The book explains part of business ethics and the associated necessary fluidity of values as such: "...willingness to follow a particular path with the courage to move in a different direction when necessary (page 174)."
This is ever so relevant to my work life. Whole Foods has the self-defined good of "America's healthiest grocery store." It's even printed right on the receipts. So, they have established themselves as "healthy."
However, they also have a reputation of being unattainable (expensive) and dishonest (multiple scandals with overcharging). So they shifted focus, and while trying to also market themselves as a value brand, both through cost and how they source their products and treat their employees.
Fast forward several months: there was another scandal about their tilapia being sourced from prison labor, which effectively violates every good and value they claimed to have.
Basically, they have good ideas, but fail miserably on the follow-through, and the public has not been forgiving. (As exemplified through my stock that has almost halved in value.)
The lesson here is that it's important to be nimble within your "goods" and values, but if you breech those ethics, the public will notice. Don't set a higher bar for yourself that you won't see through.
Very interesting post. I find the idea that even though Whole foods tried to shift into that side of good ideas, there was still problems. I think it is very interesting how this type of behavior can be very problematic for the business, and sometimes tough to recover. I see a lot of similarities between this and the idea of organizational communication ethics, in the idea that there needs to be a good that everyone works toward to promote and protect. When that doesn't happen, businesses and organizations have a tough time recovering.
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