Strategic management of ethical issues

The success of Persimmon PLC in the future depends critically on its strategic management of ethical concerns. If these problems are ignored, the company's current and future operations will be impacted and its current and future image will be distorted. Gender equality and gender diversity are two of the company's most serious ethical issues (Ovseiko, et al. 2017). The corporation must immediately take into account the global labor market's shifting trend and identify the affects created as a result of these changes, given the current circumstances. Recent reports indicate that women are now growing into equal recognition in the labor market and they have made a significant impact that is now felt globally in major industries, including the construction industry. Therefore, the disregard of gender equality and diversity, as noted in many subsidiaries of the company is cultivating a potential ground for the company future losses and failure.
Nonetheless, the management Board has established standards to regulate gender diversity. These measures have worked well at the senior level of management and partly in the subsidiary and middle level of management. As also noted, most of the management efforts are only towards updating the employment policies and enhancing equal opportunities for every employee without centering into the core issues of establishing gender equality and diversity throughout the company subsidiaries and all management levels. It is thus in good interest to advocate for a need to consider gender equality and diversity. This transformation will link the company with changed societal perceptions and at the same time establish equal opportunities that will promote women involvement in the company activities. It will also result in a reformed company culture and consequently develop a new trend that considers women as critical and constructive resources in all fields of the company (French & Strachan 2015, p.3).
Responsible Management and Cooperate Social Responsibility
In business development, responsible management and cooperate social responsibility are considered to define the external and internal activities of the company and also result in a successful long-term operation of company subsidiaries. These two considerations determine the process of decision making in the company and make it subjective to the already established organizational culture. The organizational culture, referred in this case, influences the behavior company employees which upshot to impacting on the productivity and management efficiency of the company. Still, the organizational culture will determine the perceptions of the management to make decisions based on different theoretical explanations on responsible management and corporate social responsibility of the firm (Khojastehpour & Johns 2014).
Consequently, it is expected of the management to give different implications and identifications of ethical issues as relates to corporate social responsibility. Referring to Friedman theory, a company like Persimmon PLC is formed to make profits and not CSR. The theory illustrates the work of cooperate social responsibility to performed by the nonprofit social organization and the government (Sprinkle & Maines 2010). The assumption underlying the theory, which to some companies is identified as null, is the double exchange system whereby CSR costs incurred by the company are rumored to be reimbursed by the customers of the company through the purchase or payment of the company services. This theory gives a no benefit consideration of cooperate social responsibility, and it views those companies capitalizing on CSR to be covering their real intentions and making a false image to the public.
Moreover, the stakeholder theory by Freeman gives a different thinking about Persimmon PLC. This model identifies meet the stakeholder's interest as the company's major goal and not profit making as identified by Friedman. Freeman gives and new impression of a company which acts as the reminder on uneven interest from the company stakeholders. As per this theory, it is well to note that every stakeholder of Persimmon PLC has different interest on the company and it is the role of management to work towards meeting the supreme will of these stakeholders. Moreover, the stakeholders' interests, as represented in this theory, must be a major goal of why the company exists hence disqualifies the prior assumptions of the company to be entirely formed for profit-making purposes. The reasoning gives a new reason of why the company should engage in CSR (Jorge, et al. 2015)
The stakeholders of the company, that is, company clients, suppliers, and stockholders, have a share of contribution towards the company success and the involvement of the company in CSR should foremost consider the interest of the stakeholders as a priority. The argument of Friedman on the exploitation of the company clients' costs works against the interest of the company clients. Nevertheless, Freeman assumptions give a new thinking of why the company should employ CSR and what should be the considerate reason of CSR in the company. From this analysis, the reason and thinking about CRB is changing, and now the identification of CSR in the company is more entangled in meeting the company stakeholders' interests (Khojastehpour & Johns 2014).
Carroll model adds more to the above assumptions new ingredients that make CSR a phenomenon of the current age (Carroll 2016). The pyramid of social responsibility as provided by Carroll first considered the economic factors, identifiably the company profits and then the legal, ethical and philanthropic (Sprinkle & Maines 2010). The first view of CRB, as identified by Carroll considers Friedman's assumption and the four of them involves Freeman thinking about the social responsibility. Therefore, CSR, as identified, is a critical issue which is more than the narrow escape of creating the company image. The current business world as identified CSR as the builder of the company image and they expect every company to perform a CSR although not all cases. Ultimately, the most impressive thing in CSR is the consideration of ethical issues, which among them involves gender issues that the company has neglected to consider.
Ethics Theories
Responsible management is imperative to the level of ethics that the company will employ. The management of the company needs to give a wide consideration in ethical issues of gender equality and diversity hence the necessity of changing the current policies of the company to fit into the changing needs in the current society. Unfortunately, the current identified way of management of the company are irresponsible because they have considered one side of needs and remained rigid to change as per the society changed the perspective on women involvement in the engineering field, more especially in the construction and technical industries (Arena, et al. 2015).
