Blog #6: Inside Amazon

Authors: Anvith Potluri, Kevin Li, Kevin Nguyen, & Varad Thorat

Amazon in recent times has had a meteoric rise in the retail industry, with a significant competitive advantage over many other companies also in the industry. By utilizing technology, Amazon has been able to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, Amazon may have gone too far with technology, with many innovations utilized to track their workers. We believe that Amazon is overstepping the ethicality line by exercising overbearing controls on their workers, which is not a display of ethical leadership.

As a company that receives business subsidies and tax-break incentives, Amazon has a responsibility to help the local community and its employees. According to Yeginsu, Amazon has recently created a wristband that can aid workers to sort items faster and more efficiently. However, this compromises the privacy of its workers by giving Amazon information about where workers are at all times. While this may be for the benefit of efficiency, the privacy of the Amazon workers is completely disregarded. In a utilitarian point of view, this may maximize profits, but from a virtue based framework, this certainly is not the best possible course of action. 

In contrast, Amazon is doing their best for the community. Even though workers may be funneled into maximizing efficiency, on the flip side, the community does benefit. With the presence of technology, the consumers of products will be happy that their products can be delivered promptly. This product delivery enables Amazon.

Overall, the benefits do not seem to outweigh the cons of Amazon’s actions toward its workers in terms of ethicality. Therefore, their technology’s role is harmful. While this is an important part of society, it needs to change so that the workers are not constrained. While Amazon is trying to maximize their profits for the benefit of the community, it is throwing away its own ethicality in the process.

Sources:

Green, Dennis. “A New Study Found That 700 Amazon Employees in Ohio Are on Food Stamps.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 15 Jan. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-stamps-in-ohio-2018-1. Yeginsu, Ceylan. “If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know. (And Amazon Has a Patent for It.).” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/technology/amazon-wristband-tracking-privacy.html.