When Jones returned to the U.K., she considered her position and the options open to her as a buyer for a large, publicly traded, retail chain operating in a highly competitive environment. Her dilemma was twofold: Can an ambitious employee afford to exercise a social conscience in his or her career? And can career-minded individuals truly make a difference without jeopardizing their future?
Conscience or the Competitive Edge ?
Olivia Jones described her subsequent decision as follow:
“The alternatives for me were perfectly clear, if somewhat unrealistic: I could stipulate a standard of working conditions to be enforced at any factory employed, and offer to pay an inflated price for merchandise in an effort to fund the necessary improvements. This would mean having to increase the margins in other sections of the range and explaining to my controller exactly why prices had risen.
“There was, of course, no guarantee that the extra cash would make its way safely into the hands of the worker or improve his working conditions. Even exercising my greatest faith in human nature, I could see the wealthy factory owner getting increasingly fatter and some other keen and able buyer being promoted into my highly coveted position!