Foremost, there is a fundamental reason of why gender diversity and equality are sensitive ethical considerations. The thoughtfulness of the issues is as a result of multiple other issues that management should consider before creating effective policies. It is also good to understand that management views are different from what the society thinks. At the sometime, the management way of considering gender equality and diversification will greatly undermine the decision-making process which translates into affecting the long-term organizational functions (Ovseiko, et al. 2017). This method of decision making is the exact expression of responsible management of the company and the core determinant of the future survival of the company.
So, responsible management impacts on the decision making and the result of decision making are undermined by ethics involved in the process. The virtue of ethics model gives a comprehensive way of thinking that the decision makers of the company need to comprehend. Foremost, these theory defines the judgmental views on ethicality on the decisions the management will make which will result in the actions of the company: rather than about their intrinsic rightfulness (Crane & Matten 2016). These judgmental viewing also referred as consequentialisms, implies that the company actions are the ultimate foundation for any judgment about the rightfulness and wrongness of the conducts (Van Hooft 2014). This way of reasoning is as a result of organizational environments.
The identified consequentialism is based on deontologist ethics. Deontology consideration views the organizational decision making from moral rightfulness of the rules the company will employ that will enhance gender equality and diversification. It also contrasts with the virtue of ethics assumptions of which, in this case, will focus on the company's image rather than the consequences as a result of the actions the company has employed (Vaughn 2015). This reasoning also implies that the company management should first resolve to build a high image that will make the stakeholders have trust on the way the company will act on their interest, and they will not consider much on the ethicality of the actions that the company has taken to enable gender equality and diversification.
Most stakeholders are likely to measure the resulting consequences regarding good or bad. If the company takes action to fire half of men employees and consider employing more women to create gender equality, the stakeholder of the business need to be aware, and they base their rationale on what they call ethically good or bad about the realized consequences of the company decision (Arena, et al. 2015). If for instance, the stakeholders of the company will view that the decisions to consist of more badness than goodness, they will refer the decision of the firm to be ethically and vice versa. This identification gives four possible responses, as identified by Utilitarianism rationale, that is, hedonistic, objective good and Mill's utilitarianism.
The first response will be influenced by the need for pleasures expressed by several stakeholders of the company. In this case of the company, the fired employees might view the decision of the firm to be unethically right due to the pain which is as a result of losing their jobs. Other stakeholders will view the pleasures as a result of the company actions and measure them according to their intrinsic goodness or badness. They will view the decision of the company to be a good decision despite the consequences and pain it causes other employees. Ultimately, the other group of stakeholders will consider the objective good of the implications of the company and measure each resulting goodness of the company actions regarding higher order consequences. They will weigh the company decisions and encourage more on the company actions that result to the cultivation of higher -order pleasures among themselves.
Likewise, the Kantian theory gives a different way that the company should identify making decisions that will result in gender equality and diversification (Follesdal & Maliks 2013). As per the company needed decisions, that is, to create more vacancies for women, this theory argues against the current situation of the company, and it views all genders to own the same capacity of occupying any positions within the company. It does not consider the resulting consequences but only pushes for doing the right thing despite the resulting implications of the decision. If creating more vacancies for women is a rightful action, then the company is obliged to do it despite the effects of the company losing men employees.
Ultimately, the theory owns that all employees of the company have the right to discrimination and the right to equal opportunity. It identifies the management to be responsible for enquiring equality in the employment process and also other actions that will steer up equality and reduce any discrimination that will be based on gender. Contrariwise, the company has established these procedures and left to consider the respective procedures that will promote gender equality (Kollewe 2016). Besides, about this company situation, which is majorly exhibited at its subsidiaries, a decision to reevaluate employment policies will need first to consider the virtue attributes to the two ethical issue. At the same time, the considerable stakeholder interests, the future of the company and the current consequences of the decisions made.
Analysis on the Company Issues
Now, about the company situation, the old society way of viewing women has changed, any women can work in the construction industry. Moreover, if management changes employment policies, it will need a new change which will be either, reducing the number of male employees and employing more women into the company or employing fresh new women employees to the company to promote gender equality and diversity. The two decision will cogitate on ethics as relates to employing more women into the company or reducing the number of men in the company and its subsidiaries. The core questions that should be well considered in this process is whether the employing more women is more rightful than reducing the number of men or whether either of the decisions is according to the stakeholders' interest.
Foremost, it is good for the management to consider the future need of the firm as pertains to the changing society (Verloo 2016). The argument for enhancing gender equality in workplaces is based on the influence that results in the decision-making process. Women are identified on behavioristic models to possess the power of a diverse reasoning if they are involved in the decision-making process of the company (Leong 2015 ). Creating an inclusive working environment which involves all genders is the foundation of better decision making of the company which will impact on the company productivity regarding quality products and services. This type of impact will result in the first goal of the company which is to meet the stakeholder interests.
