In the year 1997, Mattel developed and went public with a code of conduct for its manufacturing facilities and other manufacturers to be contracted. The code of conduct known as Global Manufacturing Principles (GMP) covered several aspects including product safety, wage and hour discrimination, child labor and product quality among other smaller issues. At first, the code was well received and implemented but it later fell apart. The reason why it fell apart was that the management did not see any financial benefit of proactively implementing the GMP given that other competitors did not suffer from not complying with code of ethics (Seth et al., 2011). In addition, with the products recalls that were happening at the time, the management was very busy due to the negative public limelight created by the recall.

Virtual ethics questions ones moral character. Its main focus is the capability of one to have a character choice instead of following the organizational norm or culture. There are different reasons why people do the right thing. One is because it is the law and they are afraid of the consequences and the other one is that the person has a good character and just wants to do the right thing. Virtue focuses on doing the right thing because it is good (Shanks, Andre, Velasquez & Meyer, 2010).

Honesty is the quality of being truthful and fair. In most of the cultures, honesty is considered as the highest virtue. Telling the truth is considered respectful and mindful of the well being of others. It is also a show of strength of character and wisdom. In the Mattel case, there are many instances of dishonesty. Contrary to the Chinese labor laws where workers are supposed to receive 90 days paid maternity leave, GY, CA and MEC plants were not granting these services to their employees (Seth et al., 2011).

This was noted in the first ICCA’s audit. In the second audit it was noted that GY allowed for a one month maternity leave, GY allowed for 45 days. This is a clear indication that the plants were very unjust to the employees. It was the employees law given right to go for maternity leave but the plants only instituted the policies only after they were audited by ICCA. It was not the will of the plants to grant the employees their leave but the policy was forced by the audits.

In addition, workers safety issues were noted especially in Chang An plant (Seth et al., 2011). It was noted that the Chinese plants had not been following the environmental, health and safety measures 9 years prior to the first audit.  Though these plants had initiated these measures, these efforts gave way to the managerial attitude of investing as little as possible with time. Over time this approach led to the deterioration of plants facilities, work safety and equipments.

All these plants had signed a contract with Mattel which included the implementation of the GMP. However, most of them were not considerate of the code of ethics given that Mattel was not keen of enforcing the code. The Mattel management was keen on other things affect8ing the company forgetting that ethics is an important feature in the conduct of business.

Justice is the process of using laws to judge fairly and punish crimes. In the societies people live by some guidelines which are used to judge what is right and wrong no matter what others think. When these guidelines are not followed by one when making a judgment, then that person is considered unjust (Slote, 2010). Again, when the guidelines are not followed leading to the injury of one of the involved parties, then an injustice is said to have occurred. In the case of Mattel, many of such instances are seen. First, at the time of the first audit, the GMP did not have any requirement for adjustment for working overtime hours to address seasonal productions. It had restricted the working hours to 60 hours per week including overtime (Seth et al., 2011). However, the audit showed that half of the vendors were scheduling hours that were more than the 60 hours per week limit.

In some other cases, the consolidated work hour’s permits by labor bureaus were outside the prevailing norms making them questionable for authenticity. This is unjust to the workers given that the laws and regulations as stipulated in the GMP are not followed in the workers treatment. For example the audit revealed that the permits for plants 11 and 12 in China allowed for 1040 overtime hours in 2002 which exceeds the 432 limit set in the China labor laws by 250%. Both the national labor laws in China and the GMP specifications are assumed by the two Chinese plants which is an injustice to the workers who end up suffering (Seth et al., 2011).  There were other unjust issues discovered in the audits which included underage workers, poor record keeping and improper wages.

Fairness is treating people in a way that is not harsh or critical. It is closely related to justice in that it requires all people to be treated equally. For example favoritism and discrimination results in the unjust treatment of some people and reflect negatively on the management. In the Mattel case, the plants especially in China were not homogenous in the treatment of workers.  While some plants showed improved efforts to improve the working conditions, other did not care to offer the basic commodities such as treated water.

Some factories’ continued to use poorly maintained water treatment equipments and air ventilation even after the audits. This was mainly because the collective action on all these areas required a high investment in capital and so the factories choose to undergo these improvements. Such expenses were considered non-essential by some factories (Seth et al., 2011). This presented unfair treatment of workers working in the same company. Mattel had contracted all these factories and with such all of them were following the same GMP and it would be expected that all employee are treated equally.

Mattel being an international ought to have been very vigilant in ensuring that the contracted manufactures were implementing the GMP. However, even before the development of the GMP, the company had been faced with some ethical issues. In addition, the company stopped being vigilant in ensuring the GMP is implemented because other companies did not suffer for not complying with the codes of ethics. In this case the company did not follow virtual ethics since it ought to have made its own choice and not follow the choices made by other companies.

References

Sethi, S., Veral, E., Shapiro, H., & Emelianova, O. (2011). Mattel, Inc.: Global manufacturing principles (GMP) – A life-cycle analysis of a company-based code of conduct in the toy industry.Journal of Business Ethics, 99(4), 483-517. Retrieved from ProQuest.

Shanks, T., Andre, C., Velasquez, M., & Meyer, M. J. (2010). What is Ethics?.

Slote, M. (2010). Moral sentimentalism. OUP USA.

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