed more towards the moral behavior and morality than the consequences. For instance, as per the moral rights approach we would not change the course of the train because it was morally wrong to sacrifice an individual who had chosen to d to do the ‘right’ thing. Similarly, McDonald’s should go in for this approach as well so as to make the lives of their customers more beautiful and healthy. There are certain steps that they’ve already taken that exhibit their effort to walk on the path. As per the Hong Kong McDonald’s website, they claim that they offer:
High-Quality Choices - Continue to develop high quality menu offerings that provide our customers with a range of choices that meet their needs and preferences and that fit in a balanced diet.
Consumer-Friendly Nutrition Information - Enable consumers to make the right decisions - continuing to provide even easier access to nutrition information
Communicate Responsibly - Continue to refine our marketing and communication practices, particularly to children.
This approach can enable them to expand their target customers as well as the profits made could be cost-beneficial. Thus, killing two birds in one shot!
We’ve got a suggestion!
Utilizing different perspectives we realized that McDonald’s services can actually be improved by the combined efforts of McDonald’s as well as its stakeholders!
a) Government perspective should be developed assuming that McDonald’s is immoral:
· Government should educate people about the impact of junk food and tell the public to eat properly especially for children and elderly.
· Labels of ingredients, content, and harmful wordings discouraging junk food should be listed. Government should make this action mandatory just like the one in cigarettes that have horrible pictures on the cover.
· The main culprit of junk food is the lack of education, inadequate self control and the shortage of label in most of the junk food. Government can provide more educational talk on healthy eating.
b) Organizational perspective should be developed assuming that the people are relativistic:
- Sellers and producers have the rights to do business, promote products and selling junk food. Mass media has the right to broadcast. As long as it is legal, these parties should not be blamed. The governmental rules and regulations should be sufficient to keep the people aware.
- They do not need to have an ethics department or ethics officer either. It is much better to have a code of conduct for the employees by the top level by directors.
c) Consumer perspectives should be developed on the assumption that the government is moral and McDonald’s is an immoral that operates on the Cost-Benefit Approach:
- People need to control themselves not to over-consume junk food, not to be attracted by junk food excessively and successively.
Decisions. Decisions. How do you make the decision then?
In our complex global business climate, ethical decision making is rarely easy. However, as a business owner, you have several models available for analyzing your ethical dilemmas. Sometimes one approach may be more apt than the other. If you take time to consider the various possibilities, you are more likely to make a decision that you think is ethically correct. It is very essential that one takes all the assumptions and choices in mind before jumping on to the conclusion.
You might me thinking that it is easier said than done. Let us demonstrate how thinking out of the box helps. How? Back to the opening problem!
The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he wouldn’t try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track would have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he would have never thought the train could come over to that track!
Furthermore, the track was not in use because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! As a result, in the attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, one might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.
While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one! Think before you act! Doesn’t matter if you go wrong but always make the decisions by yourself rather than going in for the popular choice! We would want to end our one semester journey by summing up everything in two quotes:
"What's right isn't always popular and what's popular isn't always right."
“Everybody makes mistakes; that is why they put erasers on pencils."
*References:
· Cowen,
· Kluver, Randy. “Globalization, Informatization, and Intercultural Communication” <http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/kluver.htm>
· McNamara, Carter. (2008). “Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers.” < http://managementhelp.org/ethics/ethxgde.htm>.
. Poznay Firm Ltd. (2009). “Approaches to Ethical Decision Making.” <http://www.poznaklaw.com/articles/bizethics.htm>.
· Roll, Martin. (2009). "Cross-cultural branding and leadership."
· Tanner, Adam. (2006). “McDonald's to expand healthy menu”. EDiets, 2004. <http://www.ediets.com/news/article.cfm/cmi_1424740>.
*Links for the pictures used:
· <http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/smile.jpg >
· <http://www.retrojunk.com/img/art-images/happymeal13.jpg >
· <http://www.davidairey.com/images/packaging/mcdonalds-apple.jpg >
· <http://www.rajuabju.com/literature/images/ronald.gif >
· <http://blog.diningchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/happy-meal-box_full.gif >
· <http://www.uniquereviews.com/images/mcdonalds-go-active-stepometer-big.jpg>
· <http://www.mypage.tsn.cc/c_richardson/mcrime.gif>
· <http://francisanderson.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/ronald-mcdonalds.jpg>
· <http://www.newlaunches.com/entry_images/0208/16/mcdonalds.jpg >
· <http://renovomedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ethics.jpg>
. <http://wigmaster.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/mcdonalds_is_evil.jpg
