Question

What is the difference between compliance-based ethics codes and integrity-based ethics codes? Which form is in place at Warby Parker? Have they benefited from their decision to donate glasses in undeveloped countries?

Answer 1

Difference between compliance-based ethics codes and integrity-based ethics codes:

The difference between integrity and compliance codes of ethics is that the integrity code of ethics defines a company’s guiding values and allows the employee their own interpretation of those values whereas, the compliance code of ethics increases control and penalizes wrongdoers by giving specific examples of what is expected and tells employees what behavior is acceptable and what is not.

A perfect example of an integrity based code of ethics is Nordstrom’s code of ethics and an example of a compliance based code of ethics is Starbuck’s code of ethics.

Each base for the code of ethics that a company employees has pros and cons. One pro for the integrity based code of ethics is that there are no strict rules that an employee has to follow but a con is that each employee will have their own interpretation of what is expected of them. A pro that can be seen in the compliance based code of ethics is that the employees are told what is exactly expected of them and how they should act but a con is that there may be too many rules for an employee to memorize or that they may not have even read the codeof ethics.

Which form is in place at Warby Parker?

Warby Parker follows a more integrity-based ethical system because they wanted to make sure everyone involved in the company would not find shortcuts to the making of their products with quality in mind.  

Have they benefited from their decision to donate glasses in undeveloped countries?

At Warby Parker, for each pair of glasses purchased, the company pays for the production of another pair of eyeglass for the NFP vision spring. They in turn sell the glasses to consumers and companies in under-developed countries as a way to encourage entrepreneurship. Warby Parker turns over 'well over US$100 million' and was Fast Company's 1 most innovative company in 2015. Therefore, they deinitely have benefited from their decision to donate glasses.