Background and Overview
Discuss about the Ethical Business Practice for Case Study of Rana Plaza?
Rana Plaza is an eighty stored garment building of Dhaka comprises of several garment factories, shops, and banks. These garment factories manufacture clothes of apparel brands such as Benetton, Joe Fresh, Bonmarche and international brands such as Zara, Walmart and Primark (Akhter, 2014). In the year 2013, this building has faced the toughest time when it has collapsed into fabric into fabric bolts due to undeveloped constructed infrastructure. In this incident, more than 1500 people were killed, and hundreds of people were injured. In order to get financial and emotional support from foreign countries and brands, authorities of this building made partnerships with Primark and Zara (Alve & Arafat, 2014). Their local brand and products failed to satisfy the customers as per their expectations, so they decided to involve international brands in their business to give additional value to their services. However, according to the researchers this is an unethical practice as this organization of Bangladesh employs child labors in their company to overcome their challenges. In this particular research proposal, this issue is highlighted by a bad organizational practice and find out some strategies to change theses unethical practices for the future developments of the organization.
Unethical business practices such as employment of child labors is a primary concern thus, must be resolved by the better improvements of the organization. It has seen that there are several well known business organizations like Zara, Primark, etc. involved themselves in a strategic relationship with Rana Plaza. While unethical business practices followed by the Rana Plaza seems to be an important concern in the clothing manufacturing industry, the involvement of Zara, Primark with Rana Plaza raised a question whether such practice is efficient enough of not. Under such circumstances, the researcher tried to explore the business relationship of Zara and Primark with Rana Plaza.
In order to argue whether the business relationship of Zara and Primark with Rana Plaza is ethical enough, the researcher will go in depth to analyze every aspect of the business process of Rana Plaza and the trade partnerships with international brands.
A holistic approach to business ethics should be implanted inside the organization to understand best ethical business practices. The core models and principle components of the business ethic model such as commitments, value, trust, and relationship will be able to analyze the international partnership of Rana Plaza with Primark and Zara. If the researchers will be able to adopt this kind of process and procedure, not only in the present scenario but for future developments Rana Plaza it can be an incredible step.
Purpose of the Research
It has found that more that 172 millions child of age 6 to 15 are engaged in an organization with hazardous workloads, which endanger their safety, physical and mental health and development. After the natural disaster happened in Rana Plaza, with several men and women many innocent children, have lost their lives, which is an unethical issue. However, it is also true that these foreign brands help this organization to achieve greater economic and potential growth after the incident of 2013. But they also support the unethical procedures of child labors employment which also can be greater potential threats to themselves. When such a massive disaster took place mainly because of the unethical business practice followed by Rana Plaza, the involvement of strategic partnership of Zara and Primark with Rana Plaza turned into an important concern. Accordingly, the problem statement is made to identify the partnership of Rana Plaza with international brands like Zara and Primark is ethical or not.
Is the partnership of Rana Plaza with foreign brands such as Primark and Zara is an ethical business practice?
Whenever any organization wants to expand their business in international markets, they must ensure the fact that their business process must follow all the ethical laws, rules and regulations. In this particular research proposal, researchers want to acknowledge the organization about their unethical business practices related to the research questions and objectives.
To identify the business partnerships of Rana Plaza with international brands Primark and Zara.
To identify the reasons for involving child labors in the organization.
To analyze the limitations of partnerships between local products with foreign brands.
H0: The business relationship between Primark and Zara and Local brands with Rana Plaza in unethical.
H1: The business relationship between Rana Plaza and foreign brands such as Zara and Primark in not unethical.
Subsequent to the incident in 2013, Rana Plaza has lost their trust and reputation from the local communities when a large number of families have lost their dear ones in this disaster. Illegal buildings with poor infrastructure conditions are the primary reasons found out by the researchers for this collapse (Aridov et al. 2015). In order to overcome these issues and to stronger their relationship with these international brands, they have adopted the policies and procedures of these companies. Not only this, Rana Plaza engages child labors in their organization which is an unethical issue and must not be supported by anyone. But unfortunately, these foreign agencies also support this factory in their wrong doings. Therefore, partnerships with these brands are not a good fact at all. Rana Plaza forced young girls of age 13 to 15 to work for more than twelve hours, in an unhealthy working environment (Boudreau et al. 2015). This issue addresses the challenges and also provides the opportunity to the business authorities to respond to these disasters and to resolve the unethical practices.
