An interesting article in the business section of the NY Times by Jukie Creswell on the takeover and mismanagement of Archway and Mother's Cookies which might be useful in critical thinking activities in business contexts; see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/business/31archway.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=all
How do business people make decisions and are these decisions (1) in accordance with legal and ethical practices that consumers and others assume should be operating in business or (2) does the need to make a profit justify any decisions or actions as long as one is "ahead" in some sense of the word when the business music stops and its too late for people to realize that there are no chairs to sit on? To give some sense of the issues involved, consider the following quote: |SITTING in his office late one evening in April last year, Keith Roberts, |the director of finance for the Archway & Mother's Cookie Company, |stared in shocked silence at the numbers on his desk. | |He knew things had been bad - daily reports he had been monitoring |for six months showed that cookie sales at the company had been dismal. |But the financial data he was looking at showed much more robust sales. | |"Where on earth had all of these sales come from?" Mr. Roberts recalls |thinking to himself. | |Tired, but intrigued, he began digging through orders and shipping and |inventory records until, well after midnight, he reached the conclusion |that Archway, based in Battle Creek, Mich., was booking nonexistent sales. | |He reasoned that sham transactions allowed Archway, which was owned |by a private-equity firm, Catterton Partners, to maintain access to badly |needed money from its lender, Wachovia. Mr. Roberts's investigation |eventually caused Wachovia to pull its financing lines, helping to push Archway |into bankruptcy last fall. Two other food companies picked off much of its |assets earlier this year for $42 million and are churning out the brands' cookies |again. As someone who grew up with a preference for Archway oatmeal cookies I am sad to see a once good business driven into bankruptcy but made even sadder that it was driven into this state because some "suits" decided to maximize profits instead of making the best product they could. I wonder if anyone teaches a ciritical thinking course for business majors and whether they cover issues of whistle-blowing and how to withstand pressures to conform and keep silent about illegal and/or unethical business practices? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
