SUBJECT : BUSINESS
ETHICS
CASE -1 (20
Marks)
Joan, an employee of Great American Market, was warned about her
excessive absenteeism several times, both verbally and in writing. The written
warning included notice that "further violations will result in
disciplinary actions," including suspension or discharge.
A short time after the written warning was issued, Joan called work
to say she was not going to be in because her babysitter had called in sick and
she had to stay home and care for her young child. Joan's supervisor, Sylvia,
told her that she had already exceeded the allowed number of absences and
warned that if she did not report to work, she could be suspended. When Joan
did not report for her shift, Sylvia suspended her for fifteen days.
In a subsequent hearing, Joan argued that it was not her fault that
the babysitter had canceled, and protested that she had no other choice but to
stay home. Sylvia pointed out that Joan had not made a good faith effort to
find an alternate babysitter, nor had she tried to swap shifts with a
co-worker. Furthermore, Sylvia said that the lack of a babysitter was not a
justifiable excuse for being absent.
Questions:
1. Was the suspension fair? Give reason
2. Did Joan act responsibly? Elaborate
CASE-2 (20
Marks)
You own a cement company, and deal with most the local contractors
for cement, sand, etc. You have a reputation of high quality products, and for
good customer service with your customers. Your foreman has just run the
standard quality control tests you have performed regularly on your products.
When the test results are ready, you discover that the new batch of product is
9% less durable than your usual material. It is still well above all industry
standards and meets all building codes and
requirements for the purposes for which it is
intended, but it is, nevertheless, not up to your usual standards. Throwing it
away would cost your company many thousands of dollars.
You decide to sell the cement anyway.
Questions:
1) Should you tell your customers about the
quality of the Product? Explain
2) Should you discount the price? Give reasons
3) What Should you tell your employees, so they
will be knowledgeable with the customers?
4) Would you use this cement on foundations for
your own house? Support your answer with reasons
CASE-3 (20
Marks)
Fred, a 17-year employee with Sam's Sauna, was fired for poor job
performance and poor attendance, after accruing five disciplinary penalties
within a 12-month period under the company's progressive disciplinary policy. A
week later, Fred told his former supervisor that he had a substance abuse
problem.
Although there was no employee assistance program in place and the
company had not been aware of Fred's condition, their personnel director
assisted Fred in obtaining treatment by allowing him to continue receiving
insurance benefits and approved his unemployment insurance claim.
Fred subsequently requested reinstatement, maintaining that he had
been rehabilitated since his discharge and was fully capable of being a productive
employee. He pointed to a letter written by his treatment counselor, which said
that his prognosis for leading a "clean, sober lifestyle" was a big
incentive for him. Fred pleaded for another chance, arguing that his past
problems resulted from drug addiction and that Sam's Saunas should have
recognized and provided treatment for the problem.
Sam's Saunas countered that Fred should have notified his
supervisor of his drug problem, and that everything possible had been done to
help him receive treatment. Moreover, the company stressed that the employee
had been fired for poor performance and absenteeism. Use of the progressive
discipline policy had been necessary because the employee had committed a
string of offenses over the course of a year, including careless workmanship,
distracting others, wasting time, and disregarding safety rules.
Questions:
1)
Should
Fred be reinstated? Support your Answer with reasons
2)
Was the company fair to Fred in helping him receive treatment?
Explain
3)
Did the
personnel director behave ethically toward Fred? Give Reason
4)
Did he act ethically for his company? Elaborate
In January of last year, the S.S. Vulgass, an oil tanker of the Big
Dirty Oil Company ran around in the area just north of Vancouver, spilling
millions of gallons of crude into the waters and onto the beaches of British
Columbia and southern Alaska. The damage to the beaches and wildlife and
consequently to the tourist industry, the ecology and the quality of life of
the local residents is incalculable, but in any case will require many millions
of dollars for even the most minimal clean-up.
The ship struck a small atoll, well-marked on the navigational
maps, but it was a dark night and the boat was well off course. On further
investigation, it was discovered that the Captain of the Vulgass, Mr. Slosh,
had been drinking heavily. Leaving the navigation of the ship to his first
mate, Mr. Mudd, he retired to his cabin, to "sleep it off." Mr. Mudd
had never taken charge of the ship before, and it is now clear that he misread
the maps, misjudged the waters, maintained a speed that was inappropriate and
the accident occurred. Subsequent inquiries showed that Captain Slosh had been
arrested on two drunk driving convictions within months of the accident. The
Vulgass itself, a double-hulled tanker, was long due for renovation and, it was
suggested, would not have cracked up if the hull had been trebly reinforced, as
some current tankers were.
R. U. Rich, the Chief Executive Officer of Big Dirty Oil declared
the accident a "tragedy" and offered two million dollars to aid in
the clean up. The Premier of British Columbia was outraged. Environmental
groups began a consumer campaign against Big Dirty Oil, urging customers to cut
up and send in their Big Dirty Oil credit cards in protest. In a meeting to the
shareholders just last month, CEO Rich proudly announced the largest quarterly
profit in the history of the Big Dirty Oil Company. He dismissed the protests
as "the outpourings of Greenies and other fanatics" and assured the
shareholders that his obligation was, and would always be, to assure the
highest profits possible in the turmoil of today's market.
Questions:
1)
Who is
responsible for the tragedy & Why?
2)
Against
whom should criminal charges be leveled & Why?
3)
What should be done, if anything, to punish the corporation itself?
4)
In your
opinion, what should have been the decision of CEO?
Business Ethics
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
San Francisco: Waste from
computers, televisions and other devises used in the United States is polluting
environment and exposing workers to toxic chemicals in region of India and
China where discarded electronics are dismantled, a study released on Wednesday
said. Researchers detected high levels of toxic metals in more than 70 samples
collected in March from industrial waste, river sediment, soil and groundwater
around the southern Chinese City of Guiyu and the suburbs of New Delhi,
according to the report by Greenpeace International. Dust from dismantling
workshops contained the highest level of contaminants. “The extent of the
contamination is even worse than we had feared. The levels analyzed are really
scary and very concerning,” said Ted Smith, the founder of the Silicon Valley
Toxics Coalition who chairs the computer Take Back Campaign, which promotes
electronics recycling.
