CASE 46 Making Socially Responsible and Ethical
Strategic decisions move a company toward its stated goals and perceived success. Strategic decisions also reflect the firm’s social responsibility and the ethical values on which such decisions are made. They reflect what is considered important and what a company wants to achieve. Mark Pastin, writing on the function of ethics in business decisions, observes: There are fundamental principles, or ground rules, by which organizations act. Like the ground rules of individuals, organizational ground rules determine which actions are possible for the organization and what the actions mean. Buried beneath the charts of organizational responsibility, the arcane strategies, the crunched numbers, and
Some women in Africa, in their struggle for women’s rights, defiantly smoke cigarettes as a symbol of freedom. Billboards all over Russia feature pictures of skyscrapers and white sandy beaches and slogans like “Total Freedom” or “Rendezvous with America.” They aren’t advertising foreign travel but American cigarette brands.

Cases 4 Developing Global Marketing Strategies Every cigarette manufacturer is in the image business, and tobacco companies say their promotional slant is both reasonable and common. They point out that in the Third World a lot of people cannot understand what is written in the ads anyway, so the ads zero in on the more understandable visual image. “In most of the world, the Marlboro Man isn’t just a symbol of the Wild West; he’s a symbol of the West.” “You can’t convince people that all Americans don’t smoke.” In Africa, some of the most effective advertising includes images of affluent white Americans with recognizable landmarks, such as the New York City skyline, in the background. In much of Africa, children as young as five are used to sell single cigarettes, affordable to other children, to support their own nicotine habits. Worldwide nearly one-fourth of all teenage smokers smoked their first cigarette before they were 10 years old. The scope of promotional activity is enormous. In Kenya, a major tobacco company is the