Decision Memo

Merger Madness

Michelle Freeman

Purdue University Global

GB590M4

Professor, Pricilla Aaltonen

August 2, 2021

Fellow Employees,

Question 1: Which company, Binary Frontiers Entertainment or Kaijusoft, did you select most often and why?

I selected Kaijusoft most often over Binary Frontiers Entertainment for the following reasons. I felt that Kaijusoft values and beliefs were more in line with my company’s which made them a better fit. Although Kaijusoft did have some issues with sexual harassment and they did not address it appropriately, I feel that they were the best match for my current employees. They seemed to be the more appropriate match because they cared about and respected their employees more than BFE.

Question 2: Would the company you chose in this exercise be your final choice? Why or why not?

With my choices being Kaijusoft or BFE, I would choose Kaijusoft as my final choice for the merger. Both companies have equal amounts of negative attributes such as sexual harassment and copying of games. However, the fact that most of our current staff would immediately be laid off if merged with BFE was a major deciding factor to merge with Kaijusoft. I believe our market share would increase which would boost our organic growth. Most importantly I believe it would be less of a culture change for our existing employees which creates a culture of greater empowerment. I believe that this is an underestimated task and since our corporate culture is similar, we have an opportunity to have a greater influence.

Question 3: Did you find yourself drawn more often to the rationales of a particular lens? How much do you think that affected your final decision?

Although my preferred ethical lens is the Results Lens, where I am listening to my intuition. In this exercise, I found myself more drawn to the relationship and responsibility lens. I was concerned about the bottom line, but my main concern was relative to how the merger would affect the employees. My reasoning was if we merged with Kaijusoft a great deal of our existing employees would be retained versus BFE who would immediately lay them off. I felt that retention of existing talent could be a valuable integration of skills, competencies and experience. This also give the existing employees the opportunity to show Kaijusoft how valuable they are to the long-term success of the company. Overall BFE did not seem interested in our values nor the retention of our employees.

Question 4: How might the skills you have learned within the last four Ethics Exercises help you make ethical decisions in the future?

I believe that the skills I have learned with these ethics exercises provides me with the frameworks for making good ethical decisions for the future. Especially when I open my own business. As a leader I will need to consider all perspectives when analyzing and making decisions in a variety of ethical situations. I think that the exercises challenged me to think outside of what I thought was the norm by choosing answers based on ethical lenses other than my own.