Most of the electronics collected
in the United States for recycling are supplied to China, India and other Asian
countries where worker protection and environmental safety standards are weak,
Smith said. The researchers chose to collect samples from the Mayapuri and
Burari areas of New Delhi because the two regions are known to dismantle
discarded American electronics to recover valuable metals such s gold, platinum
and silver. The samples collected from those areas contained elevated levels of
heavy metals including lead, tin, copper, cadmium and antimony.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
Give your viewpoints on the above case.
Q2.
Why the surplus electronics items of United States are accepted by India and
China? Explain in detail.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
Sick of angry campaign ads
invading your living room? Dismayed by the vulgarity and poisonous political
messages of the primary season? Don't change the channel quite yet. As USA head
into the general election in 2016, there are things to learn from political
communications, and it is our duty as voters to cut through the rhetoric in
order to vet these applicants for the most important job in the country. The
American process for electing public officials is born out of the ethical ideal
of creating an informed electorate. It is the campaign's task to introduce the
candidate and inform the voters about the candidate's background, his or her
positions on the issues, and how the candidate is different from the opponent.
Political communications serve to inform the electorate, as long as the content
of the communication is true, fair, and relevant. It is our task as voters to
analyze all political communications to make sure that they meet this standard.
It should be of no surprise to anyone that campaign communications often
distort the truth. For example, who can forget Donald Trump's television ad showing
hundreds of immigrants streaming across the border. The only problem was that
the video was taken in Morocco. Bernie Sanders came under fire when an ad about
endorsements quoted favourable comments about him from a newspaper that had
actually endorsed Clinton. Truth is the first task of campaign communications,
but something true can still be unfair. We need to be wary of statements or
facts which, while true, are being used out of context. Clinton was recently
criticized for taking Sanders' voting record out of context when she claimed in
Michigan that he had voted against the auto bailout. Sanders had in fact
supported a standalone bill bailing out the auto industry, but voted against
the larger bill that not only included support for the auto industry but the
banking and insurance industries as well. Whenever a candidate is criticized
for casting a vote, we need to make sure we know the whole story. Not only
should political ommunications be
truthful, and fair, but they should also be relevant to the issues in the race.
We have all seen political attacks that talk about a candidate's youthful
indiscretions, private marital troubles, or about problematic behavior on the
part of a candidate's family member or associate. The question of whether these
types of attacks are relevant to the issues in the campaign can only be decided
by the individual voter. For example, was the fact that Melania Trump posed for
a risqué "British GQ" photo shoot 15 years ago, before she was
married to Donald Trump, really relevant to the issues facing our country
today? Is Bill Clinton's past infidelity relevant to Hillary Clinton's ability
to govern? We must question whether a spot is designed purely to appeal to our
base emotions (such as disgust at a family member's behavior) or whether the
content of the ad is pertinent to a legitimate interest in the race.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
Give an overview of the case.
Q2.
In your opinion, what are the unethical issues being used in election campaign?
Discuss in detail.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
The new CEO of a corporation
learns that he has inherited problems with growth and profitability. A fourday
workweek and, eventually, layoffs
prove necessary. Who is the CEO obligated to inform and when? George Anderson
was just a few months beyond his 40th birthday on the day he became CEO of
Astratech Communications international
(ACI). What an upper! He was still basking in the glow of his good fortune,
eager to try out his skills as the CEO. He hoped to get the chairmanship one
day when the company's founder, Mike Marcus, decided to step down. Life was
good. ACI was a leading supplier of fiber optic transceiver components for the
telecommunications industry. It sold to companies like Alcatel, Northern
Telecom, and Ericsson, who put ACI's components into the lightwave equipment
they manufactured. The company was based in Irvine, Calif., a great place to
live, work, and raise a family. ACI's annual sales were around $500 million
with 2,500 employees in locations in Mexico and Scotland, in addition to its
Southern California headquarters. All of ACI's hourly employees in the United
States and abroad were represented by the IBEW, a union with a history of good
working relationships with management. The Mexican operation was launched to
take advantage of lower labor costs and close proximity to headquarters. The
Scotland plant gave the company relief from onerous European tariffs. Both
offshore facilities enjoyed excellent employee relations. After settling into
his new position, George busied himself identifying the major issues facing the
company. Coming in, he had realized that ACI's growth and profitability were
problems, but he wasn't sure if the source was the management team, product
development, marketing and sales, or something else. After several months,
George was clear that it wasn't the people. Sure, there were a few problem
areas, and some employees seemed a bit too comfortable. But the main issue was
a lack of focus and a general weakness in the business systems required in this
fast paced industry. There was no clear vision of what ACI wanted to be and no
acceptable plan on how to get there. What was it that someone said? "If
you don't know where you are going, all roads will lead you there." To
address this weakness, George implemented a task force made up of middle
managers from all the various disciplines, as well as the executive team. He
chaired the task force because he believed strongly that CEOs shouldn't
delegate strategy. When it came to business systems, the problem seemed to be a
lack of adequate cost accounting. The company didn't know its individual
product costs to any reasonable degree of accuracy. To address this challenge,
George brought in a new chief financial officer. But just as George was
beginning to feel optimistic about where ACI was going, he got a phone call
from sales to tell him that Alcatel was canceling its backlog. Apparently, Alcatel's
customers were slowing their acquisition of new equipment, and Alcatel seized
that opportunity to shift all of its business to a French competitor of ACI's
that had a reputation for higher product quality. George's first call was to
the chairman. To his surprise, Mike handled it well, voicing his empathy and
support. But clearly, George was expected to take action quickly. He decided
that one way of avoiding a layoff was to implement a fourday workweek. That
spread the pain evenly among all employees. George called his executive team
together to tell them the bad news and to get the necessary action underway.
