CASE STUDY

Case Study

Case Study: It's Only Food!

Introduction

The food services business (in-house dining for patients, outpatients, staff and doctors) of a major non-profit cancer center that provides both inpatient and outpatient care, is facing a problem of declination in the sales of the business. It has been identified in a Board of Trustees Meeting through a survey that people do not like the taste of the food and considers it lesser in quantity and higher in price. The trustees also learned that the menu was change after the recommendation was made by the CEO to offer the patients and employees healthy and nutritional food instead of junk food. However, the decline in sales is the matter of concern for the VP of the Food services as well as for the management, who wants to maintain the food services offered by the facility as profitable. In this connection, this paper will answer the following four different questions to extract the remedy of this situation.

Question 1: To what extent should we allow the customer to make choices about the food that is served in the public dining areas? Should revenue matter more than mission?

In any business whether profitable or not for profit, the decision to purchase commodity or obtain the services of the organization depends mainly on the customers preferences and choice. No entity either private or not for private has the right to force its customers to purchase commodity or services from them. Consumer ethics deals with issues pertaining to moral behavior in consumer markets. Because consumers are an integral part of the business process, it is imperative to understand both the underlying motivations for their propensities for buying ethical products and the reasons why some engage in unethical practices, which may be helpful in curtailing many questionable practices. Consumer ethics deals with a variety of issues such as willingness to benefit from questionable actions, consumer reaction to ethical transgressions by sellers, the perception of company ethics and product purchase, willingness of consumers to pay for socially acceptable products, and the emergence of reasons for consumer boycotts of business organizations. Though, this case is quite different and the organization has a vision to work for betterment of health of the people, but it cannot force patient to eat from the in house café. There is no doubt that customers are completely free by the law or regulation to eat and drink whatever ...