Producing Toys - Child's play ?

What is the main ethical dilemma that the product manager is facing? Discuss what will be the most likely decision the product manager will make about this dilemma if he abides by each of the 4 views of ethical behavior. (i.e. Discuss what he will decide if he follows each view). Make sure to clearly mention why.

You are the product manager of a confectionery company in the USA that includes small plastic toys with its chocolate sweets. Having met a potential manufacturer of these toys from the Philippines at a trade fair in Europe, you now visit the company in the north-eastern part of the country to finalize a two-year supply contract. Arriving there and talking to the sales manager, you are able to arrange a deal that supplies you with the toys at a third of the cost currently charged by your Portuguese supplier, but with equivalent quality and supply arrangements.

In order to check the reliability of the manufacturing process, you ask the manager to show around the place. You are surprised to find out that there is no real workshop on the premises. Rather, the production process is organized such that at 6 am, about 30 men line up at the company's gate, load large boxes with toy components on their little carts or motor-scooters and the material to their homes.

Your prospective supplier then takes you to one of these places, where you see a large family sitting in a garage-like barn assembling the toys. Not only are the mother and father doing the job but also the couple's six children, aged 5 to 14, who are working busily and from what you see, very cheerfully together with the parents, while the grandmother is looking after the food in an adjacent room. In the evening, at around 8 pm, the day's work is done; the assembled toys are stored back in the boxes and taken to the workshop of the company, where the men receive their payment for the finished goods. At the end of the week, the toys are shipped to the customers in Europe.

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: managing corporate citizenship and

sustainability in the age of globalization.

As you never come across such a pattern of manufacturing, your Filipino partner explains to you that this is a very common and well-established practice in this part of the country and one which guarantees a good level of quality and no disturbances in supplies. Satisfied, you tell the filipino manager that you will conclude the paperwork once you get back home, and you leave the company offices happy in the knowledge of the cost savings you're going to make and quietly confident that it will result in a healthy bonus for you at the end of the year.

On your way back, while buying some souvenirs for your 5 and 7-year-old nieces at the airport, you suddenly start wondering if you would like to see them growing up the same way as the child workers that you have just employed to make your company's toys.

Individualism view Does a decision or behaviour promote Moral rights view one's long-term Does a decision or self-interests? Utilitarian view Does a decision or behaviour maintain behaviour do the the fundamental rights Justice view greatest good for of all human beings? Does a decision or the most people? behaviour show fairness and impartiality