Next, he went to discuss the issue with union leadership. The regional head of
the union also the local steward was in George's office before lunch with a
stern look on his face. "Look, George, you're the new kid on the block, so
we don't think this setback was your doing. No one likes to lose part of their
paycheck, but your plan treats management the same as the blue collar workers,
so you've got our support. We want to give you a chance to act. If we don't
like what you're doing, we'll be back." The fourday workweek was
implemented. Without being told, the entire management staff knew that they got
four day's pay, but they were expected to be there five. After about six weeks,
the lower costs began to kick in, and ACI was again holding its head above
water...barely.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
What were the reasons for the business downturn? Comment.
Q2.
How did new CEO Mr. George Anderson respond to the business downturn? Discuss,
what was ethical in his decision.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
Aristotle was the most practical
and businessoriented of all philosophers who asked ethical questions. Now you
may scoff at the idea that a person who's been dead for nearly 2,400 years has
anything practical to say about the modern organizations in which you all work.
But, let me see if I can give you an example of his doing so that will at least
get your attention. Aristotle tells us that acts are not ethical if they are
accidental. What he means by this, in modern terms, is that, if I am driving
drunk and I hit a water hydrant, knock it off its pedestal and cause a 20foot geyser
which, in turn, puts out a fire in an adjacent house, I cannot claim to have
committed a virtuous act. To illustrate the ethical centrality of right
motivation, Aristotle cites a fragment of brilliant dialogue from a lost play
by Euripides, Character A: I killed my mother, brief is my report. Character B:
Were you both willing, and neither she nor you? It is difficult to set aside
the relevance of this 2,500yearold exchange to the current debate about the
morality of physicianassisted suicide, but let's focus for a minute on why
Aristotle cited it. He wanted to call our attention to the significance of
motivation as a factor in ethical analysis. In this minicase, Euripides implies
three different situations, each quite morally distinct from the others: In the
first situation a mother is murdered, as we would say "in cold blood"
by her child. In the second situation, a mother's request for mercy killing is
granted by an unloving child who is only too happy to comply. In the third
situation, the mother, who is perhaps dying from some terrible disease, asks
her child to end her pain and, in great sadness and reluctance, he grants his
mother's wish. In Aristotle's terms, only the latter situation contains the
possibility of ethical virtue. Although the moral choices we face in HR, thank
God, are far less dramatic than these, Aristotle tells us that motivation is a
powerful indicator of the degree to which virtue is present in all of our
social acts. I have gone to Aristotle because he is particularly interested in
defining the principles of ethical leadership. In his Ethics he sets out a
series of practical and analytical ethical tests (or examinations), and at the
end of these, he concludes that the role of the leader is to create the
environment in which all members of an organization have the opportunity to
realize their own potential. He says that the ethical role of the leader is not
to enhance his own power but to create the conditions under which the followers
can achieve their potential. It was this point Jefferson was paraphrasing in
the Declaration of Independence when he noted the goal of the new country being
founded in 1776 was to provide conditions in which all citizens could pursue
happiness. In Aristotle's terms, happiness means the realization of one's
potential. Aristotle said a nation succeeds to the extent that its leaders
create the opportunity and conditions under which its people can develop and
grow. Of course Aristotle never heard of a large business or corporation.
Nonetheless he did raise a set of questions that corporate leaders who wish to
behave ethically need to ask themselves: Am I behaving in a virtuous way? How
would I want to be treated if I were a member of this organization? What form
of social contract would allow all our members to develop their full potential
in order that they may each make their greatest contribution to the good of the
whole? To what extent are there real opportunities for all employees to learn
and to develop their talents and potential? To what extent do all employees
participate in the decisions that affect their own work? To what extent do all
employees participate in the financial gain resulting from their own ideas and
efforts? If we translate Aristotle into these modern terms, he provides us with
a set of ethical questions to determine the extent to which an organization
provides an environment conducive to human growth and fulfillment. And,
Aristotle would say, not only does an ethical leader create that environment
but, he or she does do so consciously, and not coincidentally. Motivation is
important. Miami hoteliers cannot claim credit for sunny days, and leaders in
Silicon Valley get no ethical credit for providing jobs that are accidentally
developmental. Just because working with computers may be an inherently a
developmental task, one is not necessarily a marvelous employer for providing
people with that opportunity. Aristotle also asks the extent to which we as
leaders observe decent limits on our own power in order to allow others to lead
and develop. What he's saying is that leadership is inherently such a valuable
thing in terms of our growth that, if leaders take all the opportunities to
lead for themselves, and don't give others the chance to lead, they are denying
their followers the possibility of growth. That's why he says leadership should
be shared, rotated, so that everybody has the ability to participate in it. He
says that too many leaders turn their people into passive recipients of their
moral feats, and there is nothing inherently ethical about that. In essence,
here's the question that Aristotle asks leaders to ask themselves. To what
extent do I consciously make an effort to provide learning opportunities to
everyone who works for me? To what extent do I encourage full participation by
all my people in the decisions affecting their own work? To what extent do I
allow them to lead in order to grow? To what extent do I measure my own
performance as a manager or leader both in terms of my effectiveness in
realizing economic goals and, equally, in terms of using my practical wisdom to
create conditions in which my people can seek to fulfill their own potential in
the workplace? Very few CEOs that I work with would be able to respond to those
questions with positive selfassessments. Indeed, I think many successful and
admired corporate leaders consciously reject such Aristotelian measures of
performance as inappropriate, impractical, and irrelevant to the task their
boards have hired them to do, which is to create wealth. They say their
responsibility is to their shareholders, not their employees, and if the social
responsibility of employee development interferes with profit making then
tradeoffs must be made. Aristotle would answer that virtuous leaders have
responsibilities to both their owners and their workers. If there's a conflict
between the two, it is the leaders' duty to create conditions in which those
interests can be made the same. He would remind us that while most potential
leaders measure themselves solely in terms of their effectiveness in obtaining
and maintaining power, virtuous ones also measure themselves by ethical
standards of justice. He was talking about political leaders but, by extension,
in the modern business context, it is appropriate that executives are evaluated
not only in terms of their effectiveness in generating wealth for shareholders
but also by the opportunity they provide for their followers to find meaning
and opportunity for development in their workplaces.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
Aristotle told “Acts are not ethical if they are accidental” Explain with
examples.
