Bridging the GAP

        As a member of the female species, retail therapy can be one of the many highlights of my life. I mean, who doesn’t like the scent of a store, a touch of a new fabric, or simply a new garment sitting inside one’s closet?

On the outer shell, I may be perceived as someone who only gives importance on clothing. However, business school taught me that the dress sitting pretty inside my wardrobe is a product of not only of the brand but by sweat of workers and seams of materials and these things are far greater than the output itself.

Corporation branding is not synonymous to responsible corporate branding. Companies must learn that aside from hitting the target and quotas, and delivering consumer goods and services, they also have duties and responsibilities towards the people who really created the true value for their brands. They must be given appropriate and good working condition, wages that can truly provide for a quality life, and satisfying job that maximise the employees’ potential.

A very relevant case on this issue is the case of Gap, Inc. Gap, Inc. is a retail brand that offers clothing, accessories, and personal care for kids, women, and men. Under their corporate umbrella are other brands like Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, and Intermix. The company has a global niche as evidence by its 3,300 branches in 90 countries and 400 franchise stores.

In 1995, Gap, Inc. outsourced the production of its apparel for cheap labor in El Salvador to meet import demands. The firm rested the fate of its products and workers on the hand of Mandarin International, its partner supplier, who ran the El Salvador plant. The condition in the El Salvador plant was harsh and was never good for Gap, Inc.’s workers. As an example, the employees were only paid $0.56 per hour, made them produced goods and worked for more than 12 hours, were not allowed to have restroom breaks, and union members, even the female members, were treated badly. Employees were also threatened not to join any labor union.

Reports of these incidents reached Gap, Inc.’s head office. In line with the issues, the company sent one of its SVP to investigate. However, Gap, Inc.’s SVP after several investigation presented similar conclusions that there was nothing wrong with the working condition in its El Salvador plant. 

Looking at it, the case can be viewed as open ended one. But why would we let it hanging?

This is a challenge that can be posed not only for corporations but for individuals as well. To what extent do we prioritise profit over people? On what degree do we need to stop and think about our employees’ welfare and condition? The answer is NOW. It is about time to bridge the gap between different company priorities of profit, people, and planet. It is not only the big firms’ duty, it is OUR duty.  It is time to, well, 

2015 Thousand Books Project

I know it is still October and Halloween is also around the corner but we, the members and volunteers of Thousand Books Project, are already making a noise to signal the start of our book drive campaign for the Gawad Kalinga children. Thousand Books Project aims to raise more than a thousand books, hence, its name.

So, this 2015, we are gunning for:

MORE BOOKS. MORE COMMUNITIES. MORE DREAMS

MORE BOOKS. English to teach our kids basic English grammar.

MORE COMMUNITIES. Last year, we covered Southern Manila. This year, we are going to GK villages in the north of Manila, more specifically GK Palates.

MORE DREAMS. We are adding "self-concept" and goal-setting as part of our themes.

We are now accepting donations! See "How Can I Help?" below for details.  Also, if you want to volunteer, give us a shout. We promise you'll enjoy it!

More details to come soon! If you want to be part of this amazing movement, feel free to message us! Visit and like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thousandbooks

The Ford/Firestone: A Case of Finger Pointing

http://www.sptimes.com/News/webspecials/firestone/qa.shtml

        

The Ford/Firestone case is one good example of a violation of business ethics, the governing principles of a company's action. As stated, it was one big deadly combination with numerous reported accidents involving the Ford Explorer, and its instability. The controversy explored the realm of corporate responsibility being put on top of the heads not only of the biggest firms, but also of the whole automobile industry and other industries as well. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ford-firestone-settle-rollover-suit/

Background:

Ford and its engineers worked on a new vehicle, the Ford Explorer. The Explorer resembled Ford's truck "The Ranger", also with its Twin I-Beams, which is very famous among Americans, with the classiness of a sedan. The Explorer was built with Firestone tires. This was the Ford Explorer then. 

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The Ford engineers, in their test of the prototype Explorer, found out that the vehicle had an issue with its stability. Said engineers recommended possible solutions to cure the vehicle's stability problems, such as lowering the car's centre of gravity, widening its wheel, and using smaller tire. However, the Management of Ford did not want any derail in its plan to launch the vehicle to the market. To partially solved the problem, they opted to set the tires' inflation pressure to 26 psi. 

After this and the market launch of the Explorer were the reports of Explorer-related accidents. These accidents happened when the tires' tread separated from the body and cause the car to roll over. Said incidents did not only occur in the United States alone but also in other countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. 

Ford blamed Firestone for this and decided to replace the tires with Goodyear tires. It was at this instant, coupled with the recalls, that Firestone suffered losses, thus, entered Bridgestone, a Japanese-owned company. However, Bridgestone failed to revolutionise Firestone's culture and this led to employee strikes and unions that resulted in Bridgestone employing non-experienced workers and production of poor quality tires.


My Assessment: A More Intensive Analysis

This case is not merely a technical vehicular issue but a deeper one. Ford and Firestone are morally responsible to the victims, the victims' families, and the rest of its customers and they contributed to all Explorer-related accidents. Firestone knew the best psi for the Explorer and yet it failed to influence Ford in using it. Ford, on the other hand, chose its personal interest and gain (as evident by its decision to resolve simpler and more short-term vehicular issues) than the interest of its customers and the public.

Both companies failed to perform their moral and ethical responsibility towards the common good and address their problems as they just pointed out their fingers. 


