Due Thursday November 14th at 12:00 PM PST

Case 68 TO GO OR TO STAY: ETHICS IN THE WORKPLACE

For Case 68: The way I see it, there are 4 possible solutions you can choose to argue for this situation:
1) Janet stays with the company and cancels the orders as she's told.
2) Janet quits her job.  
3) Janet stays with the company, but goes against instructions and does not cancel the orders.
4) OR even better, can you come up with some kind of "out of the box" solution for this situation?

Major Question

What should Janice do?

Kitty Dickerson, University of Missouri

When Janice Heitler landed a job after graduation in the buyer training program at retailer BuyBest, she believed her career dreams were close to being fulfilled. Although she had limited experience with the company through an internship, she was particularly fortunate to be hired immediately into the BuyBest's buying office. Typically, potential buyers spend at least two years in a BuyBest store before having an opportunity to go to the headquarter's buying offices.

Janice plunged quickly into her work as a buyer trainee at BuyBest. Although she was given a relatively limited amount of training and guidance in her new job, Janice learned quickly. She soon earned the respect of her colleagues and the vendors with whom she worked. Before long, Janice was given limited opportunities to do some of the actual buying for her area. As her experience increased, so did her responsibilities for buying. In what was a relatively short period of time for a buyer in training, she was made buyer of her own area. Although this first buying area was relatively low profile, the multiple stores represented in the chain meant that the dollar volume for which she bought was fairly significant.

As Janice continued her successful performance, she was rewarded with higher-dollar-volume areas for which to buy. Within less than three years, she was buyer for two merchandise areas and was responsible for a staggering dollar volume for a person of her age and experience. Although somewhat uneasy at times because of her fast promotion, Janice continued to perform well. Her areas were successful, and she was a valued employee of BuyBest.

As the economy changed and consumer apparel expenditures declined, Janice's satisfaction with her job began to wane. Although her own buying areas were doing reasonably well, the company as a whole was less profitable than in prior years. Many of BuyBest's buyers had merchandise on order with manufacturers and found that consumer demand was not adequate to sell all the merchandise ordered. Many of Janice's buyer peers canceled their orders with manufacturers.

As Janice's buying areas began to show lackluster performance, she began to be pressured from her superiors to cancel orders for merchandise not yet shipped. She understood why her superiors wanted her to cancel the orders; however, she felt it was unethical treatment of the manufacturers with whom she had developed trusted relationships. Because Janice was buying a substantial volume of merchandise for the multiple stores in the BuyBest organization, she was sensitive to what this meant to those vendors. For many small suppliers, in particular, the volume she ordered could make or break the manufacturer. For those companies with whom she had placed orders, the fabrics and others supplies would have been purchased by the manufacturers, and in several cases, production was already in progress. This also would mean the manufacturer would have incurred labor costs at that point. In short, the losses associated with canceled orders from BuyBest could put some of her vendors out of business or seriously cripple them.

Janice found herself torn between her conscience and the expectations of her employer. To stay in her job, she must cancel orders to meet BuyBest's financial expectations for her area. To do so, Janice knew she would be seriously hurting vendors with whom she had developed good relationships, and she had become friends with several. Additionally, she knew that she might need to place orders again with those companies—if they were still in business—and she was uncertain if they would sell to her again if she treated them in this manner.

Janice's superiors were very much aware of the implications of canceled orders on vendors. They, too, were responding to pressure from their superiors. Janice could not be sure how high in the corporate structure the decisions were being made.

Janice saw some of her buyer peers leaving BuyBest. Although she was troubled by her dilemma, she knew she would not likely find another job with comparable opportunities at this stage in her career.