Q2.
As per Aristotle, what should be the qualities of corporate leaders? Discuss.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
US researchers said on Monday
they have created a new human embryonic stem cell by fusing an embryonic stem
cell. They hope their method will provide a way to create tailormade treatments
from scratch, using cloning technology. That would mean generating the valuable
cells without using a human egg, and without creating a human embryo, which
some people, including President George W. Bush, find objectionable. But the
team, led by stem cell expert Douglas Melton, Kevin Eggan and others at Harvard
Medical School, stress in a report to be published in next Friday’s issue of
the journal Science that their method is not yet perfect. Stem cells are the
body’s master cells, used to continually regenerate tissues, organs and blood.
Those taken from daysold embryos are considered the most versatile. They can
produce any kind of tissue in the body. Doctors hope to use embryonic stem
cells as a source of perfectly matched transplants to treat diseases such as
cancer, Parkinson’s disease and some injuries. But because some people object
to the destruction of or experimentation on a human embryo, US law restricts
the use of federal funds for this kind of research. It is a hot debate in
Congress and several bills have been offered for consideration that would
either relax the federal restrictions or tighten them even more. Melton has
complained about the restrains and, like other experts, has used private
funding to pursue stem cell work. He and other experts say they only want to
understand how to reprogram an ordinary cell and hope the use of human embryo
would only be a shortterm and interim step to learning how to manufacture these
cells. The Harvard team says they have taken a big step in this direction.
Currently, embryonic stem cells are either taken from embryos left over from
fertility clinics, or generated using a cloning technology called nuclear
transfer. This requires taking the nucleus out of an egg cell and replacing it
with the nucleus of an adult cell, called a somatic cell, f from the person to
be treated. This reprograms the egg, which starts dividing as if it had been
fertilized by a sperm.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
Give an overview of the above case
Q2.
What is cloning technology? Explain.
Q3.
Explain the unethical aspects of cloning.
Q4.
Discuss necessity and ethical aspects of cloning.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
The notion of corporate moral
responsibility has expanded significantly in the past few decades, according to
Manuel Velasquez, chair of the Santa Clara University Management Department.
The Charles Dirksen Professor in Ethics provided a theoretical look at the
topic in a presentation for the June 13, 2006, meeting of the Business and
Organizational Ethics Partnership. Katie Tillman Buck, associate director of
corporate affairs and ethics at Affymetrix, followed Velasquez with a
description of how her company, a leading supplier of genetic diagnostic
research equipment, approaches corporate moral responsibility. Moral
responsibility can be interpreted two ways, Velasquez said: in terms of
obligation or duty; or in terms of culpability. "The notion of moral responsibility
that we have, both in the law and in our everyday lives, is fairly straight
forward," Velasquez explained. "A person or an agent or a party is
morally responsible for an injury if 1) they caused it, 2) they knew what they
were doing, and 3) they could have prevented it." This concept applies to
corporations as well. Traditionally, a company was morally responsible for
injuries it inflicted provided the same three factors held. However, the idea
of moral responsibility has been expanding over the years. "During the
second half of the 20th century, a company was held responsible for
injuries users of its products inflicted on themselves," he said.
"The company is held morally responsible provided they knew about it in
some way, or should have known about it, and it could have prevented it."
This interpretation expanded even further with the idea of strict liability.
"A company is now held responsible also for injuries users inflicted on
themselves, even when the company could not have prevented it," Velasquez
said. Over the last couple of years, a company's scope of moral responsibility
has even extended upstream (to suppliers) as well as downstream (to endusers).
"During the last 20 years or so, there are a number of companies that have
been held morally responsible not legally but in the eyes of the public have
been held morally responsible for injuries that their suppliers have inflicted
on some third party," he noted. Companies in the apparel industry, toy
manufacturing, electronics assembly, and others have been perceived as
accessories to the mistreatment of workers by their suppliers, even if they
have not been directly involved. Many now try to prevent that by doing onsite
inspections. Downstream responsibility has also expanded in the last two
decades or so. "Companies have been held morally responsible for injuries
which they did not inflict on somebody else, injuries in which their product
was not defective, but injuries in which one of their customers used one of
their products to inflict an injury on a third party," he said. Gun
manufacturers and bar owners are two notable examples. "It's odd when you
think about it, because this differs pretty substantially from that first
notion of moral responsibility with which we began, where a party is morally
responsible for an injury they inflict on another person knowingly and being
able to prevent it. This is a very stretched notion of moral responsibility
that's being used today," he said. This brings up two theoretical
questions: 1) To what extent is a company morally responsible for the way in
which its customers use its products? 2) How can a company minimize its
exposure to this kind of moral responsibility? The second question is commonly
dealt with before the fact by monitoring who buys the products (for example,
checking the background of potential gun buyers) or after the fact by using
publicists and lawyers. But as one attendee of the BOEP meeting noted, many
companies do not want to answer the first question because they are afraid of the
answer. By asking the question, they become responsible for monitoring their
product's use. Such reluctance has not been the case with the Santa Clara,
Calif., company Affymetrix. "There's this awareness in the general
community as well as the genetics community that genetic information is
powerful," Buck acknowledged. The Affymetrix technology, for example, can
put 6.5 million discrete pieces of genetic information on a single chip.
"It can be used for a lot of great things, and it can probably be used for
a few bad things." According to Buck, Affimetrix understands that
exploring the ethics of how its chips are used is ultimately in the company's
best interests. "Our interests looking into these issues of moral
responsibility, looking at these ethical issues, really melds very well with
what our business goals are," Buck explained. "We're at the stage
where not being thorough, getting embroiled in something that just feels bad to
people, would be bad for us and would be bad for the technology's ability to address
all those markets we want to be in." The company has taken a proactive
approach to these concerns, setting up an Ethics Advisory Committee to address
moral and ethical issues. The committee consists of seven external participants
who have varied backgrounds, including law, anthropology, genetics, bioethics,
and sociology. They offer independent, noncorporate views on the issues.
