Decision-making is a part of the everyday running of any organization which is characterized by analyzing various options. Decision-making is a process that takes into consideration the ethical aspect of the choices in place and where necessary any immoral actions are eliminated and the best ethical alternative is chosen (Mason, 2017). Still, there have been concerns over the aspect of ethics in the process of making and dilemmas that face organizations. Ethics are the guiding principles that influence an individual or an organization to choose what is right and do away with what is wrong (Bouwer, 2019). Ethics are founded upon the actions that humans should take and ones that result in utmost good, bring about more benefits to the society, create a better environment, are driven by fairness, and are influenced by specific virtues. Ethics guide people and organizations on how to conduct themselves as they set the behavioral standards (Stanley, & Neck, 2020). Essentially, ethics are the guiding principles that help one discern what is right and what is wrong.
However, deciding what is right and what is wrong may not always be straightforward forward depending on the environment. As a result, there are instances where people face dilemmas on which choice is right and which one is wrong. In an eventuality whereby something is unable to discern the right choice and the wrong choice or yet the best ethical choice, such an instance is referred to as an ethical dilemma (Bouwer, 2019). An ethical dilemma is a paradox that affects the ability of individuals, a group, or an organization from solving a problem in place. The ability to find an optimal solution becomes a challenge as it may be easy to make a wrong choice that may cause extensive damage. A major example may be evidenced in the case of United Airlines whereby a security officer decided to use force to drag a customer from an overbooked flight. The passenger had refused to cooperate with the flight despite several requests persuading the customer to alight the plane. The scenario led to United Airlines losing a huge pool of its customers as some viewed the whole incident as unethical and a failure on the part of the company (Tian et al., 2021). Such incidences have led to a need to a need to address the aspect of ethical dilemmas in the case of United Airlines, ethics involved, consequences, decision-making process, and recommendations.
Background Information
United Airlines is one of the largest airlines in the world and one of the most competitive international organizations. United Airlines has employed tens of thousands of employees across the world. United Airlines was started in 1916 and was started by William Boeing who stands as one of the most iconic aviation pioneers in the history of the airplane business (Cheng & Shen, 2020). William Boeing has created the Boeing Airplane Company which was the first airline company to make a postal delivery. It was not until 1928 when William Boeing together with Frederick Rentschler among other associates started the United Aircraft Transport Corporation which was charged with the responsibility of manufacturing aircraft and air transport. In 1930, United Airlines was established after the United Aircraft Corporation acquired four major airline companies operating at the time that is the Boeing Air Transport, the Pacific Air Transport, the Varney Airlines, and the National Air Transport (Cheng & Shen, 2020). United Airlines began its operations as a holding company that was providing multi-organizational management.
However, the responsibilities of United Airlines were separated under a directive from the US congress. In 1934, the United States America Congress decided to adopt a policy that required the separation of the manufacture of aircraft from air transport (Cheng & Shen, 2020). United Airlines’ responsibilities of managing multiple organizations had to cease as per the directive. As a result, United Airlines decided to unify all air transportation activities which led to the company becoming an independent entity from all manufacturing activities. During the same period, Unite Airlines continued to exploit opportunities that were available in other states across the United States. Over the year, United Airlines has continued to expand its operations beyond the United States bordering and now stands out as one of the largest airline companies in the world that serve a huge clientele daily.
Business Environment
PESTEL Analysis
One of the most often utilized strategic management and planning tools is the PESTEL method. A PESTEL assessment is a methodology, or framework managers use to examine and manage macro-environmental aspects that affect a firm. In today’s complicated and ever-changing business climate, United Airlines must deal with regulatory shifts, environmental activism, social trends, technology advancements, and an ever-shifting legal system. The use of PESTEL research may assist United Airlines in determining the primary external environmental influences that affect its strategies and competitive analysis and improve its decision-making process (Bimo, 2022). In addition, the PESTEL study is essential to United Airlines’ long-term business aspirations as it tries to expand and use its core strengths and capabilities.
Political Factors
The political issues include prospective regulation, which might considerably restrict the company’s capacity to employ space in its aircraft freely. The corporation previously pushed against the implementation of new rules demanding minimum size of passenger seats and also the rights of relatives to sit close to one another. These restrictions might raise the expenditure of United Airlines and substantially damage its attempts to accomplish a strategic aim of effective cost management. Additionally, when implementing such an implementation, the manager should consider what is ethical for passengers (Cheng & Shen, 2020). This is because the political climate in which the airplanes operate is heavily regulated and skewed in favor of customers over the airlines. As a result, United Airlines must operate in an environment where passenger safety is a top priority. In addition, the political class has grown tired of the airlines’ dominant tendencies, leading to tighter controls on their operations.
