Abstract
Ethics is applicable to all professions. Essentially, ethics refers to a set of laws or moral systems that serve as a basis for determining whether an activity is right or wrong. Corporate social responsibility and ethical management are inextricably linked. Rather, they work concurrently and are integrated into the company's values and objectives within a specific time frame. Within the context of business, these two variables function as a single system that interacts and overlaps within a range of permissible boundaries. Consequently, efforts intended to promote one of them must involve the other. McDonald's and Chipotle have maintained their dedication to innovation and quality in the food they serve to customers. In addition, the corporations have participated in a number of corporate social responsibility activities by making ethical managerial pledges. In the two companies, ethics and corporate social responsibility have become integral components of business sustainability initiatives. These organizations have attempted to activate this component by developing management methods that include corporate social responsibility and ethical management based on the community in which they operate. It is anticipated that these strategies will integrate company objectives and issues such as social responsibility, sustainability, and ethics to achieve a balance between financial growth and community requirements.
Introduction
Chipotle Restaurant
Chipotle restaurants offer fast meals in an aesthetically pleasing setting. The burrito brand is a household name that defines a way of life for devoted consumers. The burrito at Chipotle is not merely fast food; it is not junk food. Rather, this dish is produced using nutritious foods to meet the dietary requirements of the clients. The restaurant's corporate social responsibility efforts are designed to demonstrate its commitment to good corporate governance.
McDonald's Restaurant Corporation
McDonalds Fast Food Company has been in business for over twenty years. The company is well-known for its fast food goods, which include, among others, burgers, hamburgers, fries, and soft beverages. McDonald Corporation is a United States corporation. It is a global leader in the quick-service restaurant sector (McDonalds Corporation, 2014). The McDonalds Corporation has over 500 restaurants worldwide. These restaurants are corporations or joint ventures. Rapid delivery of inexpensive, high-quality products are crucial for the company's continued growth. The organization's corporate governance ethics are stable as a result of its comprehensive organizational ethics framework.
Theoretical versions
Ethics and human participation
Since ethical principles include secrecy, logic, good communication, high morals, respect, and the promotion of equality, they have a favorable effect on performance. Essentially, these components constitute the foundation of a good organizational culture. Positive ethical goals are attainable, according to D’Amato, Henderson, and Florence (2009), through action-oriented respect, mutual coexistence, and deeply rooted societal ideals, which are essential for the peaceful cohabitation of all employees. These values are the willingness and propensity to take decisive action after considering the morality of the judgments in conjunction with senior staff (D'Amato, Henderson, & Florence, 2009).
According to Bazerman and Moore (2009), for a company to be successful, its employees must be guided by strong ethical ideals when carrying out their jobs. The ethical code includes of stipulations designed to maintain the mental health and stability of restaurant employees in the performance of their job to serve the restaurant's best interests. These models provide the impetus for acquisition, affiliation, comprehension, and defense. Therefore, an organization's proactive behavior control system operates within a structured reward system (Bazerman & Moore 2009).
Three learning components comprise the levels of moral responsibility inside an organization: a supportive learning atmosphere, concrete learning methods, and leadership actions that foster creativity. To ensure stable corporate governance ethics, Porter and Mark (2006) assert that a corporation must adhere to the highest moral models in all economic transactions. Each employee must comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations when carrying out their duties. Since the system operates within established norms, employees are expected to develop a sense of self-awareness in order to provide quality services and defend the firm as a member of a family.
Integrity and corporate culture
According to Carroll and Buchholtz (2011), the rules of engagement, anticipated behavior, and consequences for wrongdoing should be spelled out in an organization's ideal ethical culture. In accordance with the company's vision and goal statement, these guidelines value diversity and uphold judgmental integrity. As diversity evolves into a positive facet of the company, instances of prejudice are reduced. Positive correlations between effective job performance and the work environment are attributable to inspiring and innate conditions, encouraging security, comfort, and safety, and pervasive physical comfort.
The purpose of punishment policy is to curb inappropriate behavior and enhance work performance. Individual employee performance contributes to organizational performance. Therefore, the business should promote the awareness of individual qualities such as perceptions, personality, values, and attitude in order to assist and support employees in attaining professional competence (Carroll & Buchholtz 2011).