"They're very different. We actually picked them not with the idea that
they wouldn't get along, but with the idea that they wouldn't agree. Our goal
at these meetings is to really get everything out on the table," she said.
The committee meets four times a year. "We always have two or three
executives in the room, as well as a selection of people from throughout the
organization," Buck said. Her goal over the past five years has been to
embed the idea in the corporate culture that ethics are important and that this
committee is available to people throughout the organization. Discussions vary
at the meetings. "A lot of what we talk about at the Ethics Advisory
Committee is completely hypothetical. It's becoming less hypothetical over
time. It's becoming more and more realistic now," she said. "But
we're really trying to get ahead of the ball." One issue the committee has
looked at has been newborn screeningthe practice of automatically testing
newborns for existing diseases and conditions before they leave the hospital.
Even though Affymetrix products are not currently used in newborn screening,
they could be, so the committee has addressed issues such as informed consent,
genetic privacy, storage of samples, the need for federal regulations, etc.
Putting ethics into practice The committee has discussed less hypothetical
situations as well. For example, the company received a proposal from an
Israeli company that intended to use an Affymetrix chip to test for disorders
common to that population, including TaySachs disease. It included several
other disorders, as well, both treatable and untreatable, in addition to late
onset diseases, with no indication of when the testing would be done. The
proposal also indicated that the company intended to market a Palestinian chip,
and even a Swedish chip. The red flags this project raised (possible
geopolitical implications and questionable genetics, among others) concerned
Affymetrix. Additionally, Affymetrix determined that the company was more of a
marketing firm than a genetic testing company, so they declined to be involved
with the project. "That wasn't really the first thing we wanted to do
coming out of the gate, so we passed on that," Buck said. The constant
emergence of new markets for genetic technology means new questions every day.
"This is a new industry. This is new research people are doing," Buck
noted. Taking part not only in internal discussions about moral responsibility,
but national discussions as well, "being informed on what's going on and
weighing in on the things that are particular to the kinds of data that we're
generating" is a way of helping shape the moral climate of the industry as
well.
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
Give your views on corporate moral responsibility and Product Use or Misuse.
Q2. Discuss the role of Ethics Advisory Committee.
Business
Ethics
Q1.
Discuss polycentric approach to globalization.
Q2.
Discuss philosophy and religion.
Q3. Write
a short note on environment.
Q4.
Explain National consumer disputes redressal commission.
Q5.
Explain need for a check on quackery.
Q6. What
is code of conduct for citizens.
Q7. Give
importance of media in guiding citizens.
Q8.
Give song of eighteen values.
Business Ethics
Q1. Give benefits of ISO 9000 quality systems.
Q2. How promotion of ethical values occur.
Q3. What is the relation of ethics in business?
Q4. Give importance and use of ISO 9000 standard.
Q5. Write a note on value education.
Q6. What is cultural ethos?
Q7. Give benefits of consumer education.
Q8. Write a short note on environment.
SUBJECT: BUSINESS ETHICS
Total
Marks : 80
NB.1) All questions carry
equal marks. 2) All questions are compulsory. 3} read questions carefully.
4} Figures to the right
indicate full marks.
Q1)
|
What is Ethical Analysis and discuss its
Application: in Corporate Decision
|
(10 Marks)
|
Making?
|
||
Q2)
|
Define Corporate Ethical Leadership and
discuss its nature and features?
|
(10 Marks)
|
Q3)
|
What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
Explain its characteristics?
|
(10 Marks)
|
Q4)
|
Enumerate and explain the Ethical Implications
of Technology?
|
(10 Marks)
|
Q5)
|
Write short notes (any two)
|
(10 Marks)
|
a) Ethical Analysis and its Application in
Personal Decision Making. b) Corporate Culture
c) Reputation Management.
Q6) Explain the following
concept (any two) (10 Marks)
1.
Social
Reporting.
2.
Ethics
in Finance Accountancy.
3.
Values
in the Employment Relationship.
Q7) Define Ethics. Discuss
the relation of Ethics and Human Resources Management? (10
Marks)
Q8) What
is the role of Ethics in Marketing? (10
Marks)
Business Ethics
Answer
the following question.
Q1. What is imperative need? (10
marks)
Q2. Write a note on human culture
and civilization. (10 marks)
Q3. Write a note on value
education. (10 marks)
Q4. Discuss unethical practices
visà vis cheating. (10 marks)
Q5. Give benefits of consumer
education. (10 marks)
Q6. Discuss consumerism (10
marks)
Q7. What is code of conduct for
citizens. (10 marks)
Q8. Give enlightening words of the Dalai Lama.
BUSINESS ETHICS
Total Marks: 80
Note : All
Questions are Compulsory
Each Question Carries Equal
Marks 10 Marks
3.
Write short note on value education & consumerism
4.
Give SWOT analysis in Indian scenario.
5.
Explain need for a check on quackery.
6.
Give measures to control pollution
7.
Discuss unethical practices vis-Ã -vis cheating.
8. Give
benefits of ISO 9000 quality systems & Give importance and use of ISO 9000
standard.
9. Discuss
seven points of mahatma Gandhi &Discuss social justice according to
gandhiji.
10.
Give characteristic of quality leadership.
Business Ethics
CASE
STUDY
An official inquiry into a
British doctor convicted of 15 murders is likely to conclude he may have killed
up to 300 in total, the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday. If so, it would
make him arguably the world’s best serial killer. The tribunal investigating
the macabre career of Harold Shipman, nicknamed Doctor Death, is due to publish
its findings this month, a spokesman said. Headed by
Judge Janet Smith, it started off
looking into around 800 suspect deaths before later narrowing the field down to
just over 500. According to the paper, Smith’s inquiry will conclude that he
killed about 300 patients during a medical career that began in early 1970s.
The daily express said she would fix the final murder toll at precisely 297
deaths. He pleaded not guilty and his motives remains a mystery, although the
Daily Telegraph said he had been diagnosed as a classic necrophiliac, murdering
his victims simply for the pleasure he got from watching people die.