Scope of the Study
Brien (2015) illustrated that business ethics is a critical aspect to examine all the ethical issues by addressing various moral problems which can be a potential barrier to the organization to achieve their goals. Use of low-level ethical practices in a business sector can lead to political, social and economic problems for the company. Whereas, Brown (2015) argues that ethical practices can be founded by justice. According to the researchers who are engaged in this research work, considered the trade partnership of Bangladesh local brands with the international organizations like Primark and Zara. Proper business ethics can be measured by the characteristics of the company and by the characteristics the group or any individual (Campaign & Alliance, 2014). A basic conceptual model of ethical decision making has been shown in the following figure
Figure 1: Ethical Decision Making Model
(Source: Fitch et al. 2015, pp-760)
This organization employs child labors in their production and manufacturing process which is an unethical practice according to the national policies and legislations against child labor (Gockeln, 2014). In those laws and regulations, it is clearly mentioned that below the age of 14 years, no child should be employed in any factory or industry. Compulsory and free education must be provided to the children for their personal and mental developments. If any organization does something unethical like this, that group will be considered under punishable offenses and may lose their business license forever. After knowing all the facts, Rana Plaza engages children in their business to overcome their organizational issue (Grossi, 2016). The shocking fact is that Primark and Zara such reputed brands of Spain and UK respectively, supports Rana Plaza in their unethical business practices. These organizations invest billions of dollars in this garment factory in Bangladesh to support their business developments with significant economic growth.
Haque & Azmat (2015) observed that ethical practices in organizational decision making process often created a biased situation for the managers and authorities of the industries. Researchers have identified that most of the senior managers consider their self-interest and profit while making any decisions. Islam (2014) opined that in this business world, everyone thinks about their interests and profits and for that they can go to any extent and can do any unethical practice. In this particular research work, research analysts noted that Rana Plaza is concentrating on the relationship with Primark and Zara through all unethical practices like child labor engagement. After the disastrous incident of 2013, this organization only wants the emotional, financial and economic support from the international brands and nothing else. In this aspect, political pressure and engagement of stakeholders make internal and external influences on this organization for the development of the whole country (Khan & Rodrigues, 2015). Political parties of Bangladesh like Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party pressurized this organization frequently as Rana Plaza is one of the leading economic sectors in Bangladesh. In order to prove to these political parties, this organization is ready to adopt any unethical process (Larsen, 2015). In third world countries like Bangladesh, efficient legal system and rules and regulations are not applied properly. As a result, ethical dilemmas occur in the business sectors.
Rationale for the Study
Bangladesh is considered as one of the greatest corrupted countries in the world, which creates significant negative impacts on their socio-economic developments. Martin & Economy (2013) opined that this high ranking of corruption has adverse effects on the annual profit as well as on the foreign investments of business organizations. Rules and regulations of business ethics have not been implanted properly (Nelson, 2014). Managers and senior executives Rana Plaza Failed to govern the ethical policies of the organization, so organizational goals and achievements cannot comply with the external laws and expectations. Incident of 2013 has been occurred due to negligence, the poor infrastructure of the building and poor construction management system (Molenaar, 2015). Instead of blaming and monitoring their system, rules, and laws this organization enforced poor children in their strenuous workloads and poor children are also ready to these kinds of works in order to meet their daily life challenges (Reinecke & Donaghey, 2015). As Primark and Zara invest a lot in the business of Rana Plaza, they also do not raise about this unethical practice.
Figure 2: Risk Profile of Rana Plaza
(Source: Akhter, 2014, pp-140)
Effects of the above risk profile framework can be significantly seen on the garment products of Rana Plaza, by which this organization is failed to achieve competitive advantages in the world.
Figure 3: Competitiveness of Bangladesh Products
(Source: Velinova, 2014, pp-2)
According to van Velzen (2013), a holistic model and approach of business ethics must be adopted by Rana Plaza to get back their reputation in this competitive marketing world. Molenaar (2015) illustrated that holistic model of business ethics include core ethical modules which help to realize the organizational issues from a comprehensive perspective. Implementation of Principle ethical components such as values, intentions, and commitments by employing a legal and ethical compliance team in Rana Plaza will help to understand what they are and what they aspire to be.
Figure 4: Ethical Team Management for Rana Plaza
(Source: Martin & Economy, 2013, pp-35)
Larsen (2015) mentioned that use of research design in a research proposal is a sequential and continuous approach that helps the researchers to generate an appropriate result from the research work. This result will help the readers to understand each and every aspect of the research work in details. Research design engages proper research plans and methods to analyze collected data and information. Most of the researchers use three kinds of research design for their research work. These include descriptive research, exploratory research, and explanatory research. These several types of research design help to understand the hidden concepts of the research topic well. Explanatory research contributes to obtain several ideas and concepts which are crucial to complete a research work. On the other hand, exploratory research design illustrates the occurrence of events and their impacts on the research study. The descriptive design aims to gain deep details of the incidents with proper descriptions. For this particular research study, explanatory research design is adopted by the research analysts to complete the whole work and to derive an accurate result from the research study.
