Scenario You are an experienced ethics officer who has recently been hired by an established company. You have been tasked with analyzing the company’s current code of ethics, and identifying areas in need of improvement. Corporate Social Responsibility I’ve chosen Starbucks as an established company to analyze their mission, values, and their code of ethics. Starbucks is a global organization that has thrived for many years and continues to thrive globally. As of today, Starbucks has more than 25,000 stores in over 75 different countries, which has also grown their commitment to create social and global impacts. The code of ethics for Starbucks supports social responsibilities in three ways; through the community, ethical sourcing, …show more content…
Legal or Ethical Safeguards Starbucks has a couple ethical safeguards in place. The first safeguard is their Standard of Business Conduct. The Standard of Business Conduct assists managers and employees with making decisions. Starbucks have implemented several policies to support the legal and ethical safeguards of Starbucks. The two policies that stuck out to me the most were the Speak up and the anti-retaliation policy. 1. Speak up is The Ethics & Compliance Helpline a resource available to partners to ask questions or raise concerns. The Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days week, and an interpreter can be made available upon request. 2. Starbucks Anti-retaliation policy does not tolerate retaliation against or the victimization of any partner who raises concerns or questions regarding a potential violation of the Standards of Business Conduct or any Starbucks policy that he or she reasonably believes to have …show more content…
The False Claim Act allows employees to report fraudulent or false reports made to the government. It also protects the informers from retaliation. An advantage of paying whistle-blowers is their ability to be compensated for their integrity and honesty. Another advantage of paying whistle-blowers is they are protected by the law. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) provides whistle-blowers in publically traded companies with revolutionary new protections if they, make disclosure to a supervisor, law-enforcement agency, or congressional investigator that could have a ‘martial impact’ on the value of a company’s shares (Nelson, Trevino, 2012). A disadvantage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act law is it doesn’t provide the same incentives as the False Claim Act. A disadvantage of the False Claim Act is after informers are compensated they are required to pay taxes on the money their rewarded. Impact of U.S Sentencing Guidelines If an organization is undergoing US Sentencing, the court will examine and determine the severity of the crime based on the nature of the circumstances. The fine is calculated from pre-tax gains from the crime, intentional loss inflicted on the victims, and the commission ranging from $5,000 to 72,500,000. The factors are then multiplied to determine the capability score for unethical behavior. Organizations hire ethical offers to avoid an increase in their capability score. Culpability