Essay Sample on Sky Inn's Pizza Business Decline: David & Helena's Story

Introduction

One of the parties involved in each case is David, the general manager for the Sky Inn in Miami. Another party is Helena Barneda, the restaurant and foodservice manager at the Inn. Barneda noticed a decline in the foodservice business. According to Barneda, the decline in the foodservice business was because of the national sales of pizza delivery as well as an increase in empty pizza boxes that were not from the hotel found in guest rooms. Due to that, Barneda decided to start making pizzas for their guests and offer room service to any guest who would wish to have their pizza.

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Even though Barneda's decision to offer pizza room service had success, questionnaires filled by guests revealed that they had an issue with product quality. She assumed that the guests did not like the pizza quality because of a mismatch between the hotel's image and guest's prospect of the pizza quality. Based on that assumption, Barneda decided to write a proposal to David, outlining that the hotel needs to start making their pizza, but dissociating their pizza from the Sky Inn's name and instead, use the name pizza Toscana. Also, in the proposal, Barneda indicated that the hotel should create pizza Toscana brochures and give it to guests, have room service pizza delivery people who will wear the pizza Toscana uniforms, and have boxes that will indicate the same name. When guests need pizza, they will have to call the number in the brochures and have it delivered. All this while, guests will believe that they are ordering pizza from pizza Toscana yet it is the Sky Inn hotel that prepares it. David is yet to reply to the proposal.

Ethical Issues for Each Party

For each party, the ethical issue presented is ignorance. For two years, Barneda, the restaurant and foodservices manager for the Inn, noticed that there was a decline in the room service business but did not take apt action. Besides, that, David, on the other hand, failed to do his role as a general manager to investigate the activities of the restaurant that would enable him to notice the declines in the room service business. As a general manager, David had to be knowledgeable of the hotel business and organization of every department in the Sky Inn. Since he was unaware of the declines in business for up to two years, that means that he was not fulfilling his role of ensuring that the revenues of the hotel have declined because guests no longer order for room services.

Another issue presented is that of false advertising and marketing. Since guests have complained of the quality of pizza's, Barneda wants to dissociate the hotel from the pizza name and use that by pizza Toscana. Deceptively, the pizza will be the same but the box and room service agents will be different. Nuseir (2018) examined the issue of false advertising in business. According to him, businesses need to be honest in their advertising to ensure that consumers make informed decisions. Unquestionably, Barneda is unethical in her decision to falsely advertise the pizza to increase the room service business.

How each Party's Ethical Issues Relates to Other Parties

David and Barneda's ethical issues relate to one another because, for over two years, they did not take any action regarding the room service business. When guests visit a hotel, room service, particularly food, is always significant to them. As a general manager, David would have reviewed the annual financial statements of the Sky Inn and noticed that there was a significant decline in the room service business. More so, Barneda would have done the same thing instead of waiting for a long time to take action. In both parties, the issue of ethical ignorance arises. In both, the ignorance of basic rules and procedures apply. Specifically, David has the role of ensuring that he knows which areas in the hotel thrive and notice the one that has challenges. As managers, it was their duty to ensure that the hotel thrives in each of their departments to prevent any decline in sales. Their ignorance prevented them from making decisions that would benefit the hotel. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016) talked about the means and ends of corporate governance. As he stated, businesses should ensure that they work in the best interests of shareholders to maximize their wealth. As explained in the section, David and Barneda failed to do their jobs of establishing a decline in business and work in the best interests of their guests to ensure that they are satisfied with the quality of services.

Possible Solutions to Each Party's Ethical Issues

To practice ethics in the hotel business, David should decline Barneda's proposal to falsely advertise the delivery of pizza. Besides that, Barneda should not proceed with her action of falsely advertising the pizza to the guests. Instead, both of them should hold a meeting to discuss what they should do to increase sales in the room service business. For example, they should resend the questionnaires to guests and include a section where guests could explain why they are unsatisfied with the quality of the hotel's pizza. The use of questionnaires will enable David and more so Barneda to know what ingredients they should add or omit when preparing the pizza. Besides, they should work on making the pizza according to the guest's preferences. They could consider changing the pizza chef and hire one who is known for making tasty pizza. Another possible solution that Barneda could take is to request benchmarks with pizza Toscana to gain insights on how to prepare tasty pizza that guests would like.

False advertising is an issue that can be detrimental to businesses. Nuseir (2018) indicated that due to the rise in competition, most businesses are engaging in the transfer of false information as a marketing strategy. As the author explained further, misleading information is unhelpful to the consumer because once they realize that they acted on untrue information, the business will have negative ratings. In this case, when guests could notice that the pizza had the same quality but the boxes and delivery people were different, they would stop going to the Sky Inn and that would mean loss of profits. In fairness and considering the aspect of "buyer be aware", Barneda should disclose every information about the pizza quality to their guests to get feedback on what they should improve. Misleading information for quality and place of origin would hurt the business.

Possible Constraints and Barriers that Might Prevent a Solution of the Ethical Issues for the Parties

The lack of personal values and clarification might be a barrier and constraint that would prevent a solution for the attempt of false advertising. If David were to agree to the proposal, then the barrier of the lack of personal values would arise because he would be lacking integrity and honesty towards his consumers. Furthermore, since Barneda created the proposal, that means that she lacks integrity and honesty towards the business. If David were to deny the proposal and Barneda proceeds with the implementation of the plan, then her lack of personal values would be a constraint to ensuring the solutions mentioned above from being undertaken. Another barrier would be the limitations to codes of ethics and conduct. If the hotel does not have codes of ethics and conduct, then implementing the solutions mentioned above would be difficult and pose a challenge. David might agree with the proposal and the hotel will mislead their guests with the pizza to increase their sales. Since it is not mentioned in the scenario, it might be reasonable to say that the hotel does not have a code of conduct in place to guide their behavior.

Bibliography

Nuseir, M, T, 2018, Impact of misleading/false advertisement to consumer behavior.

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, vol. 16, No. 4. doi: 10.1504/IJEBR.2018.095343

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016, 'Business ethics.' Accessible athttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-business/#EndsMeanCorpGove