Research Purpose and Questions
The whole research work is conducted by interview sessions with the employees and managers of Rana Plaza. A one to one session is held for the Primark and Zara employees. Survey questionnaire will be distributed to the employees of Zara and Primark for getting their feedback on this present scenario. Therefore, the total intended population for this research proposal is considered as the employees of Zara and Primark. This will help to quantify the behaviors and opinions of larger intended population. The managers and executives of Rana Plaza, Primark and Zara, will also be considered here for getting their response regarding this issue.
Sampling technique is a critical and crucial aspect of any research proposal which will help to identify the effects of unethical international partnerships with international brands for the development of a business organization and the good fare of the humanity and society. For the employees of Zara and Primark, random probability technique will be considered without selecting any particular criterion. For the managers and executives of Rana Plaza, Primark and Zara non-probability sampling technique will be considered, where one to one interview session will be held at their convenient time and place. So, for the sampling design process employees of Primark and Zara will be considered as a total of 100 and 5 managers of Primark and Zara will be considered for quantitative analysis.
Vital data and information will be collected from online surveys, offline resources such as journals, blogs, and articles. Also, researchers will also use excel sheet and various software tools such as SPSS to analyze statistical data.
Useful data and information are very important to help the researchers as well as the readers to gain proper knowledge about the research topic. Grossi (2016) illustrated that in order to obtain valid data and information for the research study, it is more important to choose appropriate data sources. A collection of data from vital sources helps to extract exact information and result as per the requirements of the research work. In this case, primary data means raw data and information can be channelized to the proposal directly to gain details of the topic. Secondary data with reliable clarification and validations can be used to broaden the topic and to widen the concepts so that a better light will be thrown on the future studies. For this research study, primary data will be collected from the interview sessions and survey, whereas, secondary data will be achieved from online and offline resources for an output of the research proposal.
Research Aim
Collected data and information will be analyzed with proper data analysis tool and technique. Two types of data analysis method can be chosen for any proposal which comprises of quantitative analysis and qualitative approach. Qualitative analysis technique helps to add various ideas and concepts which can be used for future studies and developments of research work. However, the quantitative approach uses statistical data and information and analyzes them to derive the appropriate and perfect result. Researchers have chosen quantitative technique in this case to assess the data. There will be two-phase analysis. Firstly, the detailed descriptive study will be executed. This will help the researcher to validate the data collected. In addition to this, this descriptive study will also help to arrange the data for inferential analysis. On the other hand, the second phase of data analysis will deal with inferential analysis, where the researcher will consider statistical methods like independent sample t-test, regression analysis, etc. Further, the qualitative analysis of the interviews will validate the findings from the quantitative analysis.
Research Timeline
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Table 1: Grant Chart
(Source: Created By Author)
While working on this research proposal, researchers must follow ethical conducts by the maintenance of proper rules and regulations of the code of conduct. The right and wrong set of behaviors help to solve the issue of the research problem with justice and fairness. In order to evaluate the unethical business process of Rana Plaza, researchers have listed out some ethical considerations which will add additional value and standard to the research work. Commercial application of information and data will be avoided to limit the findings of the research work for academic purposes only. During the research study, researchers always tried to avoid any internal and external influence on the participants and respondents who are involved in this research study. Therefore, all ethical standards have been maintained to complete the research work successfully.
The unethical business practice followed by Rana Plaza should not be supported by such reputed organization like Primark and Zara.
[a] Strongly agree
[b] Agree
[c] Indifferent
[d] Disagree
[e] Strongly Disagree
The labor law practice followed by Rana Plaza was one of the major concerns.
[a] Strongly agree
[b] Agree
[c] Indifferent
[d] Disagree
[e] Strongly Disagree
The Rana Plaza long-term compensation plan followed by Zara and Primark is not violating the ethical aspects of doing business.
[a] Strongly agree
[b] Agree
[c] Indifferent
[d] Disagree
[e] Strongly Disagree
It has seen that the organization like Rana Plaza previously violated the labor law as well as followed several unethical business practices. Still, your organization has made such strategic relationship with this organization. Do you think such practice is ethical enough?
Research Objectives
[a] Strongly agree
[b] Agree
[c] Indifferent
[d] Disagree
[e] Strongly Disagree
Do you agree the fact that international trade agreements must be supported by unethical business practices?
[a] Strongly agree
[b] Agree
[c] Indifferent
[d] Disagree
[e] Strongly Disagree
Researchers will analyze the views of the employees based on the above questions with the use of explanatory research design and regression modeling technique. These opinions of the employees are very vital in this aspect, and will help to analyze whether the international partnership of Rana Plaza with Primark and Zara is benefitted or not for these organizations.
Do you support the corruption issues and unethical business practices of Rana Plaza?
Have you find out any benefits from this international partnership with Rana Plaza by going through an unethical business practice and process.
Do you find out any other organization who has adopted this kind of unethical practices and gain competitive advantages?
