McDonald’s: Ethical Responsibility
Small business owners of fortune 500 companies, democrats, republicans, men and women all have ethical responsibilities that should always be considered. Mc Donald’s is a well-known restaurant around the world. Some people enjoy this fast food restaurant and also have made Mc Donald’s one of the leading fast food companies. Although, Mc Donald may have some tasty food, there are still many critics that think Mc Donald’s may have a lot of ethical issues and company violations. Some consider being ethical is simply defined as knowing the difference between what is considered good and evil. However, ethics is defined as moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior, and the practices that
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Seeing that Mc Donald’s operation was moving fast and effective, the soon to be franchisee, Ray Kroc, wanted in. McDonald’s met with Ray Kroc and as a salesman he sold milk shake mixers and offered him a dream of opening a McDonald’s. After agreeing to allow Mr. Kroc to open more franchises in different locations, the rest was history. The Ray Kroc Story states that, “Ray Kroc wanted to build a restaurant system that would be famous for food of consistently high quality and uniform methods of preparation. He wanted to serve burgers, buns, fries and beverages that tasted just the same in Alaska as they did in Alabama (Kroc, 2009).”
Ethics Issues:
McDonald’s Corporation has been growing and spreading internationally for the past three decades. Although McDonald’s seems convenient, cheap and clean, there are many negative aspects of the business. McDonald’s has a long history of terrible labor practices. Employees working for McDonalds are usually forced to work for low pay and long hours with little to no benefits, employees who work on major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are not paid overtime. Unfair wages is a widespread problem for McDonald’s workers year-round. The work environment is usually unsanitary and unhealthy for employees and negatively impacting other cultures, the unethical practices of this large fast food corporation are known but do not seem to detract from the
McDonalds’ employees are similar as they too want good hours, a fair workload, and an equal pay for the amount of time and effort they put into their work. They also want the chance for a promotion or at least more money for staying with them, otherwise they will either call their union or quit; this has influenced
Kroc gave McDonald’s to people willing to allot great amount of time and effort in the McDonald’s name. His idea turned out to be affluent as many ideas were created because of this caring franchisees. The Filet-O-Fish (originally intended for Catholics during lent), Big Mac (in celebration to its fifth billion burger sold), Egg McMuffin (wanted to cater to breakfast lovers) ,Quarter Pounder, and McFlurry were all introduced by franchisees and all reaped prosperous benefits. In 1956 Kroc hired Harry Sonneborn, a former vice president of finances at ‘Tastee Freeze”. Harry quickly rose among the ranks at McDonald’s Corp. and even became the very first president and chief executive. A couple months later Sonneborn pitch the idea that McDonald’s hould own the buildings of the franchise and make franchisees pay rent. They even could evict franchisees if necessary for the first time. This revolutionized McDonald’s turning them into a semi-real estate institution forever changing urban land
When an ethical dilemma turns to lies. On Oct. 20, 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald sixteen times. Once the tape was released thirteen month later, the relationship between the community, the mayor, and the Chicago Police Department was shattered.
Every business develops a set of ethical principles that they abide by. The business ethical principles intentions: it construct the business certainty in the community , maintain the employees liveried in what the business attempt to have as structural conducts and aid the employees consume principles to make ethical choices that guards the business. In a culture with a diverse assessment structure and augmented judgment visibly by companies with changeable ethics and interests, there appears to be further difficulties on business individuals to make tougher ethical assessments. In our day-to-day performances, we depend on on our ethical principles to monitor us in the correct path and do the correct things. The substance of any efficacious and perpetual business is they segment a mutual ethical matter concentrating on presenting and generating value along with allocating their business values with the citizens they network with on a day-to-day basis.
Ray skeptical of the large order due to the fact that most of restaurants he has delivered to had only needed one. When at McDonald’s he was instantaneously amazed by the Speedee Service System. Once Ray delivered the merchandise he expertly persuaded the McDonald brothers to give him the right to franchise the local business. The brothers liked the idea because Ray Kroc was traveling the country while they stayed home living the life in California. He soon opened the first McDonald's franchise Des Plaines, Illinois. Later Kroc sent Disney a letter informing of his newly franchisor position. Disney replied saying that Kroc could open a McDonald’s in his theme park Disneyland. The quandary was that Disneyland would sell the french fries for fifteen cents instead of ten cents were as
Ethics encompasses the various aspects of our everyday lives; this Chick-Fil-A case is an example how our personal ethics can have an effect on business. Throughout the last chapter we have discussed how ethics can have affect business leaders, and what traits shape an ethical leader. The COO of Chick-Fil-A, Dan Cathy, made his personal opinion about the definition of marriage open to the public. Mr. Cathy was not being a good ethical leader because he shared his personal views when representing Chick-Fil-A. There is a huge difference between someone’s personal opinion and the organizational outlook. Mr. Cathy’s opinion is not the ethical problem; instead it is his desire to state this opinion during company time, which caused an ethical problem for Chick-Fil-A. Values are the basis for ethics, so it is hard to separate ethics from values.
