Arecent innovation by amazon, the vendor flex program, seeks to lower overall transportation costs but also creates new forms of channel conflict with competitors. as a partner in the vendor flex program, p& g agreed to allow amazon to build fulfillment centers within p& g's own warehouses, thus to eliminate some of the costs of transporting p& g's products to amazon's fulfillment centers. believing that the program was giving its competitor amazon an unfair advantage, target reacted vigorously, moving all p& g products from prominent end-cap positions in its stores to less prestigious and less visible locations. target also stopped using p& g as its primary source of advice for planning merchandising strategies within each category. this is an example of channel conflict.

Consider the scenario below and let us know if you believe lauren smith's actions to be ethical. let us know why or why not. lauren smith is the controller for sports central, a chain of sporting goods stores. she has been asked to recommend a site for a new store. lauren has an uncle who owns a shopping plaza in the area of town where the new store is to be located, so she decides to contact her uncle about leasing space in his plaza. lauren also contacted several other shopping plazas and malls, but her uncle’s store turned out to be the most economical place to lease. therefore, lauren recommended locating the new store in her uncle’s shopping plaza. in making her recommendation to management, she did not disclose that her uncle owns the shopping plaza. if management decided to go with lauren's uncle's plaza, what additional information would be needed in the financial statements?