What are the problems can arise for your industry if it further continues the partnership with Rana Plaza?
What will you suggest to the authorities of Rana Plaza about the evolvements of these kinds of organizational issues?
Method will be assessed to analysis the data:
Thematic analysis of survey questions set by researchers for the managers of Primark and Zara will make understand Rana Plaza that unethical business practice cannot run their business for long term benefits. Authorities of Primark and Zara will also realize that this kind of partnerships can affect the brand image of the organization. Therefore, based on the above data and information researchers will be able to complete the whole work and can achieve greater success.
References
Akhter, S., (2014). Endless Misery of Nimble Fingers: The Rana Plaza Disaster. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, 20(1), pp.137-147.
Alve, M. & Arafat, Y., (2014). Quality of life among survivors from building collapse: case study of Rana Plaza, Savar, Dhaka.
Anisul Huq, F., Stevenson, M. & Zorzini, M., (2014). Social sustainability in developing country suppliers: An exploratory study in the readymade garments industry of Bangladesh. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 34(5), pp.610-638.
Aridov, M., Becker, V., Liu, J. & Werner, A., (2015). CSR in the Textile Sector: European Fashion Firms and the Bangladesh Safety Accord.
Boudreau, L., Makioka, R. & Tanaka, M., (2015). The Impact of the Rana Plaza Collapse on Global Retailers.
BRIEN, P.A., (2015). Re-enchanting fashion: an ecocentric approach.
Brown, G., (2015). Bangladesh: Currently the Worst, but Possibly the Future’s Best. NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, 24(4), pp.469-473.
Research Hypothesis
Campaign, C.C. & Alliance, A.F.W., (2014). Tailored Wages: Are the big brands paying the people who make our clothes enough to live on?.
Chin, S.T., (2014). A Dialectical-â€ÂRelational Critical Discourse Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Aftermath of Bangladesh Garment Factory Disasters.
Fitch, T., Villanueva, G., Quadir, M.M., Sagiraju, H.K. & Alamgir, H., (2015). The prevalence and risk factors of Postâ€ÂTraumatic Stress Disorder among workers injured in Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. American journal of industrial medicine, 58(7), pp.756-763.
Gockeln, L., (2014). Fashion Industry Analysis from the Perspective of Business Model Dynamics.
Grossi, J.C., (2016). Searching for Trade Partners in Developing Countries: Testing Firms in the ‘Fast Fashion’Industry.
Haque, M.Z. a & Azmat, F., (2015). Corporate social responsibility, economic globalization and developing countries: A case study of the ready made garments industry in Bangladesh. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 6(2), pp.166-189.
Hasan, M., Zakaria, M. & Rose, J., (2015). The real politics of Bangladesh.
Islam, S.,(2014). The Political Economy of Industrial Accidents in Readymade Garments Factory in Bangladesh: A Case Study of Rana Plaza Tragedy (Doctoral dissertation).
Khan, Z.R. & Rodrigues, G., (2015). Human before the garment: Bangladesh tragedy revisited. Ethical manufacturing or lack thereof in garment manufacturing industry. World, 5(1).
Larsen, M.H., (2015). Creating shared value: The relationship between business and development (Doctoral dissertation, Universidade Católica Portuguesa).
Martin, D.M. & Economy, I., (2013). Creating Sustainable Apparel Value Chains. Impact Economy, pp.1-41.
Molenaar, C., (2015). Why Customers Would Rather Have a Smartphone than a Car: Relationship Retailing as an Opportunity. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Nelson, J., (2014). Corporate Social Responsibility: Emerging good practice for a new era. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD Observer, (299), p.9.
Reinecke, J. & Donaghey, J., (2015). After Rana Plaza: Building coalitional power for labour rights between unions and (consumption-based) social movement organisations. Organization, 22(5), pp.720-740.
Shafiq, A., (2015). Supplier social engagement, reciprocity of social practices and performance in supply chains (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Western Ontario).
van Velzen, A., (2013). Fashion Statements: Best Practices In Sustainable Global Supply Chain Management.
Velinova, R., (2014). The Case of Rana Plaza: A precedent or the severe reality?. The Beagle: a Journal of Student Research and Enterprise, 2(2).
Bradford, J.,(2014). Fashion Journalism. Routledge.
Carroll, A., & Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and Society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2016). Business Ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Giacalone, R. A., & Promislo, M. D. (2013). Broken when entering: The stigmatization of goodness and business ethics education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(1), 86-101.
Otlewski, D., (2014). The Incubation of Environmental Disasters: Case Study of the Rana Plaza collapse, Bangladesh.
Werner, A., Becker, V., Liu, J. and Aridov, M., (2014). CSR in the Textile Sector: European Fashion Firms and the Bangladesh Safety Accord. Journal of European Management & Public Affairs Studies, 2(1), pp.23-30.
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