Economic Factors
The economic elements are one of the most significant factors in the aviation business as they constitute a direct danger to organizations’ financial viability. For instance, economic crises may contribute immensely to a decline in demand, especially given that individuals would have little travel funds. Furthermore, the economic factors should consider that people’s decision-making is not limited to rational thinking; economic ethics incorporates moral standards and cultural values (Cheng & Shen, 2020). Additionally, financial crises frequently linger over a considerable length of time, which results in circumstances where airline businesses have to sell part of their jets and fire their workers so as not to declare bankruptcy which should be morally upright. Furthermore, fuel costs have a crucial effect on United Airlines’ determining pricing for their services.
Sociocultural Factors
The socio-cultural issues that United Airlines must address include many problematic occurrences related to their identity and unusual events like the pandemic. Previously, the firm experienced distressing incidents on board, such as taking a customer from the aircraft by force because the plane had been overbooked. Such occurrences have a terrible influence on United Airlines’ image and may lead to a significant decline in many customers. Using force was ethically wrong because the company did not value and respect its customer (Varma, 2021). United Airlines should have taken personal responsibility and handled the situation apologetically so that it would not damage its image to existing and potential customers. Another social challenge airline corporations have to constantly be ready for in case of incidents like the latest COVID-19 epidemic, which dramatically lowered the flight frequencies.
Technological Factors
Technology elements that are significant to United Airlines include the introduction of new aircraft to the marketplace and the creation of innovative technologies for enhancing customer experience. One way to help United Airlines distinguish itself, maintain its image, better equip itself and safeguard its future in the airline industry is to take a more comprehensive perspective on the fundamental ethical challenges that modern technology today faces. This is because customers nowadays expect airlines to give them the best possible service when they purchase their tickets (Bimo, 2022). United Airlines, for example, may enhance its mobile app with exclusive features by constantly innovating to deliver technology solutions that give them a competitive edge. Thus, United Airlines must also contend with the expense of purchasing brand-new aircraft to comply with more stringent safety regulations.
Ecological Factors
Ecological concerns are presently among airline firms’ most critical challenges, primarily because they considerably contribute to the concentration of greenhouse gases. Changing climate is a severe concern for governments and corporations globally, and United Airlines needs to develop new ways and solutions that would enable it to be more ecologically conscientious (Bimo, 2022). Investing in green fuel research, for example, might help the company’s environmental effect be reduced in the future. Thus, to understand what is environmentally conscious, we must distinguish right and wrong concerning the natural environment.
Legal Factors
Legal considerations are strongly related to political factors since the government is responsible for creating regulations that eventually influence airline firms. Presently, numerous rules provide precise and required criteria for airlines to observe, and frequently they conflict with the organizations’ internal operations. Furthermore, since United Airlines has worldwide destinations, it must examine all local regulations in other countries, which may vary from domestic legislation (Varma, 2021). Finally, all these regulations, written or oral, must meet the ethical standards of right and wrong to be accepted in the airline industry. Thus, the regulators must be moral in developing strategies and actualizing the United Airlines strategies that do not violate any law.
Ethical Issues Involved
United Airlines is regarded as one of the most successful airlines not only in the US but also in the whole world. United Airlines has managed to continually serve its target population in different parts of the world. Still, despite its position in the market, United Airlines has been faced with an ethical dilemma that led to the tainting of the organizational image. In 2017, United Airlines through one of its employees was accused of forcibly removing a passenger from Flight 3411 ( ). On April 9, 2017, Dr. David Dao was dragged from the flight after the management of United Airlines stipulated that it was overbooked. The incident happened after the United Airlines management decided to fly some of its staff to a connection point (Sovern, 2021). This was as per the reports provided after the incident which led to a huge uproar on various platforms such as in the case of social media.
United Airlines has, by the powers vested to it by the law of the land, to remove any passengers even those who have paid. In an eventuality whereby a customer is paying for an airline service example United Airlines, there is a set of terms and conditions that guide the agreement between the two parties (Sovern, 2021). In the case of United Airlines’ terms of service, one of the policies provides that the airline has the mandate to cancel the ticket of a customer and a customer can be denied boarding. Despite the provision, the security personnel dragged, Dr. David Dao who had refused to alight voluntarily due to claims that he was to attend to patients the next morning and would not afford to be late (Tian et al., 2021). The law as per the terms and conditions gives United Airlines the mandate to delay a passenger involuntarily based on priorities but their actions involved dragging Dr. David Dao and even injuring the customer we’re out of order (Tian et al., 2021). Further, United Airlines did not listen to him despite having an opportunity whereby he was to take care of patients. Thus, creating a paradox on to what degree each action was right and what was wrong.
