Gap’s Evolving View of Ethics

Do you think that the customers are impressed with the effort that Gap has made to respond to the need to have more worker-friendly suppliers?

The case shows that Gap has made efforts to settle the wages and safety violations experienced by the labourers in their company. These issues were faced by Gap in the early 1990s and it had a huge impact on the operations of the company. Gap made efforts to evaluate the abuses faced by the labour force in their factories and built a monitoring system for that. However, it was overcome by the company and gradually affected the customers in this concern. When Gap made itself into the “Best 100 corporate citizens” in 2006, it helped them achieve the most satisfaction of customers. They came to know that the company has made efforts in their supplier and labor base, to maintain the customers of the company.

The Gap explored wage, health, and safety issues in its plants. What other issues might the company explore if it wants to ensure the best working conditions possible?

When the company realized the health, safety, and wage issues, they tried to solve it with the best possible solution. However, other ethical issues were also to be sorted out, like the physical abuse labourers would experience. Also, as the case says, they came to 100 countries from 136, where they performed their operations just because of the violations the company was witnessing. They also need to focus on developing their global business as they did before, and implement the ethical way of business. Without ethics, a business or any entity cannot produce good results (Cook, 2017). An appropriate leadership can solve their ethics problem, where the company provides training to the leaders and ultimately helps the workflow of the company.

In general, are stockholders in the Gap more interested in revenues and profits than good wages and working conditions?

Generally, stockholders’ main interest is to have a good revenue and profit situation. Stockholders are the people who are responsible for the supplies and manufacturing and also tend to increase the profit parallel to it (Jory, Ngo & Susnjara, 2017). In the Gap case, the investors of the company filed a report to the stockholders to provide a transparent record of the company, whereas Gap gave a problem-solution report instead of a detailed report of the company. Stockholders in this regard, are having their focus on the ethics of the company, where they want to overcome the issue of wages and safety which is being faced by the company. They are focusing more on the problem of social responsibility, which was, however, lacking by the company.

What concerns might a Gap employee working in one of its stores have because of its social stance?

Employees of a company are the main factor in production and operations and should feel safe and satisfied by the company. However, in the Gap case, the employees were having a lot of problems regarding their work and social causes. The labor department was facing the issue of working overtime and not getting any extra money for that. They were also facing wage violations, where the company was not paying them on time. The main reason was their physical abuse, where the company was not providing any safe machines which were used in the production process. As a result, the employees were having injuries, and the work efficiency was affected by this. Socially, the employees might not feel safe and confident due to the atmosphere Gap has created. They might not be able to think well about the company as the company is not being fair to them. However, Gap has now overcome these issues, and it is now a multinational shoe and clothing retailer.

References

Cook, J. A. (2017). Moral Sentiment: Investigating the Roles of Ethics and Affect in Determining Asset Returns.

Jory, S., Ngo, T., & Susnjara, J. (2017). The effect of shareholder activism on bondholders and stockholders. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 66, 328-344.