Sears Case Study

Question 1) Identify the ethical issues using a consequentialist and a deontological perspective. Using a consequentialist perspective, I can understand to a certain degree why Sears implemented their new productivity incentive plans in all of their auto centers. This approach focuses on the results, or consequences, of the action or decision. Upper management’s primary goal was to increase profits as much as possible after years of declining sales and profits. In order to achieve this result, they decided to develop more of a commission based pay for everyone involved in the auto center in order to motivate employees to achieve higher sales. Using this new approach would likely result in positive results for all stakeholders involved other than the customers. Mechanics and service advisors would have the opportunity to make more money if they were able to make more sales, and with that the company would be able to achieve higher profits. The problem with this approach is that the customers were likely to end up worse off than before if the mechanics and service advisors decided to take advantage of them for their own good. People will ultimately do what is rewarded in the workplace in order to receive praise and the rewards that come with it regardless of how they got there. So mechanics started to lie about problems with the vehicles that came in and would perform unnecessary repairs for no reason other than to help meet their daily or weekly quotas. This was a consequence of management’s new incentive program they installed which said nothing of being ethical or doing what is right for the customer. They simply told their employees they wanted higher sales, and by saying nothing about how to achieve those sales they were basically inferring that anything goes. Using a deontological perspective, there are many problems that can be seen with Sears new incentive program. A deontologist focuses on doing what is right and bases their decisions off