Essay: Ethical Dilemmas In The Workplace - Four Case Studies.

Case 1: Quality Assurance and Product Shipments

Rachela work 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 timcframe 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. 

Is this an ethical way to conduct business? How should she determine when to ship a product with known defects? 

Anne is an established electrical engineer at Onerous, a computer hardware company. Not a stranger to incidences of favoritism the company, Anne recently encountered a particularly unfavorable scenario involving a few of her close co-workers. 

Two employees, who had been newly hired, were given visible roles in a prominent project. Upon the project's successful completion, the new-hires were given generous promotions by management. On the other hand, Anne's co-workers were asked to play supporting roles in the project, and were not given any special recognition (i.c., promotions) for their work. 

Anne's non-confrontational co-workers were angry and came to Anne for advice since they knew she had broad professional experience. They told her that they were going to leave the company if management did not stop playing favorites. 

Although strongly inclined to bring this matter up to her manager, Anne felt like doing so would be futile because her manager is stubborn and inflexible. How should Anne deal with this situation ? 

A recent college graduate, recently started a new job as an analyst at a boutique investment bank. The office is a small, all- male environment, known as "The Bullpen." After her first two months at work, the company is set to hold its annual summer outing. 
As the outing is some distance from her house, Victoria is pleased when one of the executives, Luke, offers to drive her home. During the drive, Luke invites Victoria for "a casual dinner." She feels pressured to accept. Since they arc currently working together on a deal, she hopes that the dinner will be a great opportunity to collaborate on business. Instead, she is ill at case when Luke continuously brings up personal matters. 

Case 2: Favoritism in the Workplace

Back in the car, Luke is even more insistent that Victoria comes to his house. She is extremely uncomfortable, but sees no way out of the situation, feeling as if she cannot decline. At his house, Luke makes a direct advance toward Victoria. By this point she has had enough and is visibly upset. Immediately, she confronts Luke as to why he is placing her in such an inappropriate situation. Victoria then calls a cab and departs, mulling over her options. 

Victoria is unsure what action to take. Her first two months on the job were going so well and she wonders what impact this incident will have on her work environment. She does not feel comfortable approaching her firm's HR department, a one-man operation who seems to exhibit and condone the firm's "bullpen" attitude. Victoria fears that if she does not speak up the advances will continue, but considering that she has to work with Luke on their current deal, she wonders if forgetting the incident will make it go away faster. 

What should Victoria do? 

Five Years  after graduating from Santa Clara University, Ilene Kennedy got a job in contract sales. same high-end office furniture to large companies throughout Northern California Ilene was a manufacturer's rep who represented ten lines of furniture to dealers who then sold the furniture to the cnd user-law firms and financial companies in remodel or expansion processes. 

Ilene had learned about the strict chain-of-custody w ithin the contract furniture industry from a close friend in the business This chain was a custom in the business which permitted onh certain individuals to sell to and represent those immediately above or below them in the "ladder." In the system. designers and architects who were remodeling law firms and company offices specified furniture to buy from the dealers who would. in turn, buy the furniture from the manufacturer. As a manufacturer's representative. Ilene would only be selling to dealers, architects and designers. She would not be selling to end users .

But when this chain-of-custock system was explained to Ilene by her new boss, he told her that. in reality, it often didn't work that wax He had hired Ilene to sell directly to the law firms and companies-thereby cutting out the dealers, architects and designers. By eliminating the dealers, architects and designers in the process. Ilene's firm could make a bigger profit margin. In many large deals. Ilene was bidding against dealers. architects and designers she often worked closely with-dealers she was supposed to be using at the time. The entire process made Ilene feel ten uncomfortable-she felt like she was cheating the system It was apparent that her company was using a less accepted strategy .

After a couple months, she brought the concern to her boss, the owner of the company. who was completely unsupportivc. 

Her boss told her that she was. "too idealistic and not a true salesperson." They were in the business to make money. not to nuke friends. He said she could lease if she didn't feel comfortable with the arrangement.

"I just realized I was hired for a position that was completely unethical." said Ilene .

Frustrated. Ilene did her best to balance both her role as a manufacturer's representative and her forced role in the bidding wars On several occasions she bowed out of potential deals with end-users when she was faced with bidding against her own dealer client In these instances the dealers knew that Ilene was going after the profit. She wasn't proud of the strategy and, knowing well that she may have to work with the dealers in the future. she decided to take herself out of the awkward situations. 

But Ilene couldn't handle the balance "I told my boss that I was uncomfortable selling to the end-users for ethical reasons: said Ilene For the next six months. Ilene only sold to dealers and designers-as the chain-of-custody intended it. 

"The option was less lucrative for me and for the company. but at least I was doing what I thought was right and fair." said Ilene .

After those six months. Ilene quit the Job and began a sales Job in another industry where she's found ground-breaking success. 

