Target's Unethical Behavior

In December of 2013, target corporation faced a serious security breach where over 40 million credit cards were stolen from different target stores. This paper is going to explore the problem, the background information about the problem, the controls that could have been in place to prevent the issue, the intended plan of control and the associated risks involved.

In today’s 21st century, it takes good ethics for every company to strive competitively to maintain as the best top competitor in their industries; and has its provocations of smart goal as to how successfully they anticipate their business to function, when it comes to finances, attracting and recruiting employees, begin an admirable corporation to citizens, and while showing customers and employees love, courteous, and appreciation. Companies forestall unethical behavior of bad reputation to uphold the organization values. These atrocious speculations can permanently cause decreased revenues and will degrade the company name, sometimes irreparably damaged.

Target is one of the most popular retail stores in the United States, their mission as a company is to continue to strive to provide their great customer services to their public. This will be a proposal that will be focused on the main top considerations that Target is facing when relating to areas such as ethics and diversity. These specific considerations as well as recommendations are analyzed and put into perspective of the overall success of the division of the company.

The Target Corporation Company executives should looks for company's long-term interest and develop a culture allowing decision making for the company that is always ethical and obviously legal. Target Corporation needs to

Lastly, reviewing Target’s letters to their vendors by Virtue theory leads to the unethical behavior by Target management. How fair is it to allow Target to monopolize the market by forcing vendor to exclusively do business with them only or give Target the unfair advantage of pricing. These actions by Target put management in risk of the public review as trying to cheat the consumers’ ability to shop for the best quality, price and

Recently with Target and General Motors is having to deal with the public opinion of doubt in part due to security risks and quality of product. Target has had a well-publicized security breach where customers sensitive information was made available. This obviously will have a negative effect on consumer confidence. It goes without saying in today’s market place and number of choices a person has to purchase a product to include E-commerce, network security is a must. Online market places advertise the use of third party secure payment with trusted names such as PayPal. With a brick and mortar store front, it is assumed or not even considered to be a risk by some. Target has stayed somewhat silent, it seems they are just

Target Corporation is an American retailing company, founded in 1902 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States. The company is ranked 36th on the Fortune 500 as of 2013. The first Target store was opened in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota. Today Target operates 1,934 stores in the United States with over 347,000 team members worldwide.

Target, as a whole, is huge corporation/business. As a business, in order to stay open and run functionally, Target has to abide by regulatory and/or industry standards. The two regulatory and industry standards that are required for any financial, retailer, and/or business is Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). PCI DSS is a global industry standard while GLBA is a government regulatory standard. Target has to abide by PCI DSS and GLBA.

I chose to do my research on the Target Corporation. I feel they have a reputation of service to their customers, employees and community. Target’s mission is great value, the community, diversity and the environment. Target takes 5% of its income and puts back into the community. The Reading and Education Program, The Military and Veteran Support Program and The Social Services Program are just a few of several programs Target Corporation offers to the community. Target has a great reputation to be a positive fixture in the communities they serve. I think it says a lot about a company and the way it does business. I would feel good about working for a corporation like this. The Target Corporation has good ethics and is socially

This case study review will show that ethics and honesty are more important than pleasing the customer.

Costco is the second largest retailer in the world. My family and I have been shopping at Costco for over 10 years now and there’s something different about the wholesale warehouse experience. It’s the vast expanse of products sitting on wooden pallets stacked on two story shelves; the employees constantly reorganizing, inventorying, preparing and welcoming you; and the very fact you’re an exclusive member because you pay $55 annually to be able to shop there. Costco strives to create that ethically transformed organization and embodies that in their mission statement – “To continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices (Fanfare, 2016).” This is Costco’s selling point but they incorporate core values that “serve as enduring, guiding principles that reflect what organizational members find intrinsically valuable (Johnson, 2016).” Costco has created this ethical culture and it reflects in the ideals of its members while inspiring and promoting ethical behavior (Johnson, 2016). This is probably why the average customer, such as myself, keeps coming back.

People know and choose Wal-Mart because of its daily low prices. Wal-Mart sells its bargains every opportunity it gets, and convinces customers forgetting about everything except the low prices. Undoubtedly, Wal-Mart is one of the most successful corporations of all time. However, the tremendous success of Wal-Mart certainly comes with a correspondingly massive amount of responsibility. The strategy of low prices usually comes at a deadly unethical cost. Although some of its business practices such as “Low prices, always”, and helping in saving money are ethical, most of its business practices are unethical.

The public was scared that purchasing Wal-Mart products could kill them. Unlike Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart was not suffering from a murderous product, it was dealing with an image problem and potential legal implications. While Johnson & Johnson was forthcoming and honest about the problems that they faced, Wal-Mart chose to go against its own code of ethics and cover up the problem. While the corporate giant has spent over $650 million on its internal investigation, and it create a Global Compliance program, their actions point to a company that is merely playing damage control instead of a Johnson & Johnson style overhaul.

In this particular case, there is one major dilemma and all other problems seemed to have risen from this one. For the past few years there has been a recession globally. In the year 2008, the recession was at its peak and all industries suffer tremendously. For many years Target grew at a much faster pace than Wal-Mart, but the economy made a radical turn affecting everyone. Target rapidly started to experience low sales as the time pass. As a result, the most important shareholder, William Ackman, demanded a rapid and effective strategy to bring Target’s sales up once again (Armstrong & Kotler, 2012).

Stakeholder-orientated framework, analyzing ethical problems on the basis of whom they affect: consumers, competitors, society as a whole •