Forbes article by Bruce Weinstein Discussion Paper

Forbes article by Bruce Weinstein Discussion Paper

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Forbes article by Bruce Weinstein Discussion Paper

By Kyle Teijeiro

1. After watching the video, my initial reactions made me believe that Feuerstein was guided by morals, but now, I do not believe that to be true. According to a Forbes article by Bruce Weinstein, respondents tend to see morals as what the individual personally considers right and wrong, and ethics as a set of codes set externally to display what is right and wrong. When defining morals and ethics in this manner, it makes it clear that Feuerstein was guided by ethics. Towards the end of the interview, Feuerstein admits that most of his decisions regarding what he did with his employees and the factory were guided largely by his religion and by Jewish law. In the end, both his religion and the Jewish law have rules in place to display what is right and wrong, making them a form of ethics.
2. If Malden Mills were a publicly traded company, I do not think that he could have made the decision. As David Gill pointed out in his article, Malden was a privately-owned company, which allowed him to make his own decisions without any worries of how it affected others. However, if Malden had been a publicly traded company, Feuerstein would have had to consider the interests of his shareholders and everyone else with a stake in his company. In such a situation, it would have been much more difficult to make the decision he did, because it would have most likely hurt the wallets of those who had been investing in Malden. Even if he had wanted to do the right thing, there would have been a very small probability that his shareholders and other investors would have allowed him to make such a financially risky move just to appease his own ethical code.
3. I believe Feuerstein has been criticized for his decision for three main reasons. I believe the first and most simplistic reason is that the decision was foolish. I think some people criticize his decision because it was just out-right foolish from a business perspective. To take such a financial loss for the sake of your employees rather than outsourcing your factory somewhere in China or cashing in on your fire insurance and using the rest of the money to live out in retirement made no sense to some individuals. The second reason he was criticized for his decisions was because some people probably thought he was doing all this for his own satisfaction. Feuerstein’s decision to rebuild the factory and continue paying his employees while they were out of the job made the news everywhere, and he was soon being called the “Mensch of Malden Mills.” Considering what a financially foolish decision he had made as the CEO of a company, some individuals assumed that he made such a decision for the sole purpose of satisfying his own ego—to make himself seem “holier” than everyone else. The final reason he was criticized for this decision was because other businesses feared the implications this action would have on them. Feuerstein’s decision was not one that anyone would have imagined a CEO making in that day and age, especially following the Enron scandal; but as it got more and more attention from the news and other media outlets, it must have gotten the CEOs of other companies thinking. If this altruistic form of people over profits became a standard in the business world, it would either negatively affect the public relations or the profits of their companies when the time came for them to follow suit. In order to avoid bringing this new ethically focused form of business into the spotlight, they most likely criticized Feuerstein’s decision under the guise of the first two reasons mentioned above.

References:

Weinstein, Bruce. “Is There A Difference Between Ethics And Morality In Business?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 29 May 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/bruceweinstein/2018/02/27/is-there-a-difference-between-ethics-and-morality-in-business/#2a3a3eec2088 (Links to an external site.).