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ChancellorHippopotamus3024
Situate yourself as an I/O psychologist working for the company you…
Situate yourself as an I/O psychologist working for the company you discussed this week.
Formt your message as a memo for the organization’s leadership.
Describe the problem.
Outline the levels of the organization involved.
Explain the ethical dilemma.
Outline the consequences.
Propose 2 to 3 options for challenging the problem.
Present long-term consequences for ignoring the problem.
The company is General Mills – this was my discussion response
The case i chose was General Mills Nutrition.
The problem was that presweetened cereals were aggressively pushed to children by General Mills’ marketing to youngsters, and for this, the company received harsh criticism. They used a variety of marketing strategies to promote to kids, including banners and signs in-store, social media and television ads, as well as their website. Opponents argued that General Mills was failing to adequately educate consumers about the dangers that the sugar and HFC in these cereals posed to kids and their families. General Mills refuted the critics’ assertions by stating that company had a long history of obesity-fighting activities. Yet, these initiatives faced criticism since they put a strong emphasis on individual accountability. The company’s contributions to the issue were not discussed.
There were a several ethical dilemmas, but the primary one seems to be that General Mills intentionally utilized fraudulent advertising to expand their market share and increase their profits. The ethical dilemma of using substandard ingredients instead of nutritional ones in their products is another. In order to encourage consumers to purchase more products, these sugars, fats, and salts were utilized to improve flavors. By claiming to care about their customers’ health and quality of life, General Mills sacrificed quality products for taste. Although the corporation promoted the nutritional upgrades to customers, not all of the new products were a success (Marcus & Hargrave, 2019).
The consequences we ultimately loss of revenue, being traded up for a more generic version like malt o meal and also class actions. In order to reassure customers about the nutritional value, safety, and quality of the foods it marketed protein concentrate, General Mills had to overcome numerous obstacles. They released Fiber One Protein bars and Alt protein bars in 2014. However, blogs focused on health cautioned that many protein bars, including those made by General Mills, were laden with fat and sugar. Genetically modified food may provide substantial health hazards, including those related to infertility, immunological issues, accelerated aging, improper insulin regulation, alterations to vital organs, and changes to the gastrointestinal system, according to several animal studies. General Mills faced criticism for leaving these additives in other versions of Cheerios, notably Honey Nut Cheerios, after having indicated that it would remove them from the original Cheerios. The company’s Fruit Roll-ups, Fruit Gushers, and Fruit by the Foot were targeted in a class-action lawsuit in 2014 for being loaded with child-harming ingredients like trans-fat, sugar, and food coloring. According to the lawsuit, these goods were significantly different from candy and did not contain a lot of actual fruit (Marcus & Hargrave, 2019).
Marcus, A. A., & Hargrave, T. J. (2019). Managing business ethics. SAGE Publications.
