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University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses Accounting 5-2015 Fast Food Industry Ethics: Can Employee's Ethical Awareness Be Improved? Joanna L. Moore University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/acctuht Part of the Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons Recommended Citation Moore, Joanna L., "Fast Food Industry Ethics: Can Employee's Ethical Awareness Be Improved?" (2015). Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses. 11. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/acctuht/11 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Accounting at ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact scholar@uark.edu, ccmiddle@uark.edu. Fast Food Industry Ethics: Can Employee’s Ethical Awareness Be Improved? An Honors Thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting By Joanna Lorene Moore Advisor: Dr. Karen Pincus Sam M. Walton College of Business University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas May 2015 ABSTRACT There has been recent evidence that the fast food industry is unethical. Training helps employees learn what they are responsible for doing. Can training on ethics increase ethical awareness? To determine if this can happen, a study was done with the local Taco Bueno employees. The workers were given a pre-training survey, then participated in a case study training session, and finally took a post-training survey. Ethical awareness increased, but the results were not statistically significant in the small study sample. Further study is recommended to learn how long the increase of ethical awareness will last and if future training is necessary. Fast Food Industry, Employees, Ethical Awareness, Training ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my family. Thank you for supporting me in anything I put my mind to. Thank you for the encouragement throughout the years. I would then like to express my sincere appreciation to my advisor, Dr. Karen Pincus. Thank you for spending as much time as you have with me on this project. Without your useful insight, I would not have been able to accomplish as much as I have been able to with this research endeavor. I would also like to thank Ms. Carol Shook for being my second reader. Taking time out of your busy schedule to read my thesis means a lot to me. Thank you. Additionally, I would like to thank Mrs. Michelle Gayon, a Spanish instructor at Ramay Junior High School. Thank you for helping me with my translations of the cases and surveys. If you had not been such a strong encourager during my first two years of learning Spanish, I would not have been able to obtain a minor in Business Spanish. Thank you. Next, I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the University of Arkansas. Especially those of the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Without your support, I would not have been able to make it through these past four years. I would like to thank Michael Gaines and Lorraine Nichols, the general managers of the stores where the study took place. Thank you Lorraine for allowing me to use your crew members as a control group for my study. Thank you Michael for working with me throughout my entire thesis project. Without your willingness to be involved, my thesis would have ended up taking an entirely different direction. Finally, I would like to express my upmost gratitude to my Lord, Jesus Christ. Thank you Lord for putting me on a path to serve you and for leading me in the direction I need to follow. TABLE OF CONTENTS Section…………………………………………………………………………….Page Number Abstract………………………………………………………………………….. i Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………... ii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………... iii Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 1 Experimental Design…………………………………………………………….. 8 Pilot Tests………………………………………………………………………... 9 Human Subjects Permission……………………………………………………... 9 Analysis Procedure……………………………………………………………… 9 Results…………………………………………………………………………… 10 Implications/Recommendations…………………………………………………. 12 References……………………………………………………………………….. 14 Appendix………………………………………………………………………… 16 Cases in English…………………………………………………………. 16 Case One………………………………………………………… 16 Case Two………………………………………………………... 19 Case Three………………………………………………………. 22 Case Four………………………………………………………… 24 Cases in Spanish…………………………………………………………. 26 Ejemplo Uno……………………………………………………… 26 Ejemplo Dos…………………………………………………….. 29 Surveys in Spanish………………………………………………………. 32 Protocol Approval Letter………………………………………………… 37 Survey Results…………………………………………………………… 38 Significant Difference Test……………………………………………… 40 Figures: Figure 1: Rejection Region………………………………………………. 40 Figure 2: Rejection Region………………………………………………. 41 Table 1: Participants…………………………………………………….. 5 Table 2: Dates…………………………………………………………… 6 Table 3: Pre-training Survey……………………………………………... 7 Table 4: Additional Questions………………………………………… 8 Table 5: Question 5 Results – Control vs. Pre-training………………….. 10 Table 6: Question 1………………………………………………………. 38 Table 7: Question 2……………………………………………………….. 38 Table 8: Question 3………………………………………………………. 38 Table 9: Question 4………………………………………………………. 38 Table 10: Question 5…………………………………………………….. 38 Table 11: Question 6…………………………………………………….. 39 Table 12: Question 7………………………………………….………..... 39 Table 13: Question 8……………………………………………..…….... 39 Table 14: Question 9……………………………………………………. 39 Table 15: Analysis of Question 5 – Control vs. Pre-training…………… 40 Tables: Table 16: Analysis of Question 6 – Pre-training vs. Post-training……. 41 INTRODUCTION There is a problem in the fast food industry. Recently there has been evidence of unethical behavior occurring in this field. Not long ago, a Taco Bell employee posted a picture on the company’s Facebook page of an employee licking a stack of taco shells. Though the company has stated that they believe the photo is a prank, will consumers believe them, or will they wonder what else is going on behind the scenes? (“Taco Shell-Licking Photo,” 2013). In another case, a group of young McDonald’s employees was arrested in Louisiana for stealing from customers. One employee skimmed credit card numbers while working in the drive-thru. He then gave the numbers to other employees who used them to create fake credit cards. The group then went on a shopping spree with the counterfeit credit cards, racking up totals of almost $50,000 (“Fast food worker,” 2011). One more example is in Fayetteville, Arkansas, an employee at U.S. Pizza called the police to report a robbery. However the police were able to determine that the employee making the report staged the robbery with the help of his friend (“Pizza Restaurant Employee,” 2011). From these examples it is evident that there are ethical issues within the fast food industry. From working in fast food as a manager, I have personally seen some of the problems employees face with ethical behavior. The high turnover and the young average age of the employees in the industry could be part of the problem. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, turnover is considered the total number of separations from the job, which includes quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations (USBLS, 2013a). In July 2013, the turnover rate for the accommodations and food services industry was 5%. This is third only to “arts, entertainment, and recreation” and “construction” (USBLS, 2013b). When an industry has high turnover it is difficult to make sure that every 1 employee is aware of the ethical standards and the behavioral expectations of the company. Many times employers are focused on getting their new employees trained in the tasks of the day. This can cause other important aspects of the job, such as ethical standards, to be pushed aside. Typically, when someone thinks about the employees who work in the fast food industry they think of teenagers. Many times fast food is the first job of those in the workforce. However, recently, the age of employees who work in this industry has increased. In 2012, the average age of the “combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food” was 29.2 (USBLS, 29 May 2013b). According to Sung Soo Lim, a staff writer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the state of the economy has affected jobs across all industries (2011, 18-19). With the downturn of the economy many people who were employed elsewhere lost their jobs and turned to fast food as a source of income; not only teenagers or people in their early twenties are working in this sector. However, in 2012, the majority of employees in the fast food industry were between the ages of 20 and 24 and over half of the labor force was under the age of 35 (USBLS, 2013b). Therefore, the population of fast food employees is still young. The fact that the work force is younger means that employees may not be aware of what is ethical or unethical. Certain standards are common sense; however, if the employees are not aware of what is considered to be unethical, they will not think twice about performing an unethical action. According to a survey of 431 human resource officials, a problem among young workers is the lack of skills such as professionalism and work ethic. Forty percent of those surveyed said that high school graduates are deficiently prepared (“Most Young People,” 2006, 1-8). 2