ethical dilemmas

152 Chapter 4 Addressing Individuals’ Common Ethical Problems

employee’s wrongdoing by supplying an unfavorable reference? Why or why not? Discuss the conflict between community responsibility and self‐protection.

11 What conditions would have to be present for you to blow the whistle about unethical conduct you observed at work? How would you go about it?

12 If Sherron Watkins had blown the whistle to the Houston Chronicle and not to Enron’s CEO Ken Lay, do you think she would have kept her job at Enron?

13 Research a story about whistle‐ blowing. Relate what “your” whistle‐ blower did with the seven steps recommended in the chapter. What have you learned from the comparison?

14 Do you think that “paying” whistle‐ blowers encourages people to look for ethical misdeeds or to “game up” ethical misdeeds? Do you think people should be willing to report unethical activities because it is the right thing to do? What role could money play in that decision?

SHORT CASES

Think about what you most value. For each of the ethical dilemmas below, describe at least two courses of action you might take and state the pros and cons of each course. Describe your actions out loud to some­ one else in class or to a friend. What can you say or do that would be consistent with your personal values?

Values Issue You’re a trader who joined a large invest­ ment bank two years ago. Pat, one of your fellow traders, is well known on the Street for being a big risk taker and a big money maker for the firm. Consequently, he is popular among your firm’s senior management. You see him at a party one night and notice that he surreptitiously used cocaine several times. Several weeks later in the office, you notice that he seems exceptionally high‐spirited and that his pupils are extremely dilated—you know that both are signs of drug use. You’re thinking of mentioning something about it to his managing director, Bob, when Pat makes a particularly impressive killing in the market for your firm’s own account. Bob jokes that he doesn’t know how Pat

does it, but he doesn’t care. “However he is pulling this off, it’s great for the firm,” Bob laughs. You feel strongly that this is a problem and that it places your firm at risk. You’ve already raised the issue to Pat’s manager, Bob, who ignored the issue. Do you raise it further? How can you voice your values in this case?

People Issue Your division has formed a committee of employees to examine suggestions and create a strategy for how to reward good employee ideas. The committee has five members, but you are the only one who is a member of a minority group. You’re pleased to be part of this effort since appointments to committees such as this one are viewed generally as a positive reflection on job performance. At the first meeting, tasks are assigned, and all the other committee members think you should survey minority members for their input. Over the next few weeks, you discover that several committee meetings have been held without your knowledge. When you ask why you weren’t notified, two committee members tell you that survey information wasn’t needed at

Notes 153

the meetings and you’d be notified when a general meeting was scheduled. When you visit one committee member in his office, you spot a report on the suggestion program that you’ve never seen before. When you ask about it, he says it’s just a draft he and two others have produced.

Conflict of Interest Issue You’ve just cemented a deal between a $100 million pension fund and Green Company, a large regional money manager. You and your staff put in long hours and a lot of effort to close the deal and are feeling very good about it. As you and three of your direct reports are having lunch in a fancy restaurant to celebrate a promotion, the waiter brings you a phone. A senior account executive from Green is calling and wants to buy you lunch in gratitude for all your efforts. “I’ll leave my credit card number with the restaurant owner,” he says. “You and your team have a great time on me.”

Customer Confidence Issue You’re working the breakfast shift at a fast‐ food restaurant when a delivery of milk, eggs, and other dairy products arrives. There’s a story in the local newspaper about contaminated milk distributed by the dairy that delivers to your restaurant. Upon reading the article more closely, you discover that only a small portion of the dairy’s milk is contaminated, and the newspaper lists the serial numbers of the affected containers. When you point out the article to your manager, he tells you to

forget it. “If you think we’ve got time to go through every carton of milk to check serial numbers, you’re crazy,” he says. “The article says right here that the chances are minus­ cule that anyone has a contaminated car­ ton.” He also explains that he doesn’t have the workers to check the milk, and what’s more, destroying the milk would require him to buy emergency milk supplies at the retail price. So he tells you to get back to work and forget about the milk. He says, “I don’t have the time or the money to worry about such minor details.”

Use of Corporate Resources Issue You work for Red Company. You and a col­ league, Pat Brown, are asked by your man­ ager to attend a weeklong conference in Los Angeles. At least 25 other employees from Red Co. are attending, as well as many cus­ tomers and competitors from other institu­ tions. At the conference, you attend every session and see many of the Red Co. peo­ ple, but you never run into Pat. Although you’ve left several phone messages for her, her schedule doesn’t appear to allow room for a meeting. However, when you get back to the office, the department secre­ tary, who is coordinating expense reports, mentions to you that your dinner in L.A. must have been quite the affair. When you ask, “What dinner?” she describes a dinner with 20 customers and Red Co. employees that Pat paid for at a posh L.A. restaurant. When you explain that you didn’t attend, she shows you the expense report with your name listed as one of the attendees.

