Essay on Uber Social Responsibility

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1. Executive summary

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) involves the known responsibility for economic, social, and environmental implications that corporations may have through performing business-related activities. Companies must conduct their business in a way that ensures it is ethical and in consideration of human rights. Uber is a popular mobile application that allows individuals to quickly get rides around the city without relying on public transport. While Uber is known as a transnational success, it can pose many unethical issues for users and other companies. Uber has a severely scandalous past involving unethical technological applications and services to help obtain their goal of becoming “the number one ride-sharing app”. Uber has demonstrated their corporate responsibility in sustainability by providing the option of ‘Carpooling’ and implementing the ‘clean air plan‘.

2. Company overview

The popular ride-sharing app known as Uber was founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garett Camp. Established in San Francisco, Uber advertises itself as a convenient, inexpensive, and safe taxi service. Passengers can hire a driver to pick them up from their current location to their desired destination by tapping a button on their mobile device. The other side of Uber is focused on the drivers. Drivers are classified as independent contractors, rather than employees, which allows them to be their boss and have very flexible hours. At the end of the ride, passengers are to rate their experience, which consequently motivates drivers to provide a safe, smooth, and enjoyable trip. Uber currently operates in 678+ cities in 78+ countries and has a value of over $82 billion.

3. Unethical business practice

Uber has purposefully employed itself in using unethical technological applications and services to benefit their overall business. Previous self-made applications used by Uber include, ‘ Ripley ‘,‘ Greyball ‘ and ‘ Surfcam ‘. Ripley was a secret system used by Uber that disrupted government investigations. For two years, this system allowed a remote team to lock, shut off, and change passwords of accounts that Uber feared were under suspicion by foreign investigators. Uber claims this application to merely be a normal safety precaution, “ security procedures in place to protect corporate and customer data “. Another secretive app that evaded authorities was ‘Greyball’. First used in 2014 in Portland, Oregon, Philadelphia, Boston, Las Vegas, Australia, China, South Korea, and Italy, the app falsified the location of drivers, by showing icons of cars nearby however no one would show up. The app was able to gain access to credit card information, geolocation data, social media accounts, and other data points that allowed it to identify any government authorities who may be a part of the sting operations. Surfcam was a ‘ secret spyware program ‘ developed in Sydney Australia by a rogue employee. This information-gathering software allowed Uber, Australia to gain an advantage in a local competition known as ‘GoCatch’. The app gave Uber Australia insight into all the competitor cars online, as well as the eliminated data such as the car registration and name. Uber then used this information to create competitive employment offers which lured ‘GoCatch’ drivers from working for the start-up. The end goal for Surfcam was to ensure ‘Gocatch’ would lose customers from poaching, consequently having fewer drivers, and in turn ‘Gocatch’ would be eliminated from the ride-sharing industry. The implication of all these secretive and unethical applications directly impacts other industries. Other competing companies, such as ‘GoCatch’ and ‘Lyft’ have been permanently affected as their business has been put at a major disadvantage, which may be impossible to recover from. Those who have invested their money and time into these failing companies may experience mental issues or are in a financial crisis. While it is normal for companies to be better than other companies, the method that Uber used to become a better company is utterly unethical and unacceptable. Hiding information from authorities, hacking into other companies’ information for their gain, and misleading individuals are unjustifiable actions that have everlasting implications.

4. Corporate social responsibility

The transnational company known as Uber has demonstrated their corporate social responsibility, specifically in the environmental and sustainability aspects. Uber’s goal is to make every journey shared, through a new strategy called ‘UberPool’, along with implementing ‘ the clean air plan’. By using Uberpool and sharing rides, people are moving in fewer, fuller, and more efficient cars. This strategy matches passengers with others who are also traveling in the same direction. This saves fuel, benefits the environment, and increases transportation system efficiency. Ridesharing encourages the development of hybrid and electric vehicles, which will consequently reduce carbon emissions and improve worldwide air quality. It also allows the passengers to share the cost, benefiting the social aspect of the business. This strategy is very ethical and environmentally beneficial as it also saves resources worldwide. In 2017, there were 25 million riders in the express pool and Uberpool trips. The cities would have had an extra 82 metric tons of carbon dioxide and 314 million vehicle miles if these passengers had driven by themselves or in private Ubers. ‘ The clean air plan’ is an environmental strategy Uber has proposed to reduce air pollution, specifically in London. The end goal is to convert every car on the Uber app in London to be fully electric by 2025. Due to this desired goal, uber has placed a clean air fee of 15p per mile that will be put towards helping drivers upgrade to fully electric vehicles. Both these from the surface level are ethical and do consider the implications they may pose on the environment, but these strategies also boost Uber economically and socially. The business will boost, as they are now able to advertise themselves are environmentally friendly, which will force more individuals to use Uber, or Uberpool rather than private or public transport — therefore making these strategies effective in achieving corporate social responsibility because all factors are captured.

5. Conclusion

Uber has a suspicious and questionable past, as they were involved in many unethical practices such as hacking and poaching applications. However, it has been effective in achieving corporate social responsibility, especially through the factor of environmental sustainability. Overall Uber has had a severely unethical journey but is on the way to redemption through environmental efforts, which consequently benefit social and economic factors.

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Essay on Uber Social Responsibility

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