Coca-Cola Report
Ethical Leadership C206
Coca-Cola is the largest Beverage Company in the world and deals with soft drinks. They range from; Juices, water, tea, coffee, and beverages. They offer a wide variety of products which matches all the customer's demands. Their product range is so wide such that they have captured the world's market. This has enabled them to have a large customer database. Therefore due to the large market and customer base which the Company commands, it has to be guided by a code of ethics which will ensure that a good relationship exists between employees, customers and the market in general (Coca Cola, 2017). Coca-Cola Company also needs to follow the set rules and regulations by the relevant authorities on how it is supposed to conduct its business.
At the coca cola company their main aim is to bear the mantle of leadership. High standards have been set at all levels in Coca Cola Company. The company has very intact business standards and practices. This principles and routines have fostered very robust, creative and cohesive culture within the company, that has led to ethical manner of conducting business (Coca Cola, 2017).The framework set up by the standards practices of administration and ethics has led to transparency and responsibility to ensure that the success and long terms objectives of the company are achieved. It also plays the role of decision making but in matters that concern high confidentiality, they do not share with the public. The board has the power to oversee managerial roles and implements risk omission (Coca Cola, 2017).
In terms of corporate responsibility, it is handled through public policies and corporate reputation councils which is a group of high ranking senior managers for the company. The role of the council is to identify any risk and opportunity that the business comes across and comes up with strategic plans and recommendations to deal with the issues. (Coca Cola, 2017).
Coca Cola expects each and every one of its employees to abide by the law and exercise ethics in all areas. Their suppliers are tasked with the same. The code of business conducts sets the pace and requires all suppliers to follow the required standards. Workers of the company must behave in a way that maintains the interests of the entire company. In line with this, no employee should have any relations or other ties with the suppliers that might affect the workers role in protecting the interests of the company. Friendships that result dorm social interactions outside the business premises are permitted. But suppliers should note that any relationship is not geared towards influencing business activities. Therefore, Coca Cola expects workers and suppliers to abide by the law and be ethical in all situations. Any cases of fraud, bribery and corruption are not permitted. In summary Coca company complies with all the laws from ethic laws to laws that concern health. Any breach of the law may result to heavy penalties both to the company and the rest of the company. (Coca Cola, 2017).
The company has built ethical safeguards to employing workers in each and every operation to act as officers responsible for safeguarding ethics. The officers play an important role of ensuring that ethics are followed and to bring to light anything that may breaching their ethic conduct. Through communication and administration practices the company has been able to safeguard and ensure the continuous monitoring and surveillance of current ways of maintaining good ethics. The officers can also report any worker who has breaks the any code of business conduct. (Coca Cola, 2017).
The employees have duty to the coca cola company to whistle blow on anything they find unusual. The company has hired the workers for certain reasons and whistleblowing can be listed as one of the main reasons. The fact that the company provides a good working environment must be the first indicator that a worker can report on any matter they find unpleasant. Just as the company has a responsibility to take care of its workers, the workers have role to play through whistle blowing to inform on any ills going on in the company. Therefore whistling blowing is more of responsibly to the worker. A responsibility does not require a condition but discipline to do the right thing. (Coca Cola, 2017).
Although paying whistleblowers is one way of retrieving critical information it might come at a great cost. One of the main disadvantaged that comes with paying workers to whistleblower is that it encourages people to come up with dubious ways of getting evidence against their companies or coworkers. This might lead to leakage of marketing strategies to rival companies. Whistle bowing reduces fraud to very many ways and initiates a chain of events that leads to investigation. This often secures the interest of a company and together with its reputation. But compliance with whistleblowing is a slap on the faces of companies because most government authorities lack resources to research and investigate the impromptu alarms raised. Therefore a whist blow might not amount to much. This has led to a more streamlined corporate world with less incidents of breaching of laws (Coca Cola, 2017).
The United States sentencing programs has provided incentive for companies and corporations to come up with substantive and meaningful compliant and ethical schedules and program that will enable and coordinate reporting of any violation and initiate any necessary steps to investigate, punish and prevent future situations and events (Coca Cola, 2017).Under the unites states sentencing programs companies can be heavily fined as much as $300 million when they commit an illegality or offense. This has promoted ethical making of decisions.
Coca-Cola Company code of ethics has always been in line with the legal mandates of the countries they operate in. Its major aims have been to collaborate with the authorities to exploit their full potential in line with the law. By so doing, the interests of the Company are safely protected in the particular economy they are operating in. Sincerity has always been key when entering into agreements with the respective authorities (Coca-Cola, 2009). Legal compliance also remains key in their dealings with different authorities. The company also maintains an open relationship with countries it engages with.