• Do you think the sale strategy of Ilene's boss IS unethical or just an aggressive tactic?
• What would sour advice be to Ilene on how to deal with this discomfort she felt with selling directly to end users'
• 'How could this practice of breaking the chain-of-custody impact the industry'
• Does Ilene have the obligation to push for broader changes within the system. rather than only changing her own job responsibilities to align with her personal ethics'
• Is n ethicallt forbidden to go out of the sales chain' 

Case 1: Quality Assurance and Product Shipments

The company chosen for the report is Tesco Plc. Tesco is the largest operating grocery business within the United Kingdom. The vision of the company is to “To be the most highly valued business by: the customers we serve, the communities in which we operate, our loyal and committed colleagues and of course, our shareholders”. There are five elements of Tesco’s vision statement, needed and wanted all over the world, innovative, modern and possess many ideas, a flourishing company which is full of prospects, locally winners while employing their skills internationally. In addition to this, the mission of Tesco Plc. states that “We make what matters better, together.” (Ayodele, Abdallah, & Issaka)

The major competitors of the Tesco Plc. are Sainsbury, ASDA, and Morrison, they are generally referred to as the big four within the United Kingdom. Tesco is correspondingly competing with the convenience stores. In addition to this, Lidl and Aldi are coming to be strong market competitors in the United Kingdom. According to the SWOT analysis of Tesco, the company has a diverse and extensive consumer base, patent license agreements and patents, as well as a strong product portfolio as its strengths (Grundy, 2017). The weaknesses of the company are concentrated operations and infringement controversies. New opportunities can open if Tesco continues to invest within its research and development, constructive search for international top drive market, and strategic acquisitions. The threats which the company is facing are seasonal variations, worldwide economic environment and risks in gas and oil industry (Jenkins, & Williamson, 2015).

According to the PESTLE analysis, the company is facing impending and current legislations, rates of taxes, rate of unemployment, political instability, and the country’s economic conditions. The major economic factors for the company are cost of labour, the presence and diversification within the international market. In terms of the legal factors, Tesco plc is ought to comply with the Food Retailing Commission (FRC) stringent practice code (Hammad, 2015).

Looking at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix, the matrix is comprised of cash cows, stars, question marks and dogs. For Tesco Plc. their fresh meat section is considered to be the cash cow of the company (Medarac, 2014). Tesco has several star products, one of which is considered to be the Tesco Bank. The question marks of the company are Tesco lard, it is able to produce some profit, but it is not highly demanded by the consumers. As for the dogs, Tesco’s mobile segment is considered to be in the dog section of the BCG matrix for Tesco Plc (Accolla, & Garini, 2017, July). The report provides an overall outlook on the strategic planning of Tesco Plc, which is inclusive of the strategic planning tools and in what manner they are used by the company. In addition to this, in what manner Tesco complies with the legal and economic requirements of the countries in which it operates as well as the opportunities it can acquire and the threats which Tesco Plc, might face.

• Rachel is a quality assurance engineer working at one of the largest electronic company within the country.
• Rachel is responsible for the final testing of the servers as she belongs to Quality Assurance department and it comes under her ethical responsibility to ensure that product is fit for market launch but sadly, this is heavily ignored by Rachel during her time with the company with fear of competitor taking over the market share. She ends up launching unfit products in the market which can cause significant damage to the clients in form of data loss.
• As she works for one of the biggest electronic company in the country, the company releases new generation server every six months which is a good sign of competitive nature of the market.
• Rachel has a tight deadlines to conduct the tests of quality control which might serve as a reason for her lack of focus and attention towards extensive quality assurance services.

Case 2: Favoritism in the Workplace

The chief ethical issue is the fact that Rachel is not able to perform appropriate quality test, for the reason that she is short of time. In addition to this she would ship any product which has a greater chance of failure that would result in the consumer’s data loss, because she is not willing to lose her prospects as well as give her company’s rivals to ship products prior to her organisation.

The primary stakeholder which will be affected by the situation are mentioned below:

• The company
• Rachel
• The chip company
• The consumers

The possible alternatives are mentioned below, which can be taken in order to manage the situation in an effective and efficient manner.

• Rachel can proceed to carry out the quality test as she does.
• Rachel can talk to the management for more time to run proper test on the servers.
• Rachel can take assistance from the quality assurance team members to perform the quality assurance test in the limited frame of time.
• Rachel can talk to the management to modify the policy of product generation and have more time in the middle of the product generation.

The ethics of the alternatives are defined subsequently;

• Carrying out complete product testing that would be beneficial within keeping the stakeholders satisfied.
• By the means of utilising any of these alternatives the organisation would be able to decrease the maintenance cost in the long run.
• In the case, where Rachel continues with the current strategy, she might damage her career as well as lose the market reputation of the company.

