Reference no: EM133019977
Short Case Study: The Customer Is Always Right
Nancy Marr was the shift leader at a local fast-food restaurant. She first started working there as a summer job for gas money for that old Honda Civic she used to drive. That was more years ago than she cared to remember, and she had managed to upgrade her car to something far more reliable these days. She enjoyed working for this company. The job was hard on her feet, but when she hit the breakfast, lunch, or dinner rush, she was usually too busy to notice.
Today was an important day. Rick Fritzinger, the store manager, had called an "all staff meeting" to discuss the new healthy menu that the company had launched in response to public pressure for healthier lunch choices-lots of salads and new options for their side items. It was going to take a lot of work to get her staff up to speed, and Nancy expected that a lot of the customers would need extra time to work through all the new options, but overall she liked the new menu. She thought that the new lower-priced items would bring in a lot of new customers who were looking for something more than burgers and fries.
The company had sent a detailed information kit on the new menu, and Rick covered the material very thoroughly. As he finished the last PowerPoint slide, he asked if anyone had any questions. Since they had been in the meeting for over an hour, her team was very conscious of all the work that wasn't getting done for the lunch rush, so no one asked any questions.
As a last comment Rick said: "This new menu should hopefully bring in some new customers, but let's not forget what we're doing here. We're here to make money for our shareholders, and to do that, we have to make a profit. So we're only going to make a limited number of these new items. If they run out, offer customers something from the regular menu and don't forget to push the "up-size" menu options and ice creams for dessert-those are still our most pro?table items. And if someone wants one of these new healthy salads, make sure you offer them an ice cream or shake to go with it."
Nancy was amazed. The company was making a big push for this new menu and spending a ton of money on advertising, and here was Rick planning to sabotage it just because he was afraid that these lower-priced items would hurt his sales (and his bonus!).
QUESTIONS
1. Identify which stakeholders would be directly impacted by Rick's plan to sabotage the new healthy menu.
2. Describe the ethical dilemma that Nancy is facing here.
3. What should Nancy do now?