8.3 Ethics in the Club Industry
It’s in the best interest of a company to operate ethically. Trustworthy companies are better at attracting and keeping customers, talented employees, and capital. Those tainted by questionable ethics suffer from dwindling customer bases, employee turnover, and investor mistrust.
What Is Ethics?
You probably already know what it means to be ethical, to know right from wrong and to know when you’re practicing one instead of the other. Business ethics is the application of ethical behaviour in a business context. Acting ethically in business means more than simply obeying applicable laws and regulations. It also means being honest, doing no harm to others, competing fairly, and declining to put your interests above those of your company, its owners, and its workers. If you’re in business, you need a strong sense of right and wrong. You need the personal conviction to do what’s right, even if it means doing something difficult or personally disadvantageous.
Ideally, prison terms, heavy fines, and civil suits would discourage corporate misconduct, but, unfortunately, many experts suspect this assumption is a bit optimistic. Whatever the condition of the ethical environment, one thing seems clear: the next generation entering the business—which includes most of you—will find a world much different than the one that waited for the previous generation. Recent history tells us in no uncertain terms that today’s business students, many of whom are tomorrow’s business leaders, need a much sharper understanding of the difference between what is and isn’t ethically acceptable. As a business student, one of your key tasks is learning how to recognize and deal with the ethical challenges that will confront you. Asked what he looked for in a new hire, Warren Buffet, the world’s most successful investor, replied: “I look for three things. The first is personal integrity, the second is intelligence, and the third is a high energy level.” He paused and then added: “But if you don’t have the first, the second two don’t matter” (Gostick & Telford, 2003).
People have very different ideas about what’s ethical and what’s not. So, how does a business get all of its employees on the same page regarding how they behave? Laws and regulations—state, federal, and international—are an obvious starting point for companies, their executives, and employees wanting to do the right thing.
Further, companies that sell to the government must, by law, follow stringent ethical guidelines. These companies tend to make such guidelines their policy because it is easier to ensure that the federal regulations are followed all of the time than only when selling to the government; this is true for golf suppliers and distributors.
Companies are also adopting ethics codes that provide general guidelines about how their employees should behave. Many firms require employees to undergo ethics training to know what to do when they face tricky ethical dilemmas. Large corporations have begun hiring “chief ethics officers” to ensure ethics are correctly implemented within their organizations. The American Marketing Association has also developed a code of ethics that discourages bribery and other practices, such as disparaging a competitor’s products unfairly and encouraging treating one’s suppliers equitably.
All things equal, companies want to do business with responsible firms. They don’t want to be associated with firms that are not. Why is this important? Because that’s what consumers are increasingly demanding. A few years ago, Nike and a number of other apparel makers were lambasted when it came to light that the factories they contracted with were using child labour and keeping workers toiling for long hours under terrible conditions. Nike didn’t own the factories, but it still got a bad rap. Today, Nike, Inc. uses a “balanced scorecard.” When evaluating suppliers, it looks at their labour-code compliance along with measures such as price, quality, and delivery time. During crunch times, it allows some Chinese factories latitude by, for example, permitting them to adjust when employees can take days off (Roberts et al., 2006).
Ethics at the Club
“Social interactions and service are created by the employee at the same time it is consumed by the customer. At the club, members expect and value service, advice, rapport, and attention, and above all, they want to trust. Old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing is a prevalent part of a social environment and the genesis of Public Relations (PR). Ethical behaviour and ethical code of conduct guidelines for members, guests, and staff help to ensure a Club’s positive reputation needed for effective marketing strategy.” – Colin Robertson
A Manager’s “Cautionary Tale”
Key Takeaways
Ethics come into play in almost all business settings. Business-to-business markets are no different. For example, unlike B2C markets, offering customers perks is very common in B2B settings. In many foreign countries, government buyers demand bribes to be paid if a company wants to do business with them. Understanding the laws and regulations that apply to their firms is an obvious starting point for companies, their executives, and employees in terms of knowing how to act ethically. Companies are also adopting ethics codes that provide general guidelines about how their employees should behave, requiring their employees to go through ethics training and hiring chief ethics officers. Companies want to do business with firms that are responsible. They don’t want to be associated with firms that are not. Why? Because they know ethics are important to consumers and that they are increasingly demanding firms to behave responsibly.
“Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility for the Golf and Club Industry” from Business Fundamentals for the Golf & Club Industry by Robert Foster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
“4.6 Ethics in B2B Markets” from Principles of Marketing by [Author removed at the request of original publisher] is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
