Reference no: EM133614118
Background
Our Activity places you in the hypothetical position of the Vice President of Human Resources for Company ABC, a firm for whom you have worked a little more than 25 years. ABC is a highly successful chain of retail stores that has experienced strong and steady growth over your career. When you first began with ABC in 1990, its retail outlets were located in one country only, and ABC obtained a majority of its products from producers located in that same country as well. But much has changed.
Over the last two and ½ decades, ABC has transformed itself. Its stores are now located in a half dozen countries, its annual revenues are in the tens of billions of dollars, and ABC sources its products over a score of countries around the world. To date, ABC has maintained six "corporate policy" handbooks (that is, one for each of the six countries it operates in.) What's more, it has had no global code of conduct, nor, for that matter, has it adopted any code of conduct, whether national or global, for its suppliers. Recently, ABC took on a new CEO, Mary Smith.
Assignment
CEO Smith has come to you, the Vice President of Human Resources, and asked you to address the following questions in a memo. As you will see, she asks some "big picture" questions, namely, whether the company should adopt a global code of conduct and, if so, how it might generally be structured. Here are her questions:
Should the Company adopt a "global" code of conduct?
If yes, then:
What should be the code's scope of coverage? That is, whose "conduct" should it address? For example, should it apply to: a) All ABC employees and operations, no matter where located?; b) All employees and operations in ABC's supply chain, no matter where located? c) Both of the groups just mentioned?
How "binding" should the code be? For example, should it set forth any obligations of a contractual nature? What should the Code provide if ABC violates its code? If any other entity subject to the Code violates it? What if an ABC employee subject to the code violates it? Should the code set forth company rights but not company obligations? Should it simply express aspirations and intentions? As you address these questions, see if you can define the purpose you think the codes should have.
Insofar as the code of conduct will address topics concerning Employment and Industrial Relations, would you propose any model you have seen or heard about? A "first generation" code? A code containing the ILO fundamental or "core" conventions? The OECD Guiding Principles? The Walmart Standards for Suppliers?
The CEO will appreciate your best thinking and recommendations on these matters. (Just too be clear, you are NOT being asked to draw up the details of a proposed code of conduct. You are, however, to outline the major concepts of one.)