Now, in 1954, a man named Ray Kroc joined McDonald’s and helped create it into a fast food empire by spreading the idea of the Speedee Service System nationwide. He had originally went to McDonald’s to convince the brothers who owned to by his milkshake machine, but fell in love with their Speedee Service System. He convinced the brothers to let him buy the franchise and helped developed the business nationwide. After finalizing the agreement, he wrote to his old friend, Walt Disney to ask if he (Kroc) could place a McDonald’s in his amusement park, Disneyland. Disney forwarded the idea to the executives over the park and in return the executives demanded that Kroc raise the prices on the food so that they could make a profit off of it. Kroc refused.
During the start of the McDonald’s company, the McDonald’s Brothers had revolutionized the restaurant business through the idea of self-service. “Imagine — No Carhops — No Waitresses — No Dishwashers — No Bus Boys…,” they’d say (Schlosser 20). As a result of the new Speedee Service System, McDonald’s had never been in better shape. Ray Kroc, amazed by this, expanded the model all across the United States, increasing McDonald’s popularity. Apart from that, the creation of institutions like Hamburger University also solidify the service standards each restaurant should maintain. Hamburger University trained thousands of workers yearly, passing along “a common McDonald’s language” and “a common McDonald’s culture (Schlosser 31).” Through this, Ray Kroc created a single standard in which their service should be executed. This could make up for the lack of employee involvement in the new self-service model. McDonald’s was slowly becoming a beloved family name. The service prompted many families to stop by frequently, which boosted the idea of selling the brand to kids, perfecting McDonald’s marketing tool, and raising overall sales. Ray Kroc was closer to achieving his perfect business
Kroc's idea of the way to develop McDonald's into a profit was to sell an operating service to partners. This revolutionary way of doing things, instead of just supplying franchisees with milk-shake formula and ice cream, is what led to
I personally feel like MacDonalds is more successful because it covers more than just one aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility. It makes sense why it’s the world’s leading fast food franchise. MacDonalds is conscious about the environment having reduced a large amount of its carbon footprint onto the environment. Their energy saving levels consumption resulted them saving 14.2 million in costs and 114 gigawatts. According to the internet sites I have used to compile this analysis MacDonalds is working on a project to be released in 2020. That all MacDondals packaging can be 100% recyclable. They use the strategy ‘’comprehend and the situation and optimize efficiency”. The franchise isn’t just concerned about return on investments or
McDonald’s began as a barbeque, and the brothers strictly offered burgers, fries, and pop. Ray Kroc heard about McDonald’s one day and went to visit the restaurant. Kroc was surprised by their efficiency and the quality of the food. Kroc liked the fact that the brothers could focus on the quality of food, due to the limited menu items. Subsequently Kroc realized their success could amount to much more and shared his vision. Kroc told the McDonald brothers that McDonald’s could be a national business serving people across the country. (At this point, Kroc did not even think about being international). Dick and Mac were thrilled with what they heard, so in 1955 Kroc founded the McDonald’s Corporation and opened the first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois. By 1960 Kroc had bought exclusive rights to McDonald’s. In 1961, Kroc developed Hamburger University where new employees were trained on how to run a successful McDonald's. Kroc wanted to develop the most efficient methods to store, cook, and sell food, so he had a laboratory built at Hamburger University where students' test different ways to make McDonald's more productive. Hamburger University is still in use today in the search for ways to better McDonald’s. McDonald’s had their first sit-down restaurant in 1962, and then in 1975, McDonald’s had opened their first drive-thru restaurant in Arizona. The first drive-thru restaurant was
3) Should Mc Donald’s offer healthy alternatives to the same extent in all the countries in which it operates, or just those where it has been criticized in the past, or is it expecting further regulation? What if customers overseas do not want healthy options?
The McDonalds Corporation’s strong internal workings also serve as benefits. In 2005, Fortune Magazine listed McDonald's as the "Best Place to Work for Minorities." McDonalds also invests more than $1 billion annually in training its staff, and every year more than 250,000 employees graduate from McDonald's specialized training facility called Hamburger University [4]. McDonalds also offers scholarships and opportunities to earn college credits for their employees who are still in school [5]. Internally McDonalds also has high standards for food safety regulations. While this might not be more to avoid lawsuits than to take care of their customers, McDonalds claims to go above and beyond national regulation to bring its customers a clean and health dining experience [5].
Another limit to ethical behaviour at McDonald’s might be training and discipline within the company. For example, if an experienced employee was selected for a course or was offered a promotion, another employee might find it unfair and discriminative. Similar situation could possibly happen when it comes to discipline, for example a manager would treat employees making the same mistake differently and favour one person more than another. If any of the employees made an official complaint about any of those, it could lead to publicity’s hesitation and bad relations between employees within the company and its suppliers.
McDonald has been a well-known and valuable brand for over half a century. The company’s mission and vision is striving to be the world’s best quick service restaurant and formalizing their beliefs into “People, Vision, and People Promise”. “Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value” also became the company’s motto. The company’s first McDonald store was built “in 1940 by the original McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac. Later in 1954, Ray Kroc became the first official franchisee appointed by Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California” (Chandiramani, Ravi). Soon after, Mr. Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, and the McDonald’s corporation was created. The new franchise began to grow rapidly as a result of its