Answer the following question.
Q1. What do you find unethical in
this case? Elucidate.
Q2. Explain an ordinary citizen’s
role in the prevention of such crimes.
CASE
STUDY
By way of introduction, let me
state my (a freelance writer) most fundamental belief about organizational
ethics: Ethics is not about answers. Instead, ethics is about asking questions.
It's about asking lots of questions and, maybe, if you're lucky, even asking
the right questions every now and then. In my experience, ethical organizations
don't shy away from asking potentially embarrassing
questions, ones that might
disturb the status quo. The need and value of doing so was brought home clearly
in the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandals. Those were two organizations where,
apparently, no one dared ask the tough questions that might actually have saved
the companies. Now, thanks to those and related scandals, the good news is that
corporations are routinely asking tough questions about financial reporting.
Today, we're all terribly conscious of the risks to the organization if we fail
to question the numbers. Almost all of you are in the firing line in that
regard, so there's very little that I can tell you about the importance of assessing
financial risk. I don't have the level of knowledge that you have about
financial accounting, but I do have some related experience that I'm going to
draw on in my remarks today. As you know, I'm a professor of management, but
today I am drawing on my experience as a member of the board of a NASDAQ
company for some ten years. I served as a chairman for the Audit Committee
until they actually required that you know something about auditing. Now I am
on the Compensation and Governance Committee. I am proud of the record of our
little company: We have been squeaky clean from day one. As a matter fact, when
we went public 10 years ago, we had little buttons that we all wore that said,
"We be clean." This is because we had a member of the board named
Robert Townsend, the man who created the Avis Corp., and he was not only one of
the great management thinkers but
also one of the most ethical
business leaders this country has known. He insisted upon spotless ethics in
everything we did, and it became part of the culture of the company. If there
was a nickel on the books that was in question, we have always interpreted accounting
rules in the most conservative way. We have never had anyone question our
numbers and I hope to God we never will.
But the story doesn't stop there.
Recently our board undertook a thorough audit of the human resources function
of our organization. The recent negative exposure that companies like Nike and
LeviStrauss have experienced concerning working conditions in their plants in
Asia convinced us that consumer products companies run considerable risk in
this arena. There was a bit of resistance to undertaking this audit. In fact,
as at most companies, the eyes of our HR people glazed over whenever we used
the word ethics. We are a small company, so we don't have somebody who was an
ethics officer per se, so it fell to the board to raise these questions.
Questions for the Compensation and Governance Committee Once we started to do
so we quickly came to realize that there was an entire raft of HR associated issues
that we had to monitor if we were to assure our shareholders we had done
adequate risk assessment in the organization. Our board members are not experts
in this arena, but we realized that we had to be able to assess risks in all
the corporation's major humancapital
management systems: selection and
recruitment processes, training policies and
programs, performance appraisal
systems, executive compensation, sales and other forms of incentive
compensation, base pay and
benefit determination, talent
management systems (including manpower and succession planning), labor
relations, and so forth. We had to ask if there were appropriate methods and
analytical programs in place that monitor for age, sex, and gender
discrimination; employee attitudes and morale; talent procurement and
retention? We wondered to what extent potential employees saw our company as a
great place to work. We started having to pay attention to health and safety,
termination and downsizing policies, demographics about who gets promoted,
raises, bonuses, and turnover. As we went on, we increasingly sought to
discover the extent to which the company was on top of liabilities in those
areas from a measurement and analytical perspective. With regard to all major
HR systems, our board began to ask the following kinds of questions: Is there a
formal system or process in place? Has the system been validated? Is it clearly
understood and communicated? Has the system had unintended effects? Has it been
analyzed for adverse effects, for example, possible discriminatory impact on
legally protected groups? Each time we asked questions, we had to go back to
learn more, we had to ask more sophisticated questions. Some questions we asked
with regard to leadership development and talent management were things we
thought the board would never get involved in. We started asking if there was a
formal assessment of the key capabilities/talents needed in the company. We
asked if retention rates were monitored? Did the monitoring
include an analysis of
criticality? Did it include competitive practices, capabilities, and
performance? To what degree was the expertise of key people captured by the
organization? Were there non compete agreements with key technical people? Does
our reward system lock key contributors into the organization? We didn't have a
clue what answers we were looking for. This was a matter of constantly asking
every possible question that we could think of. For example, when we looked at
the succession planning system, we asked if the system was formal, who was
involved, and how it was related to business strategy. We asked what metrics were
used and were they related to assessment of needed capabilities? How do we
monitor for derailment? Is there a system of mentoring and coaching? Is it
seeing as effective and fair? That led us into questions about training policy:
Who participates? What are the purposes of the programs? How are they
evaluated? How are they related to business strategy? How do these programs
deal with ethical and legal issues? Are there unintended gender, race, or age
biases in who attends? Then, we started looking at selection procedures: Did we
use validated instruments for identifying the "right" people? How
were these related to business strategy? What methods were used? To what extent
is an effort made at branding our company as a great place to work? Finally, we
looked at retention policies: the retention packages for key personnel, how we
are monitoring satisfaction, whether the packages are tied to
system performance appraisal, and
what metrics are used to identify key personnel, and so on.
Answer
the following question.
Q1. How the writer defines the
organizational ethics. Comment.
Q2. What are the benefits of
routinely asking tough questions about the related issues? Discuss.
CASE
STUDY
As per a judicial order, a
minister was ordered to pay a fine of Rs. 15 lakhs for allotting 15 petrol
pumps, while another minister was fined Rs. 60 lakhs for causing a loss to the
exchequer by allotting 52 shops or kiosks to some favorites.
Answer
the following question.
Q1. What exactly are the improper
actions that you consider unethical?
Q2. Judicial orders in the
interests of the nation are a must. Discuss this statement.
CASE
STUDY
Since the story broke that VW
deliberately buried emissions results in its software, plenty has been written
about this case of corporate malfeasance, perhaps more than any since Enron.
