College of Business Administration

Social and Ethical Issues in Business

Club Live

GROUP MEMBERS:

Ricardo Galvan
Patrick Ma
Colette McLaughlin
Mark Mittal

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

In this day and age, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) have become a familiar part of children's lives. No longer are "Just Say No" campaigns enough. Students need alternatives from ATOD. They need fun, high energy activities that meet their social needs but in a healthy and positive direction. That is where Club Live comes into play. Club Live (CL) is a non-profit program in San Diego, housed by the San Diego County Office of Education, that offers middle school aged youths a fun and healthy lifestyle away from ATOD

As a group, our objective was to participate with CL in assisting teenagers to find new alternatives to ATOD. Our goal was to find local businesses such as, Ben & Jerry's, Carl's Jr. Restaurants, and Blockbuster Video to assist CL in providing new alternatives to some of the harmful ingredients of life. These new alternatives would be in the form of discounts to CL members. Whereby, CL members would have an incentive to maintain an ATOD free lifestyle and have fun at the same time.

After Patrick Ma enlightened the rest of the group about his experiences as a Project Specialist at CL, we as a whole decided to concentrate our efforts in that direction. We then sent a letter to Ann Corazza, Club Live Coordinator, asking for her permission to participate in the CL program. She welcomed our participation. Our next step was to send correspondence letters using CL letterhead asking various local for-profit businesses for their support. Carl's Jr. Restaurants, Ben & Jerry's, and Blockbuster Video were contacted. In selecting the for-profit businesses, we searched for businesses that would be able to provide a safe and healthy experience away from ATOD. We received replies from all three businesses. The Carl's Jr. Restaurant at 10745 Camino Ruiz, San Diego, replied by offering CL members a 20% discount on regularly priced items by having CL members present their CL membership card each time they purchase something. Ben & Jerry's on University Ave. was able to extend CL members a 10% discount off any product each time something is purchased. Blockbuster was unable to contribute to CL.

We evaluated our project against all the ethical framworks and came to the conclusion that utilitarianism and ethical egoism were the two frameworks that best fit. Utilitarianism is defined as, an ethical theory that holds that an action is right if it produces, or tends to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. The consequences of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs are harmful to teenagers. Not only are ATOD harmful to them, the people they socialized with are also impacted. This is the most practical theory that we found to incorporate our goal of reaching the greatest number of teenagers in our community. With this framwork, we need to note that it has its limitations. Utilitarianism does not recognize the intrinsic value of each individual teenager. We as a group, do recognize the intrinsic value of each teenager in our community. Let us not forget that Utilitarianism also worked out well for Carl's Jr. and Ben & Jerry's. Offering discounts brings in more business and higher profits to the organizations, and at the same time extends a helping hand to todays youth.

As far as Ethical Egoism is concerned, James Rachels said "Someone may want to do something that is not good for him/herself or that will eventually cause him/herse lf more grief than pleasure-he/she may want to drink a lot or smoke cigarettes or take drugs or waste his/her best years at the race track. Ethical Egoism would frown on all this, regardless of the momentary pleasure it affords. It says that a person ought to do what really is to his/her own best advantage, over the long run. It endorses selfishness, but it doesn't endorse foolishness." By providing teenagers alternatives, it gives them the opportunity to make good decisions.

We feel that our project was a great success. Club Live members will be provided with new alternatives to an ATOD lifestyle. It will become easier for teenagers connected with Club Live to live a healthy life, away from ATOD. Carl's Jr. and Ben & Jerry's will benefit by having an increase in sales. We were glad to see that the outcome was positive for all who participated.

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