Conclusion

The Ford/Firestone case is a realisation that companies' roles in the society go beyond maximisation of profit. Industries nowadays should bear in mind that there is a deeper meaning to their existence - people. People inside and outside the organization. It is their responsibility to take care of them and bring utmost security to protect them. People, after all, is considered the a firm's most important asset.   

           

        

The Selfless Road

It seems like we are all marching on our own selfless roads. As we venture on this path, we may come to realise that our minute efforts to somehow change the world will not be put into waste. Our voices will be heard, even the softest. Our words will linger, yes, even the briefest. Our actions will be magnified, twice as much. And we are all going to be remembered as those who touched people's lives. 

This is the very essence of service learning - it is a pedagogy of life. It makes us feel excited and alive because we will experience life. At the same time, it will be a learning privilege. We will learn from others as they will also learn from us. We will serve, we will give back because we are fortunate. We will share because we believe that love, talent, and voice should be spread because we have more than enough. 

These are the musings being considered in choosing our SL community. Will this community  enlighten us of the real world and will we be able to let them see the light as well? The light that embodies human dignity and rights.

This is the reason why our group chose to help Wordcomm because it is through it that we feel and think that more number of lives will be touched and changed. 

  

GREENSCAPE: Inside Brian's World

There are conflicting views on the legalisation of marijuana. Marijuana is a contradiction in itself. Is neither good or bad, so they say. It gives you high and push you even lower. Cannabis supporters lobbied for its decriminalisation, citing benefits (especially the medicinal ones) as their main justification. On the other hand, government and anti-marijuana enthusiasts were at the forefront of marijuana eradication. 

The case 'Brian’s Franchise' talked about this. Set in the1980s, this non-fiction studies the drug war in the United States (US), the extensive effort of the US Government to eradicate the growing marijuana industry, the constant struggle between government and marijuana farmers, and Brian, a well-off American in his twenties, and an owner of a large franchise chain of small indoor farms specializing in growing marijuana in the US. Equipped with expertise in breeding and raising marijuana plants indoors, he dropped out from college in 1989 and started his own chain of small indoor marijuana gardens in rented houses in and around Washington DC where he sells his plants and expertise to local farmers, who in turn, gave him a percentage of proceeds as his profit.  With the emergence of a more extensive efforts by the US Government to completely destroy the marijuana industry in 1989, Brian moved to Amsterdam where he continued his business and learned to innovate indoor marijuana gardening. It was modernization at its finest.

So, what should Brian do? What should we suggest he should do? 

Brian has the right to pursue his interest. John Locke will tell us that human beings have the natural right for freedom and property. Hence, Brian can consider continuimg his marijuana business. Everything is up to him. Do as what he pleases to do. On the other hand, Adam Smith and his "invisible hand" would show that in any business case, utilitarianism is always the name of the game. Common good, the benefit for all, the consumers, are industries' masters. Or we can look at it this way. What would Karl Marx do? Marxism will prescribe that capitalism is biased and cruel and that the natural order things must be done through government intervention. 

So, tell me, what is the right thing to do? What philosophical root should we let influence us? Will there be an absolute answer to this? The answer is none.

Ingrained in it is an obvious answer, that is, it must be based on ethics, like the necessity for government intervention to control the things that cannot be put solely in the hands of private individuals, like slavery and child labor. Moreover, as we pass this issue on different ethical frameworks, ethics will dictate that in this case, marijuana, even with its benefits, is still marijuana and is considered illegal in most parts of the world. Thus, promoting its cultivation can be considered unethical. Ethics also taught us that the real essence of producing goods is to produce something that is really good. And lastly, God has given us gifts and all the skills and talents, and therefore, it is our duty to give back by producing something out of it that will positively impact the society.   

ETHICAL CRASHES: The Ford Pinto Case

    We, at most times, believe that ethics govern the province of business reasoning. Checking it through today’s lens, businesses nowadays claimed that aside from maximising profit, they created an evenly increasing social responsibility that is now embedded in them. Decisions are said to be based on ethical frameworks and continuous and conscious efforts in upholding ethical behaviours from executives down to the rank and file employees, they said, are existing.  Though this may be true, we cannot deny the fact that the conflict on what is economical and ethical is still prevalent for some.

The Ford Pinto, Ford’s 1970s controversial compact car, is a good example. With intense competition with Volkswagen, Ford rushed the production of Ford Pinto earlier than its expected launch regardless of the engineers’ discovery that rear-end collisions would rupture the car’s fuel system. The Pinto was responsible for numerous fatalities in the US alone, as well as with large number of burn injuries. 

Given this and the decision of Ford to pay lawsuits and to lobby against safety standards for eight years instead of replacing Pinto’s parts provided an ever greater gap between economics and ethics, thus also creating animosity on morality. With its performance of cost-benefit analysis, Ford was able to calculate its direct and indirects costs, property damage, and insurance, among other things, and to determine the monetary value of a person’s life and suffering. Thanks to this analysis, Ford executives were able to take out ethics and morality from the equation and delivered an output that was purely business and based on greed. Driven by the financial need to maximise profit and minimise cost, Ford’s Management embarked on a journey towards numbers, taking for granted the most important decision making factors, the customers and their safety.  

In conclusion, the decision of Ford opened a wide window for management morality criticism not just for the company but also for the whole automobile industry as this one involved an evidence of the unethical and immoral viewpoints of executives. By contrast, it was a wake up call.  It was also an opportunity for an ethics check up or even an overhaul because ethics, after all, is not just a makeshift thing.