Coca-Cola has remained ethical in marketing and advertising its products. This has been effective by ensuring that they remain honest, truthful and open in accordance to the practice of fair competition. The other aspect where the Company has continued to be ethical is of concern with the moral values. Coca-Cola has tried to ensure that it avoids all the unethical circumstances which are in violation of human integrity and dignity (Coca-Cola, 2009). It has also resolved not to use symbols which will offend any society culturally regarding religion, gender, social class, race or political alignment. It has all through remained fair and observant of all values irrespective of being in various economies across the world.
Coca-Cola's code of ethics ensures that an ethical culture has been fostered in the organization. It has led to the growth of how employees relate to each other, customers, authorities and all the relevant parties. It has also ensured that the operations of the Company have remained transparent and in line with all the regulations and laws set by authorities. Coca-Cola is against all forms of extortion and bribery. Therefore, employees have been molded and learned not to authorize, engage, conspire or are involved in any shady deals either indirectly or directly. Employees have also been demanded to treat all customers with equal measure when it comes to transactions. Coca-Cola believes in being the best in all dimensions from customer service to advertising of their products. It also believes that for success to be recorded it has to start with the employees who are key players in its progress.
Employees of Coca-Cola Company can raise and report any ethical misconduct through the ethics and Compliance committee. This department is responsible for educating, monitoring, consulting and evaluating any ethical misconduct and noncompliance issues (Coca Cola, 2009). Also, staff and associates from across the world receive education and training from this body to ensure that they act in line with the code of ethics of the company. It also audits the company as a whole to ensure that it is in line with the laws and regulations.
Any issue which has been spotted to be a violation of the code of ethics of Coca-Cola should be raised with immediate effect. By so doing the company will be able to note the issue and put some corrective measure before it violates any health risks or the law. There are various options in which the respective issue can be raised (Coca-Cola, 2009). They include the following; management, company's ethical officer, senior finance and legal counsel employees in support of the organization and finally, if the case is more of a criminal act, then the strategic security from the main offices in Atlanta should be involved.
A happy employee will strictly adhere to the Company's code of ethics and cause lead to the success of the Company in all dimensions. The success of Coca-Cola can be attributed to employee satisfaction to a great extent. From production, marketing to the distribution of the products, employees ensure that they are in line with the business and government laws and regulation (Coca-Cola, 2009). Sincerity and honest in marketing is also observed to ensure that customers get what they expect and also meet the competition laws and regulations.
An employee can report the issue to the management of Coca-Cola since it has the mandate to handle such incidences. They will check into the issue and decide on the next step to take to ensure that corrective measures have been applied to the respective party. The whistleblower can also report to the office of ethics and compliance in the company (Coca-Cola, 2017). This office takes full responsibility of summoning the individual on behalf of the management. This will see that the cost incurred in investigation and time took if management was to undertake investigation will be minimized.
The best resource which the employee should take to report an incident would be the office of ethics and compliance office. This is because engaging the management might cost the employee of their work. They may be demoted or even lose their job. Mostly, the employee who breached the code of ethics might be in the top management or even have some relationship with the top management. Therefore opting for the office of ethics and compliance would be the best option.
For an employee to report on any unethical conducts observed at the workplace, the issue should have a tremendous effect on all employees, have an impact on the image of the company or affect the overall success of the organization. One should have a clear understanding of what the unethical issue is and what the stand of the company on that particular issue. Also, they should know the overall impact caused by the unethical conduct. The issue should be reported to the relevant department responsible for handling such issues which will, therefore, take action or direct the issue to the top management to make the final decision. A whistleblower should also have a clear evidence of the breach of the code of ethics.
An employee who needs to report on any issue concerning the breach of a code of ethics should follow a certain procedure to validate their evidence. Raising the issue to the respective manager and department will be the first step where they will check into the issue and identify the person responsible for the act. However, they will not bring them to justice at once but follow the various regulations. The department should, therefore, arraign the issues to the higher department which has more authority. An investigation should, therefore, be launched to know about the issue and what exactly transpired (Coca-Cola, 2017). However, the respective identities should be hidden in the whole process to ensure the investigation has been thoroughly done and will also ensure that any party which will work to sabotage the research has been limited.
A designated time should also be set to complete the investigation. If the code of ethics breach happens to be more complex, then the department should launch an inquiry. The investigation should, therefore, be followed, and a feedback brought which will include the respective disciplinary step to be taken. The action taken should be clear regarding the employee who breached the code of ethics. The whistleblower should be provided with enough protection to ensure that no harm befalls them. This should be the last part of the process. The organization is responsible for ensuring that the rights of whistleblowers are not breached in any way.
