Description
Should Samsung be held responsible for the labor hire abuses by third party suppliers in China as revealed in 2012? Make sure you include at least 5 reference 8-10 pages subject business.
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Running Head: SAMSUNG COMPANY
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Samsung Company
Institutional Affiliation
Date
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Should Samsung be held responsible for the labor hire abuses by third party suppliers in China as
revealed in 2012?
Topic background and ethical issue
Samsung Company was named in a controversial situation when its third part suppliers in
China were convicted of labor abuses. Samsung Company is huge Corporation based in Korea
and it has a wide variety of outlets in world to supply their highly- demanded products. China is
not an exception, the company has 12 factories directly owned factories for manufacture as well
as more than 240 outlets for distribution of products (Mo Yang et al. 2007). Moreover, the
company has established partnership deals with third party suppliers as part of the Samsung
Global supply chain strategy. In 2012, the China Labour Watch (CLW) conducted an
investigation concerning labour practices of Samsung network of factories and negative reports
were obtained. The Labour watch agency conducted the investigation to establish whether the
company and others in the country complies with its national labor regulations. The findings
obtained by China Labour Watch (CLW) concerning the working treatment of these businesses
was far from satisfying (Watch 2014).
The findings of the China Labour Watch (CLW) had it that indeed Samsung directly
operated companies, and supplier factories are involved in the unfair treatment of workers, a
practice that is against the China Labour Watch body. According to the investigations, the list of
illegal and inhumane practices by the company is stretched, including but not limited to forced
overtime of workers, unpaid salary, and uncomfortable working conditions such as standing,
employment of minors. Additionally, age and gender discrimination, neglect of workers safety,
verbal and physical injury were experienced by the workers in these industries. All the practices
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caused disturbances and the respective firms have to bear responsibility of the violation. Major
companies involved in violation of labour rights in China include Shenzhen Samsung Kejian
Mobile Telecommunication Technology Co., Ltd (SSKMT) which is partly owned by Samsung,
Huizhou Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd (SEHZ), 99% owned by Samsung, Tianjin Samsung
Mobile Display Co., Ltd (TSEC) and Suzhou Samsung Electronics Company CO., LTD (SSEC)
(Watch 2013).
Ethics in business provides an organization with the responsibility to act in a moral way.
The simplistic division of action as either right or incorrect is used to analyze morality of
business. However, the issue of ethics does not entirely depend on that, since the issue is
surrounded with subjectivity (Hasnas 2014). According to survey conducted, the concept that
appear wrong by another person may not appear wrong to another. From one perspective, ethics
constitute set of values and principles that govern an organization and it is through ethics,
businesses align their practices and operations in a way that appeals to the society. Organizations
and corporations are always guided by a code of ethics which outlines the way in which these
organization should behave. The code of conduct constituted by any organization or national
regulation is meant to ensure less harm to the society.
Ethics is a complicated matter that cannot be established at an instance. First, it is
difficult to establish the limit of responsibility than one holds to facilitate morality. For instance,
it is difficult to establish the role of a company towards infringement done by an associate
company to the society. Secondly, it cannot be established clearly what constitutes a wrong or
right. Based on the infringement of labor rights by the third parties in China, it is not outright to
determine whether the Samsung Company was responsible for the actions of these outlets
companies. To determine whether the company is responsible for the labor infringement by the
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third party suppliers, we shall evaluate the circumstance based on the theories of ethics which try
to establish whether certain actions are right or wrong. Based on these theories, we shall
establish whether it is good to make Samsung Company responsible for the actions of its third
world suppliers.
Utilitarianism Analysis
Utilitarianism is a theory that provides a perspective and provides a guideline to actions
based on the morality of actions. According to the theory an action should be judged based on
the results of the actions and the intended results and purpose justify the actions. If the actions
are projected to cause additional harm than good, the action is considered to be wrong and in
contrast, the action can be taken to be right if the intended results of the action are positive. The
theory seeks to capitalize on the utility of an action to obtain the positive results (Jones and Felps
2013). The benefit to be accrued from a particular action may be difficult to obtain, and this
requires a proper approach.
From a utilitarianism perspective, it can be deduced that Samsung was unethical. The
results achieved due to abuse of labor rights depict that. The theory is concerned with the
happiness and positive results to all stakeholders of the company. The action of labor violation
didn’t bring happiness to all stakeholders. First, the workers were the most affected. Labor
infringement did cause not only frustration but also depression. As depicted by Pagnattaro
(2014),...