Constellation Brand Ethics Research Paper

Constellation Brands Ethics & Law
Difference between Law and Ethics In my opinion, Law and ethics are a two completely different areas of business that are connected through many different ways. Law is the written rules that businesses have to follow. Ethics are unwritten rules that business follow to keep their integrity and to keep them responsible to their consumers, employees and shareholders. Major differences could be made that one is written for all businesses and consumers to follow and the other is unwritten and guided by each person or business on an individual level. What one person does could be legal but not ethical, such as hiring someone who is not qualified because they are related verses hiring the qualified person. Although

CB constantly needs to be on the front end of legal issues that could arise, being in an industry that is highly regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, as well as each state having its own guidelines and to go further than that each county within the states differing on their regulations of when it can be sold (Alcohol Laws by State, Consumer Informaiton, 2015). Some of the more ethical issues that CB faces have more to do with things like product recalls, marketing and who is marketed towards, how products are packaged and messages communicated on packaging, and how delivery of commercial and promotional pieces are received (Code Of Ethics of Alcohol Industry in Qubec, 2011). One instance of an ethical issue that Constellation faced was that of a recall of Corona Extra in 2014 (Constellation Issues Corona Extra Recall, 2014), the company recalled a vast amount of 6,12,and 18 packs that had potential to have been contaminated with small shards of glass. Even though the company was not 100% sure of the contamination of all of the products they were certain of the timeline and production bottles that had been run during the possible effected time. For the greater good of the consumers Constellation recalled the product for the safety of their consumers. An ultimately hard decision for managers to make but

Showing leniency to one employee while throwing the book at another is a primary example of not following ethical guidelines. Treating the people with respect and keeping them equal when it comes to punishments in essential to being a manager. Every move that an organization makes determines the future of where they are headed and the support of shareholders, consumers, and investors. Constellation’s practices relating to management both ethically and mission