The Volkswagen brand crisis seems fairly straightforward to me. With no mission
or values, I contend there is no hope for achieving VW’s goals ethically and in
a way to sustain the company. Some
confuse mission statements with
other corporate communications that are really marketing taglines and slogans.
Mission statements are not typically external documents, used to convince
others of the value the company creates. Rather the most effective mission statements
are largely internal documents, guiding people within an organization about its
purpose and paired with a values
statement so that organizations
have clarity about both their purpose and how they are going to achieve it.
Volkswagen doesn’t have a mission statement. There were values stated in the
2006 annual report, but they disappeared in future years. A vision statement dated
June 2011 pronounced: “By working in cooperation with politicians and society,
the world of business can play a key part when it comes to combating serious
environmental issues and social inequality. Volkswagen's main contribution to
the project is related to sustainable mobility.” An analysis by Strategic
Management Insight 2013 could find only this goal in lieu of a mission statement:
“The Group’s goal is to offer attractive, safe, and environmentally sound
vehicles which can compete in an increasingly tough market and set world
standards in their respective class.” SMI found Volkswagen Group’s goal lacked
any statement of values
or philosophy, did not mention
customers, employees, or technology. It achieved a score of 1.6 out of a
possible 4.5 in SMI’s evaluation. By 2014, Volkswagen’s annual report talked
about its strategy. Still no mission, no values: “Our Strategy 2018 focuses on positioning
the Volkswagen Group as a global economic and environmental leader among
automobile manufacturers. We have defined four goals that are intended to make
Volkswagen the most successful, fascinating and sustainable automaker in the
world by 2018.” These goals related to innovation, customer satisfaction,
sales, profits and employee retention, but say nothing about core values. In
2010, Volkswagen joined 21 other German automakers in 2010 in agreeing to a
“mission statement for responsible actions in business.” Yet it sill operated
without a clear core set of defined beliefs or values to guide VW’s work, or a
motivational or reward
system aligned with a mission.
While the six principles seem well intentioned
ecologically, without a well designed
system to support this goal, Volkswagen missed achieving it, and in fact,
behaved in a way counter to its stated aspiration. Employees everywhere roll
their eyes through discussions of mission, purpose, and values. For many,
uninterested in the larger system they
operate within professionally,
they seem bored sitting in long meetings listening to what are for them
buzzwords that get in the way of the real work to be done in any company.
Volkswagen was the largest automaker in the world in 2011, offering 13 brands
from Audi to Porsche. That was a few strategies and vision statements ago.
Today Volkswagen’s share price is half what it was a year ago,
following a precipitous stock
price drop when news of the scandal broke. It’s recently appointed CEO has been
reported to take the same misleading software design approach during his time
at Porsche. No surprise, given that he was working in the same purposeless
company, without an articulated set of values to guide his work. Much more will
likely be written about VW and, as it
not is its first corporate
scandal; perhaps the company’s epitaph is in the works. Bottom line: no
mission, no hope.
Answer
the following question.
Q1. Discuss why the effective
mission statements should be paired with a values statement.
Q2. Give your views on the case and sustainability.
Business Ethics
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
General Motors, the world’s
largest automobile manufacturer, accused Japan of currency manipulation giving
its automakers a huge competitive advantage in the US. market and causing
significant harm to the US auto industry. The company charged that Japan’s weak
‘yen policy’ gave its exporters an outright annual subsidy of up to 12,000
dollars per vehicle exported to the United States, giving an expected windfall
of two billion dollars to Japan’s automakers “This subsidy has both facilitated
the expansion of Japanese companies in the US and succeeded in keeping
American-built automobiles out of Japan,” GM’s chief economist Mustafa
Mohatarem told a congressional hearing. The impact of Japan’s sustained
currency manipulation is a keyreason for a plethora of problems facing US-owned
automakers, Mohatarem told a US-Japan trade hearing held by the House
Representatives’ ways and means committee “However, it is frustrating, really
unbelievable, to many of us in this business and the American manufacturing
sector that the Japanese government’s extraordinary $420 billion currency
manipulation program has gone unquestioned and unchallenged, while China has
become the sole focus of attention as the threat to American competitiveness,”
he said. Lawmakers criticized the government for not being tough with Japan on
its currency policy and sought an explanation from David Loevinger, deputy
assistant secretary at the US treasury, among other government officials
present at the hearing.
Answer
the following question.
Q1. Is there any ethical issue involved
in this case? If so, explain the same.
Q2. What remedies do you suggest to
ensure a proper approach? Discuss.
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
Prohibition is good and women
would appreciate a policy of prohibition. However some state governments may
scrap prohibition on the grounds that (i) the adjoining states do not observe
prohibition, hence people visit those states to quench their desire for the
beverage (ii) the existence of illicit distillation and the difficulty in
stopping this (iii) the strain on government resources for implementing
prohibition, including the loss of revenue from excise duty.
Answer
the following question.
Q1. Are the grounds shown in the above
case ethically justifiable? Explain.
Q2. In your opinion what are the
benefits of prohibition. Discuss.
Case
(20 Marks)
Joan, an employee of Great
American Market, was warned about her excessive absenteeism several times, both
verbally and in writing. The written warning included notice that "further
violations will result in disciplinary actions," including suspension or discharge.
A short time after the written warning was issued, Joan called work to say she
was not going to be in because her babysitter had called in sick and she had to
stay home and care for her young child. Joan's supervisor, Sylvia, told her
that she had already exceeded the allowed number of absences and warned that if
she did not report to work, she could be suspended. When Joan did not report
for her shift, Sylvia suspended her for fifteen days. In a subsequent hearing,
Joan argued that it was not her fault that the babysitter had canceled, and
protested that she had no other choice but to stay home. Sylvia pointed out
that Joan had not made a good faith effort to find an alternate babysitter, nor
had she tried to swap shifts with a co-worker. Furthermore, Sylvia said that
the lack of a babysitter was not a justifiable excuse for being absent.
Answer
the following question.
1.
Was the suspension fair?
2.
Did Joan act responsibly?