Ethical dispositions and organizational viability
There are three characteristics related with the nature of professional and organizational ethical expectations. An company must first have a proactive social structure. This system imposes social status, roles, and psychological behavior demands on workers. Typically, employee behavior is driven by individual motivation and collective pressure. There are two distinct sorts of social systems: informal and formal. These social systems are interdependent.
The second factor is the shared interests between an organization and its employees. A company should require its employees to fulfill their goals while maintaining discretion and initiative. The third aspect is a discipline that adopts moral ideals and principles to improve and influence the functioning of a business and the behavior of its employees in regards to proper and inappropriate decisions. An ethical corporation should have well-developed moral standards that each employee must adhere to in order to achieve greater job productivity and ethical performance. According to Porter and Mark (2006), these businesses should have internal procedures in place to address cases of misbehavior. Since most firms strive to guarantee that their actions and goals are ethical, it is the responsibility of every employee to maintain a professional demeanor, a healthy mindset, and a sense of responsibility.
McDonald and Chipotle policies and initiatives
Internal ethical programs
To maintain the objectivity of a positive moral environment, the employees of the two organizations are expected to be disciplined, abstain from substance abuse, observe the company's ethical ideals, and maintain proactive inter- and intrapersonal communication. Operating under US ethical business rules, personnel should be aware of the repercussions of unethical activity, such as fraud, duty evasion, and irresponsible duty performance, which may result in severe penalties as outlined in the organizations' ethical and moral code of conduct. Each employee at the two firms is required to play a substantial part in establishing an ethically sound learning environment. This culture is intended to foster an environment conducive to staff innovation and communication. The team work ethics outline the norms of engagement, anticipated conduct, and consequences for infractions. These rules respect diversity and uphold judicial integrity (.
McDonald and Chipotle have stringent policies on drug abuse and firearms. Each employee is prohibited from consuming or utilizing hard refreshments on company property. Employees are responsible for adhering to the strictest social norms regarding the use of weapons and alcoholic beverages in order to avoid dispute with their companies. In addition, employees are encouraged to maintain a healthy personality by avoiding the use of illicit drugs or controlled substances on McDonald's and Chipotle premises or while performing employment-related duties for the company.
It is unacceptable for employees to report to work under the influence of alcohol or other substances that may affect their performance and capacity for rational thought. Each employee is responsible for maintaining proactive relationships with other employees by avoiding physical, psychological, and social problems that could tarnish the company's image. To ensure that all work performed for McDonald's and Chipotle is appropriately compensated, employees are compensated based on hours spent. Therefore, it is the obligation of each employee to accurately report and record time in accordance with the employment contract. Each employee must maintain an acceptable dress code to avoid dispute and possibly disciplinary action, as the corporation views obscenity as an act of neglect and indiscipline.
Both McDonald's and Chipotle provide employees with self-improvement courses and training to guarantee that their conduct in the performance of their duties is consistent with the company's ethical standards. Each McDonald's and Chipotle employee should observe the concepts of ethical leadership when doing their duties. There is more to ethical leadership than leading style. Ethical leadership also entails the decision-making process, which is reliant on heuristic since it provides assumptions, integration of possibilities, and ethical control. Frequently, a decision environment's dynamics and fluctuations have short- and long-term effects on the probability of survival for two alternatives to a problem.
External initiatives for corporate social responsibility
McDonald and Chipotle have recognized the necessity of establishing optimum company governance. Consequently, the groups have been in the forefront of community project sponsorship. McDonald and Chipotle have also partnered with other organizations, like as health clubs, to fund initiatives promoting healthy lifestyles in the surrounding community. McDonald and Chipotle have launched annual campaigns on giving back to the community by supporting mobile health camps that provide free medical services to the neighborhood. These campaigns consist of programs on education trust, health clubs, environmental protection, and the supply of social amenities (Bazerman & Moore 2009).