In the company, there are still identified existing policies to promote equality and diversity. Moreover, there is also a group set aside by the board of management to ensure that gender equality is established within the company, but the results indicate that men within the company are domineering and the culture of the company views men to be contributory in the construction and engineering functions than women. At the same time, women who are employed are partially or not at all considered in the decision-making process of the company. These two identical issues identified with the company had a resulting impact on the company stakeholders, which in this case is the interests expressed by the changed society (Buse, et al. 2017).
There are different impacts on the society about these situations. Foremost, the society women will not prefer the company products or services since they will feel excluded from the company activities (Barak 2016). Even in the decision-making process, the company decisions will not factor in the interests of women, and they will tend to rely more on men preferences in the society, hence losing a given group of company customers. Therefore, gender diversity will impact on the decisions of the company which will result in the result of the company. At the same time, the company will not meet all the stakeholders' interests, the core foundational goal of the company formation, if it does not consider ethical issues of gender diversity and equality (Cardador 2017). Ultimately, this will impact on the company sales since women exclusivity will result to exclusivity of women luvs in the company product and services hence they will prefer less to use the company product or services
Stakeholder Map on what the Society needs and most significant influence of the managers














The map indicates that the interest of the society is that managers of the company should consider ethical issues on gender equality and diversity. The long-term intent of the stakeholders is to see women involved in the company functions, which is also the next considerable influence that the managers of the company will require to build and enhance. At the same time, the resulting influence of the managers will aim at meeting the two key goals of the company formation, that is, making a profit as the internal goal and building on the company image which will also meet the interest of the society through exercising cooperate social responsibility. The interchange is between what the managers need to do to meet the interest of the society and build a strong basis for the company future operations through considering the current trending ethical issues on gender diversity and gender equality.
Recommendations on the Required Changes within the Company
Foremost, the need for equality will require more women in the construction and engineering fields. Women with experience are also scarce in the market, and the company needs to make an action plan that will help include diversity and equality factors in this fields. It will be a challenge for the company to acquire well-experienced women since the old societal way of thinking only allowed men education in the engineering and construction disciplines (CranField University 2016). So, the company needs to rely on the fresh graduates with little experiences and include the selection procedure in the action plan that will be used to identify best job qualifiers who will replace the vacant position or new positions that the company will create.
The proposed action plan of the company will first involve the way forward of creating vacancies that more women will occupy at all organizational levels of the company. In this case, the company will need to look at the part-time men employees and evaluate on their contribution to the company. Since most of these employees are the experienced one, the company will do internal reshuffling of positions to replace their positions with their counterparts. Moreover, other actions will include promotions which will to create vacancies for new fresh women in the company (Guillaume, et al. 2015). There will be needed a close examination of the employees to identify also most experienced women who will be willing to work fulltime with the company. It will be done through consistent interviews and advertisements that are targeting on specific groups of people with experience, that is, those women who got lucky to train on construction and engineering fields and have worked long enough in the fields.
Also, the identified group of applicants will require intense training process which will be detailed in the actions plan. At the same time, they will be evaluated on their intellectual ability, talents and managerial skills which will help the management to develop the best way of integrating their shared skills for the benefit of realizing the end objective of the company. This process is gradual, and it will take the company more than ten years to fully integrate the system into working. Therefore, the company will be required to guide on some specific issues, which will include meeting the stakeholders' interests, profit-making and increased productivity. This issues will be safeguarded through the employment of responsible management techniques that will guide on decision-making process and exercise of cooperate social responsibility even throughout the implementation of the action plan (Ali, et al. 2014).
Conclusion
The ethical issue of gender equality and diversity are the central concern of determining the future success of Persimmon PLC. The equality principals of the company have not resulted explicitly in the desires of meeting these ethical issues as provided by the current company situation. The considerations of these issues will involve fundamental contemplation on the impacting nature of the company and the stakeholders' views and perceptions about the company operations. At the same time, responsible management is considered as the ethical managerial way that will enable the company to realize and meet the stakeholder's interest. These will be through meaningful actions of the company which will be reflected through involvement in corporate social responsibility (Crane & Matten 2016). Nevertheless, these issues have undermined Persimmon PLC thus indicating a potential risk that will result in the company failing in the future operation. The growing trend of gender exclusivity is alarming, and the company needs to reevaluate on the current policies, consider the ethical issues and make adjustments through the development of action plan that will focus on enhancing gender equality and diversity in the company. This inclusivity will impact on the company decision making processes which will translate into the long-term positive impact on the company operations.


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