CASE
STUDY (20 Marks)
Most people want to be ethical —
and consider themselves to be. But incidents ranging from stolen library books
to rogue trading illustrate that many people do not act as ethically as they
want to, or as they think they do. “With all the evidence to support rational,
good choices in the workplace or
the marketplace, why don’t we all behave that way?” said Ann Skeet, director of
leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara
University. Skeet gave an introduction to a May 11 forum called, “The
Behavioral Movement: What Business Professionals Should Know About Human
Nature,” sponsored by the Business Ethics Partnership of the Markkula Center.
Two speakers addressed what we know about why people behave unethically – and
how the conditions that contribute to this behavior may be particularly acute
in high-pressure environments like Silicon Valley. “The culture of Silicon
Valley is different than in most other places,” said Hersh Shefrin, the Mario
L. Belotti Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of
Business and a pioneer in the field of behavioral finance. “This is a
risk-taking culture and a culture
where goals are set very high.”
This can make Silicon Valley workers especially vulnerable to the pressures
that can lead to unethical decisions. For example, the increasing use of global
teams, which can require phone calls early in the morning and late at night as
well as regular hours in the office, may contribute to fatigue – a risk factor
for poor decision-making. Still, Shefrin said, “we’re not as unique as we think
we are – just more so.” Workers in Silicon Valley are subject to the same
psychological issues as workers anywhere else. For example, all workers have
blind spots, said Ann E. Tenbrunsel, professor in the College of Business
Administration at the University of Notre Dame and the Rex and Alice A. Martin
Research Director of the Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide. She
addressed the psychology of ethical decision making, or “why people behave
unethically despite the best intentions.” There have been significant efforts
to improve ethics: at the regulatory level; at the organizational level, with
millions spent on training; and at the educational level, with ethics being
infused into the curriculum at many universities, Tenbrunsel said. Still, the
headlines announcing bad behavior keep coming. “We haven’t taken the psychology
of the decision maker into account,” Tenbrunsel said. She listed four ethical
blind spots that contribute to poor decision making — ethical illusions,
ethical fading, dangerous reward systems and motivated blindness — and
elaborated on the first two. Ethical illusions are based on “illusions of our
own ethicality,” Tenbrunsel said. She cited studies showing that library books
on ethics – presumably checked out by people who think about ethics – are
stolen more often than non-ethics books. And when people are asked to rate how
honest they are, a majority of people rate themselves above average, which is
statistically not possible. “We really seem to engage in hyperinflation about things
related to morality and ethicality,” Tenbrunsel said. “If everyone thinks their
companies are ethical, we don’t do a good job of really trying to find the
problems.” It helps to think of three stages of the decision-making process,
Tenbrunsel said: prediction, action and recollection. Before making a decision,
people generally predict that they will act in accordance with their values.
When it comes to taking action, that is not always what happens. But after the
fact, “we remember that we did better than we did,” Tenbrunsel said. Why don’t
people behave as they predict they will? One reason, said Tenbrunsel, is that
prediction involves high-level ideals, whereas the action phase is more about
the details and what is feasible at that particular moment. Forces such as
hunger, fatigue and fear come into play, for example, and may overwhelm
idealistic plans. “The body and mind’s goal is to mitigate it,” Tenbrunsel
said. Ethical fading, the second blind spot Tenbrunsel discussed, happens when
a person making a decision doesn’t view the decision as one that involves
ethics. People use financial criteria to make financial decisions and legal
criteria to make legal decisions, for example. So if a decision can be
categorized as something other than an ethical one, it makes it easy to not
consider ethics. Language plays a role in this area, as well: For example, a
decision about “runoff” may be viewed differently than one about “pollution.”
Shefrin continued the conversation by examining rogue trading, an example of
how “finance and psychology and ethics all interconnect.” Because trading
involves taking risks, it is useful to understand the psychology behind
risk-taking. For example, most people will choose a sure gain over a smaller
chance to win a larger amount. But they will choose the risk of a large loss
over a sure loss. “Three of the most important emotions associated with what
happens when you face a risk are fear, hope and aspiration,” Shefrin said.
“People who are excessively fearful tend not to take risks that are worth
taking in an actuarial sense, and people who are excessively hopeful tend to
shoot for the stars when it’s not appropriate. In a situation like the rogue
trading cases, traders find themselves in a situation where the pressures to
succeed are so great that they take imprudent risks.” In addition to the
psychology of the individuals involved, the strength of corporate processes and
the way corporate culture encourages or discourages risk-taking play a role.
“Strong corporate cultures that include an ethical dimension can help deal with
the vulnerabilities,” Shefrin said. “The tone always starts at the top.”
Answer
the following question.
Q1. Why imprudent risks are to be
taken for great success. Explain
Q2.
Debate the three stages of the decision-making process.
Business Ethics
Q1. Give measures to control
pollution
Q2. Write note on electrification
of villages.
Q3. What is the problem of
International Liquidity? In what manner this problem has been solved by IMF?
Q4. Give enlightening words of
the Dalai Lama.
Q5. Give benefits of consumer
education.
Q6. What is cultural ethos?
Q7. Discuss polycentric approach
to globalization.
Q8. Explain the challenges of
globalization of Indian industries.
Business Ethics
Q1. Give song of eighteen values.
(10 marks)
Q2. What is code of conduct for
citizens. (10 marks)
Q3. Explain need for a check on
quackery. (10 marks)
Q4. Explain National consumer
disputes redressal commission. (10 marks)
Q5. Discuss consumerism (10
marks)
Q6. Write a note on Consumer
Safety. (10 marks)
Q7. What are some ethical
problems in business. (10 marks)
Q8.
Discuss managers role in business ethics.
Business
Ethics
Q1. What are the fundamental duties of every citizen
of India.
Q2. Give song of eighteen values.
Q3. Give 7 points of New World order by M. K.
Gandhi.
Q4. Discuss unethical practices vis-Ã -vis cheating.
Q5. What are some ethical problems in business.
Q6. Discuss social justice according to gandhiji.
Q7. Explain main activities of ITPO.
Q8.
Discuss polycentric approach to globalization.
No comments:
Post a Comment