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T o S h i p o r N o t t o S h i p

Author: Clare Bartlett, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, August 2015

Rachel works as a Quality Assurance Engineer at a large

electronics company. She is responsible for the final

testing of her company’s servers and is part of a team

which decides when new products will be shipped to

distributors for sale.

Rachel’s company has a contract with another company

which makes the chips which are incorporated into the

servers Rachel’s company makes. The business model for

this product is to release a new generation server

approximately every six months, meaning Rachel has a

limited timeframe to conduct her Quality Control tests.

Because there is such a short amount of time between the

release of each next new product, the Quality and

Assurance department cannot perform every possible test

on the servers to ensure they are defect free. Rachel will

not ship a product if there is any possibility that the server

could malfunction and cause physical harm to the

customer. However, she will ship a product that has a

higher likelihood of failure resulting in data loss for the

customer, because she knows that if she doesn't, her

company's competitor will.

Things to Consider:

Is this an ethical way to conduct business? How should she

determine when to ship a product with known defects?

O B J E C T I V E

-Please see the appendix in your syllabus for

clear instructions

-Be sure to incorporate the Ethical Decision-

Making Model from Ch. 2

-Please complete a case analysis worksheet

before beginning to write your case analysis

-DO NOT USE BULLETS IN YOUR WRITTEN CASE

ANALYSIS

-please write in paragraphs/essay format

D U E D A T E :

The final copy of this assignment is due on

Canvas by 11:59pm on

August 6, 2020