Ethics and Strategy

Essay by billyg May 2005

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The question is, what is ethics and does ethics influence a person's decision-making skills. Ethics is the study of morality, the evolved capacity to bring reason to issues and situations that our moral traditions do not equip us to handle as well as we might (Center for Ethics, 2003). There are many things that may influence or impact how a person makes decisions. I believe that ethics is a major factor that people either consciously or subconsciously weigh before making their decision. Ethics can impact financial decision making or any decision making for that matter in many different ways.

The financial management objectives of General Motors Corp. at this time is to avoid breakup or bankruptcy, these are the ghosts of GM's future. The leaders of GM have some very important decisions to make.

One decision is what to do with the price of the vehicles. This decision is both strategy and ethical.

Raising the prices of the cars up and taking advantage of the consumer poses some ethical questions. Is it right to take advantage of our customers finances when we are the ones that are struggling. Or do we not raise the prices and have to close some factories or possibly take away benefits from the employees such as medical, dental and pension plans (which were guaranteed in the contract ending January 2007)? This would potentially create hardship for the employees. Car customers like a bargain, but they aren't stupid - they want the best car or truck, period.

The question of what else GM can do to eliminate expenses and raise revenues has come up many times. Too often, GM compromises on engineering so that its models can go into selected plants to keep up production volume. Decisions such as these will save engineering dollars and will...