Appreciating and encouraging whistle blowers in the organization ensures that all behavior which is unethical has been exposed. They play a vital part in the business of ensuring that all violators have been brought to justice. Having whistleblowers in an organization ensures that the ethical culture is promoted and all employees are in line with the company policies. Unethical behavior is shunned away by having them in the Company. The program of protecting whistleblowers by the federal government ensures that all the staff who report unethical behaviors in an organization are protected and safe. Some of the actions which may befall whistleblowers include demotion, denial of employee benefits and dismissal. Organizations which violate the set laws of whistleblower protection are subjected to heavy fines.
Having whistleblowers in an organization will have a negative effect on both the employees and the company because of the attention brought by the cases. Most of the managers in those companies view whistleblowers as being disloyal for not keeping the secret of the organization. They are however considered heroes by outsiders. Companies which view this as a betrayal of the values of the industry might end up blacklisting all whistleblowers in the Organization.
The Federal sentencing guidelines usually have a great impact on a company. It dictates that companies should promote an ethical culture which is in line with the law. Also organizations are advised that they should adhere to the right steps to ensure they come up with conducive working environments. Companies should also start looking at the environmental factors which will have an influence on behavior and motivate the staff to keep doing what is right (Murphy, 2002).
Some of the factors which cause and influence ethical behavior in companies; they include the Human resources, customer service and product integrity. Plans of the Human resources management are crucial in the maintenance and creation of an organizational culture which is ethical. The relationships which the company has with its customers are influenced by the values which form an ethical culture in the organization (Murphy, 2002). For product integrity, an organization which emphasizes some sort of ethics in its staff will mostly offer services and products which are designed and produced by ethical minds.
REFERENCES
Murphy, D. (2002). The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations: A Decade of Promoting Compliance and Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/organizational-guidelines/selected-articles/Murphy1.pdf
Coca-Cola. (2017). Ethical Business Conduct. The Coca-Cola Company. Retrieved 6 November 2017, from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/ethical-business-conduct
Coca-Cola. (2009). Coca Cola. Assets.coca-colacompany.com. Retrieved 6 November 2017, from http://assets.coca-colacompany.com/45/59/f85d53a84ec597f74c754003450c/COBC_English.pdf
Coca-Cola. (2017). BUSINESS CODE OF ETHICS. Retrieved from https://www.coca-colafemsa.com/assets/files/en/Investor_Information/Code%20of%20Ethics/Coca-Cola-FEMSA-Business-Code-of-Ethics.pdf
Coca-Cola. (2017). Ethical Business Conduct. The Coca-Cola Company. Retrieved 6 November 2017, from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/ethical-business-conduct
Part 5; Code of Ethics for Coca-Cola Company.
Act with integrity.
Coca-Cola Company believes in integrity in alongside other values like passion, diversity, accountability, and quality. It has decided always to do what is right which has ended up reflecting on the reputation and values of the Company. The growth of the Company in the more than two hundred economies across the world has been as a result of this. All employees of Coca-Cola are responsible for ensuring correct financial and business records have been maintained (Coca Cola, 2009). The nature of all transactions should also be true for transparency purposes.
Be honest.
Coca-Cola Company values honesty as a virtue and as a way in which employees should act. From the production level all through to marketing and distribution, the company ensures that it remains true to every process. Customers will always prefer products which have been genuinely produced, marketed and distributed. Some companies tend to emphasize on a good quality product, but it does not match the said qualities (Coca-Cola, 2009). Coca-Cola has been successful in the beverage industry for maintaining standard and quality in all its products.
Follow the law.
Coca-Cola strictly adheres to the laws and regulation of the different jurisdictions where it has invested its subsidiary companies. Before entering a new market, the company has to be familiar with the laws and regulations and what it is required of it to do and the boundaries not to cross. Other companies tend to go against which has seen them exit the new markets (Coca-Cola, 2009).
Comply with the Code.
Employees and all staff of Coca-Cola Company stick to the code of conduct to ensure that they have no cases of misbehavior. The branches in other different parts of the world stick to the code even though it might not seem illegal in their respective jurisdictions. Coca-Cola's code of ethics covers all situations which employees encounter in their daily lives. However, the company employees and operations are under the law of the various economies across the globe (Coca-Cola, 2009).
Be accountable.
Coca-Cola Company is responsible and accountable for all its operations. From production to marketing and to distribute the company takes responsibility for all the happenings in between. This ensures that employees are careful in how they do their transactions and their relationship with suppliers, shareholders, and the environment (Coca-Cola, 2009).
REFERENCES
Coca Cola. (2009). Coca Cola. Assets.coca-colacompany.com. Retrieved 6 November 2017, from http://assets.coca-colacompany.com/45/59/f85d53a84ec597f74c754003450c/COBC_English.pdf
