Running head: H.B FULLER IN HONDURAS

CASE STUDY: H.B. FULLER IN HONDURAS: sTREET CHILDREN AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE
MBA 5211: Organizational Ethics

CASE STUDY: H.B. FULLER IN HONDURAS: sTREET CHILDREN AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE Organizations are continually faced with ethical dilemmas. Though each dilemma may vary in degree of impact they will have on a company, it is essential that a company establish a wise solution to the problem. As we have gathered from this course, there are a large variety of views and theories on how to address these problems in the most ethical way. In this paper I will discuss the H.B. Fuller case in Honduras: Street children and drug abuse and examine the ethical challenges the company was presented with. I
Part II: Analysis of the Case—Philosophers and Theories There are many questions that arise in analyzing this case. What are the social responsibilities of H.B. Fuller to the Honduran customers and employees? To what extent do they need to be involved in addressing the issue of street children abusing one of their products? Did they do an adequate job fulfilling their business mission in Honduras? Depending on the view taken, the solutions to these questions vary greatly. Below I will analyze this case through a couple of different philosophers and theories with hopes of gaining additional insight into the H.B. Fuller Honduras Case. Milton Friedman believed that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception and fraud” (Friedman, 1970). Looking at the H.B. Fuller Honduras case through the views of Friedman, one would believe that the company not only should not have had to address drug addiction problem among street children, but that they did a disfavor to the stockholders by spending their money on the social interest of someone else. Friedman believed that if stockholders and stakeholders wanted to participate in a certain social problem, then they needed to invest their own money.