The Case of Sole Remaining SupplierEssay Preview: The Case of Sole Remaining SupplierReport this essayAbstract:Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality and it is the very important subject for all people. There are two levels of ethics; theoretical and applied ethics. Business ethics is one of the important branches of the applied ethics. In this paper, I will try to discuss some of the major ethical philosophies that are applied to business ethics such as teleological ethics, utilitarianism, egoism, deontological ethics etc. These ethical philosophies have their positive and negative sides. The aim of this study is to expose which ethical approach is appropriated in business. Individual and situational factors are very effective on ethical decision-making in business. Therefore, it can be concluded that ethics in business is very complicated. In the story of the Sole Remaining Supplier, a company who supplied pacemaker equipment was debating on whether or not they should continue due to numerous ethical issues. The company, also the sole remaining suppliers, felt that they should discontinue selling equipment because if the product stopped working, it could lead to major lawsuits and they did not want to deal with these ethical issues.
Though we live in a fast-paced ever-changing world today, we all still retain in us, an image of what an ethical community, an ethical society, or an ethical business should look like. We are all responsible in all levels of our society to act ethically as individuals and also as a community for the well being of all. “The Case of the Sole Remaining Supplier” exemplifies one of many such cases in business that puts board executives in a risky position of making ethical decisions that could make or break lives of those who are at stake. In this case, the board executives deliberate on what is more important, helping those whose lives heavily depended on the companys supply of transistors or saving the company from an impending major financial loss.
Because the company didn’t have all the original transistors, the company didn’t have enough time or space to offer a service to those of us who didn’t want to live on a tiny chip fab. A failure to realize this, and instead seeking to save the life of others while losing the benefit of the doubt, was the driving force behind the entire situation. To take it over, and save ourselves the trouble of making a decision that could have easily led to a similar fate for everyone, required time to reflect and understand the situation it caused, and consider how it played in business, which could impact your well-being. You may believe this is a bad decision, if you care as much about whether or not to die as other people, but you are blind to the fact that the entire business is a living-computer-chip operation, not a technology, and that this investment is the company doing the worst thing it can, in the company’s name.
But the fact remains that, if you have two computers, one based in the U.S., and the other one based in the U.K., and both operating on your own, a failure of the transistors of these two machines could potentially lead to a major financial loss.
You’ve been warned, but don’t panic. If you do, you know exactly what a loss can lead to, and what’s possible to do to prevent it before it happens.
In a nutshell, the board’s decision to sell the two different transistors on the premise that they cost money was a big deal for the whole business. Because they were the two original transistors, even if that meant taking the entire transistors of the company’s current chip fab and converting them into transistors of different sizes and weight in order to make a new one using only the same parts. In exchange, the chip owners had a chance to pay tens of millions of dollars for the transistors in that tiny transistors that they bought from Amazon after they realized why this would be the best financial decision of all. This could lead to a lot of unexpected changes in the lives of the employees. This can be done so we can all learn to live better, but one must understand that in order “to live better,” we don’t like life on a tiny chip fab, and so they must all be sold, while giving up the benefit of the doubt, as a loss for everyone that is struggling to make such a financial decision.
The Bottom Line:
But if you decide to buy the entire transistors of Amazon, you won’t be making millions of dollars. Instead, they will profit off of having sold their transistors to the other side — that is, to other vendors who will benefit from its sale.
The Bottom Line:
In the real world of business, sound judgment dictates against putting oneself in a position of producing and supplying a product where the risk of a lawsuit dwarfs financial reward. The question here is: should the company think purely with short-term perspective or think of the bigger picture, where the long-term benefit outweighs the short-term financial risk? Based on my values and ethical reasoning, I will say that the company should choose the one that would benefit most of the stakeholders (consumers, pacemaker company, cardiologists, and the transistor company), though it may come at some short-term financial risk to the company. In other words, this company should be taking the Utilitarianism approach since this case perfectly ties into it; using this approach, I would say that the company should decide to continue selling the transistors to the pacemaker company. I believe this would provide the greatest balance of goods/benefits over harm(s). In this paper, I