Circumstances that necessitated the implementation of CSR initiatives
The foundation of the various CSR programs was primarily motivated by a desire to address societal issues through the creation of shared responsibility. The firms desired to eliminate their clients' reliance on government and other private group incentives. McDonald's 'Get Schooled' project, for instance, was motivated by the need to give a long-term solution to the education issue in the United States and around the world. It is a private sponsorship initiative that assists schools with infrastructure development, teacher training, financial aid for students, and leadership development.
This initiative aims to guide and help youth in their professional lives. This initiative is managed by organization workers. Through a cooperation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the company is able to provide education to underprivileged students around the world. The campaign is accompanied by the 'roadblock' advertisement, which demonstrates the effectiveness of community education (Heath & Palacher 2008).
In addition, the need to increase HIV/Aids awareness prompted the Chipotle restaurant to create the Rap-It-Up Emmy Award. Through this program, the organization was able to address the HIV/Aids-related social challenges in various societies. The company's 'Thin Line' program carried on local channels is a project designed to prevent youth drug consumption. Moreover, the company's 'Comedy Central' program has been active in increasing global environmental consciousness (Porter & Mark 2006). The 'Kindergarten to Cap & Gown' program is another another CSR endeavor targeted at tackling global educational issues. This initiative engages McDonald's employees as mentors for kids throughout their formal education and career development (Chipotle Mexican Grill 2013; McDonalds 2012).
The Fight Malaria Initiative was created by Chipotle to involve the community in the fight against malaria. In addition, it developed a program to eliminate hunger and assure women's safe delivery. In addition, it devised a recycling program for women to recycle things into environmentally friendly bags. In Alabama, McDonald introduced the "Save Water, Save Life" project. This effort offers communities with safe water. In addition to scholarship programs, McDonald organized other sporting initiatives such as cricket in 2014 alone. As part of their ethical corporate governance plans, these organizations launched CSR programs to promote social cohesion and provide support services to customers across the globe.
Objective result of these efforts
The McDonald's and Chipotle hope to profit substantially from these CSR programs. The activities are anticipated to boost the companies' presence in various regions. Second, CSR initiatives are anticipated to allow McDonald's and Chipotle to swiftly expand their consumer bases and increase customer loyalty. In places where McDonald and Chipotle implemented many CSR efforts, for instance, the corporations anticipate a rise in customer loyalty and a consequent increase in market share (Porter and Mark, 2006).
Corporate Social Responsibility instills consumer confidence in a company's products, since consumers desire to be associated with organizations that care about their other needs. Moreover, the CSR initiatives are anticipated to improve the companies' relationships with their customers (Heath & Palacher 2008). For instance, it is anticipated that the 'Get Schooled' campaign will acquire the trust of customers who will feel appreciated and respected (Chipotle Mexican Grill 2013; McDonalds 2012).
The CSR initiatives are supposed to demonstrate the companies' capacity to adapt and implement changes in response to market demands. The organizations seek to get a competitive advantage by being adaptable within the environment of technical changes and customer trends addressed by the initiatives (Porter and Mark 2006). This is due to the fact that long-term organizational culture is the paradigm for success and market position. Shareholders have long been concerned about a company's heavy involvement in CSR efforts because they regard it as a conflict of interest.
The objective of shareholders is to receive high returns in the form of dividends and share price. Despite this conflict of interest, CSR measures have resulted in greater profits for McDonald's and Chipotle shareholders. In addition, thanks to excellent publicity and reputation, the market value of McDonald's and Chipotle's shares is consistently stable. In conclusion, a company benefits greatly from CSR initiatives because they expand the company's profitability and client base (Porter & Mark 2006).
Managing human and financial resources to achieve CSR objectives
McDonald and Chipotle implemented a number of ways to successfully manage their human and financial resources in order to achieve their CSR objectives. For instance, the companies chose a proactive collaboration strategy for implementing the 'Get Schooled,' 'Comedy Central,' and 'Rap-It-Up' agendas. Through partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the McDonald was able to successful implement the ‘Get Schooled’ initiative since the implementation process was equally shared, as the financing of the whole project (Heath & Palacher 2008).
In order to further reduce the cost of executing some of the projects, the corporations were also able to recruit volunteers from their human resource. The engagement