Company’s Decision
The United Airlines decision to remove Dr. David Dao was driven by the company policies which give the management the mandate to remove a passenger. United Airlines saw it fit to remove the passenger due to the urgency which required the transit of its staff who were to board a flight to another destination (Sovern, 2021). United Airlines asked for volunteers who would give their reservations and who would be compensated and offered a seat on the next flight. The first three passengers who had volunteered alighted the airplane and only the fourth passenger had not volunteered. United Airlines took the next step in which case it decided to remove the fourth passenger involuntarily to ensure that boarding priority was given to the company staff (Tian et al., 2021). Thus, evidence that the decision to remove the passengers was as per the provided policies that guide the operation of United Airlines.
However, the decision by United Airlines has not been implemented accordingly in that it sparked a significant level of an ethical dilemma. United Airlines through their employees requested passengers to volunteer their seats for the sake of the four staff ended up hurting the organization and the last passenger involved. The use of force to implement the decision arrived at by United Airlines led to the security personnel hurting Dr. Dao who was thought to be going against the already made choices (Sovern, 2021). Thus, triggering a debate on the aspect of the ethical dilemma involved in the company decision.
Decision-Making Process
The decision-making process of United Airlines followed the following procedure;
- Identification of the choices which were to be made: United Airlines was seeking to transfer four of its staff who were to be flown to a connection point.
- Gathering Information: United Airlines had managed to seek information regarding the possible ways and the stakeholder that were to be involved in the whole undertaking (Sovern, 2021).
- Identifying alternatives: United Airlines through its management decided to request four passengers to volunteer themselves and give their seats to the four staff. The staffs who volunteered themselves were to be compensated by being offered $800 and swats on the next flight (Tian et al., 2021). The other choice was to deny other passengers from boarding the airplane.
- Weighing the evidence: The options available were evaluated.
- Choosing among alternatives: Initially, three passengers decided to go up to their seats voluntarily. The fourth seat was taken from a passenger who was not willing to give it up. The first alternative was successful, but since the airplane had already been fully boarded, the flight attendance together with the security personnel decided to use force to involuntarily remove one passenger to create room.
- Implement the chosen alternative: The removal of Dr. Gao was preceded by the use of diplomacy and upon its failure, Dr. Gao was involuntarily removed from his seat (Tian et al., 2021).
- Analyze the results: United Airlines through its Department of Transportation realized that the aggressive behavior used by the security personnel had only helped solve the problem at hand temporarily but create a long-term problem.
Consequences
The involuntary removal of Dr. Gao from United Airlines sparked controversy which affected the company negatively. United Airlines lost some of its loyal customers who decided to seek services from the company’s competitors. The staff who occupied the seats after Dr. Gao was forcefully removed from the airplane were looked down upon by the passengers who had witnessed the incident for working in such an unethical company. Some customers went ahead and cut up the cards that had been provided by United Airlines and posted the pictures on various social media platforms. The Disconfirmation Paradigm provides that the perception that each customer holds is founded upon confirmation or disconfirmation of the results (Sinha et al., 2019). In an eventuality whereby employees are dissatisfied with the performance and expectations, the eventuality results in disconfirmation. Disconfirmation results affected the loyalty of customers and may easily tarnish the image of an organization (Sinha et al., 2019). The ethical dilemma in the case of United Airlines versus the removal of Dr. Gao was perceived as more of a wrong on the part of the company and more of a right on the part of the passenger. The experience triggered a huge public uproar from people who felt that the who scenario would have been resolved differently.
The case of United Airlines is closely related to other ethical dilemmas in business such as Enron. In 2001, Enron was accused of misleading the general public and various stakeholders by providing false accounting information to save the organization from loss of trust from various stakeholders (Petra & Spieler, 2020). The executive at the time was accused of posting fake profits and reducing the actual losses that the company was making. Eventuality, the malpractices that were being encouraged at Enron were made public which saw the stock price of the company lose value (Petra & Spieler, 2020). Just like in the case of United Airlines, the incident brought about disconfirmation results which were characterized by dissatisfaction from the key stakeholders. The people have a set standard that they use to measure the conduct of an organization which influences their perception of right and wrong (Stanley, & Neck, 2020). In an eventuality whereby an organization seems to perform below the expectations, various stakeholders such as their customers become dissatisfied which results in disconfirmation.
Recommendations and Conclusion
The United Airlines case of ethical dilemma brought about huge damages to the company which had taken years to build. Still, the situation would have been handled differently in a way that would have eliminated any tension, stress, delays, and distrust. United Airlines ought to teach its employees that it may have the legal right to take certain actions but it does not mean that they have the ethical right to take certain steps. United Airlines ought to teach its employees that independent ethical judgment is crucial when handling any event over merely following orders that have been laid in place.
In conclusion, ethical dilemmas are part of the everyday running of an organization as may be evidenced in the case of United Airlines. The airline has numerous policies that support the initial actions carried out but merely because the organization had the legal right to remove passengers does not give the entity the ethical right to remove passengers who do not wish to volunteer. Organizations ought to discern between legal rights and legal ethics to eliminate the high levels of ethical dilemmas that may face their operations in their daily activities.
References
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