Notes

1. Mary C. Gentile, “Giving Voice to Values,” The Aspen Institute, www.aspencbe.org/ teaching/gvv/ index.html.

2. B. George, P. Sims, A. N. McLean, and D. Mayer, “Discovering Your Authentic Lead­ ership,” Harvard Business Review 85, no. 2 (2007): 1–8.

3. J. Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: Free Press, 1993), 55–78.

4. E. A. Lind and T. R. Tyler, The Social Psychol- ogy of Procedural Justice (New York: Plenum Press, 1988).

5. B. Sheppard, R. Lewicki, and J. W. Minton, Organizational Justice: The Search for Fairness in

154 Chapter 4 Addressing Individuals’ Common Ethical Problems

the Workplace (New York: Lexington Books, 1992).

6. Eduardo Porter, “UBS Ordered to Pay $29 Million in Sex Bias Lawsuit,” New York Times, April 7, 2005, www.nytimes.com.

7. Insider Exclusive, “Wall Street Women Win $70 Million Against Morgan Stanley,” 2013, http://www.insiderexclusive.com/justice‐ in‐america/legal‐wall‐street‐women‐win‐70‐ million‐against‐morgan‐stanley.

8. Jenny Anderson, “After She Sued Merrill, It’s Back on the Job,” New York Times, July 22, 2005, www.nytimes.com.

9. “Charges Alleging Sexual Harassment FY2010–FY2015,” Equal Employment Oppor­ tunity Commission. n.d. Retrieved from https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/ enforcement/sexual_harassment_new.cfm.

10. D. Schawble, “Daniel Goleman on Lead­ ership and the Power of Emotional Intel­ ligence,” Forbes, September 15, 2011, www. forbes.com

11. E. Francis, “$168 Million Awarded in Cali­ fornia Sexual Harassment Suit,” ABC News. March 2, 2012. Retrieved from http:// abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/168‐ million‐awarded‐woman‐harassed‐raunchy‐ cardiac‐surgery/story?id=15835342.

12. J. Lever, G. Zellman, and S. J. Hirschfeld, “Office Romance: Are the Rules Changing?” Across the Board, March–April 2006, 33–37.

13. C. DeJong, T. Aguilar, C. Tseng, G. A. Lin, W. J. Boscardin, and R. A. Dudley, “Phar­ maceutical Industry–Sponsored Meals and Physician Prescribing Patterns for Medi­ care Beneficiaries,” JAMA Internal Medicine 176, no. 8 (2016): 1114–20.

14. J. D. Glater, “University of Texas Fires Director of Financial Aid,” New York Times, May 14, 2007.

15. C. Dowd, “Investors Beware: Devil May Be in the Details of Annuities,” Fox Business. May 19, 2016. Retrieved from www.foxbusi­ ness.com/features/2016/05/19/investors‐ beware‐devil‐may‐be‐in‐details‐annuities. html.

16. Paul Sullivan, “In Search of Competent (and Honest) Advisers,” New York Times, August 1, 2009, www.nytimes.com.

17. J. Hechinger and S. Craig, “SEC Tells Fidelity Probe May Yield Civil Com­ plaint,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2005, A3.

18. J. A. Byrne, “No Excuses for Enron’s Board,” Businessweek, July 29, 2002, 50.

19. I. J. Dugan, “Auditing Old‐Timers Recall when Prestige Was the Bottom Line,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2002.

20. A. Samuel, “Meet your newest management headache: the co‐branded employee,” Wall Street Journal Online. October 29, 2012.

21. K. Reardon, “Courage as a Skill,” Harvard Business Review, January 2007, 2–7.

22. H. Wee, “Corporate Ethics: Right Makes Might,” Businessweek, April 11, 2002.

23. R. Webber, “Whistle Blowing,” Executive Ex- cellence, July 1989, 9–10.

24. Ibid.

25. A. Dunkin, “Blowing the Whistle without Paying the Piper,” Businessweek, June 3, 1991, 138–39.

26. W. M. Hoffman and J. M. Moore, Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1984), 257.

27. F. Pellegrini, “Person of the Week: ‘Enron Whistleblower’ Sherron Watkins,” Time, January 18, 2002.

28. R. Rothracker, “Whistle‐blower Law Reap Big Payoffs for U.S. Treasury.” Legi‐Slate, August 29, 1997, 1; S. McDonough, “Want­ ed: Snitch for Good Pay.” Centre Daily Times, November 29, 2004, B9; D. B. Caruso, “Whistleblowers Help Feds to Build Cases.” Centre Daily Times, August 25, 2004, B9.

29. K. Thomas and M. Schmidt, “Glaxo Agrees to Pay $3 Billion in Fraud Settlement,” New York Times, July 2, 2012, www.nytimes.com

30. P. Dryer, and D. Carney, “Year of the Whistle­ blower,” Businessweek, December 16, 2002, 107–10. T. Wilkinson, “After Eight Years, An Insider Gets His Reward Thanks to Whistle­ blower’s Efforts, U.S. Government Reaps