• The company might encounter a great reputational damage if it continues to work like that, in addition to this it can correspondingly have an impact on Rachel’s job and the company might end up having legal prosecutions and paying penalties for its actions. This could lead to great financial loss for the company as well as damage Rachel’s career as a Quality Assurance Engineer.

• Rachel should opt for proper quality testing, this would be best for the company as well as Rachel herself. In addition to this, Rachel should ensure that the products are defect free.
• Rachel is ought to have time as well as task management for her to keep track of the shipping dates as well as when the quality assurance department should start to run their tests.
• Rachel should perform proper quality testing even if it delays the product shipment.

• Anne is an electrical engineer at Onerous.
• The company Anne works for, time and again displays favouritism, which every employee of the company is fully aware about.
• Two new employees were given prominent roles on a noticeable project, while the old employees, who are Anne team members, were given supporting roles.
• The old employees were not given any recognition, while the management gave the new employees unstinting promotions.
• Anne’s co - workers are non - confrontational yet angry, in regards to the situation and the fact that the company does not recognise their efforts.
• The old employee might leave the company, which could in turn have a major impact upon the company as they will lose credible resources.

The ethical issues for this case scenario are given below;

• Assigning prominent jobs to the new hires of the organisation instead of giving them to the senior personnel is injustice.
• Inequality in the rights of employees as the management gave promotion only to the new employees.
• The management executive is an inflexible and stubborn individual (Bryman, & Bell, 2015).

The primary stakeholder which will be affected by the situation are mentioned below:

• The company
• Anne
• Anne’s Boss
• The management
• The old employees
• The new employees

The possible alternatives are mentioned below, which can be taken in order to manage the situation in an effective and efficient manner.

• Anne can make her co - workers understand that according to the management the newly hired employees might have possessed more potential and experience because of which the management thought they would be more appropriate for the lead positions.
• Another alternative could be that, Anne can go and talk to her manager and make an attempt to make the manager understand her co - workers point of view, and the fact that they may lose potential resources.

• The company will need to employ fair promotion policy.
• There should be a justice system within the employee evaluations that has equal parameter for all the employees.
• An open door communication policy is required within the company and should monitor the employees as well as their issues and problems (Crane, & Matten, 2016).

• The company is able to lose credible resources because of their favouritism behaviour. In addition to this the company is violating the employee’s right.
• Furthermore, the management is emotionally distressing the employees which is able to result in low productivity and poor employee performance as the employees are not satisfied with the culture of the organisation.

• Human resource policy is ought to be amended as well as reviewed when required to make sure each and every employee is treated with fairness in addition to having a fair work environment.
• A non - blame organisational culture which is dedicated to be employed in addition to having a suitable communication stream is needed to be established in order to give all the personnel the opportunity to vertically communicate within the company.

• Victoria is a college graduate, who has commenced her job at a boutique investment bank as an analyst.
• The environment of the investment bank is an all - male environment, which is known as the Bull pen, with Victoria as the only female working within the bank.
• The company planned their annual summer outing, which takes place exactly two months of Victoria working in the office.
• The outing was at a distance from Victoria’s house, and one of her executives, Luke, offered Victoria a ride home.
• Luke asks Victoria for dinner which she feels pressured to accept as both of them are working together on a deal. Yet, she feels uncomfortable as he keeps bringing up personal subjects.
• Luke insists Victoria to go to his house, where he behaves inappropriately towards Victoria which makes her upset and confronts Luke and leaves.
• Victoria is not comfortable going to the Human Resource department, which is headed by one person and seems to condone and exhibit the bull pen attitude of the firm. (Prinsloo, & Slade, 2013, April pp. 240-244)

The ethical issues in this case are defined subsequently;

• Victoria was sexually harassed by a co – worker, Luke, after he kept insisting Victoria to go to his house, where he made an advance towards her and made her very uncomfortable and upset.
• Another ethical issue is that even after acknowledging the fact that Victoria was uncomfortable, Luke kept bringing up personal matters.

• Victoria
• The Human Resource Department
• Luke
• The Firm

• Victoria can take this matter to the human resource department and explain the whole scenario and ask him to manage the situation.
• She can talk to her manager about the unethical conduct of Luke and ask the manager to handle the matter in an appropriate manner.
• Victoria can directly talk to Luke about his unethical conduct and solve matters between themselves.

• The company will be required to amend and review their employee policy.
• The management will penalise or give a warning to Luke for his inappropriate behaviour,
• Luke will be required to apologise to Victoria and refrain from such unethical conduct.

The practical constraints for this matter could be that:

• The manager or the human resource department might not take up any actions in regards to the situation.
• The ethical conducts can advance further if no action is taken.
• Victoria might need to quit her job because if the firm’s management does not take any actions against the unethical conduct. (Bryman, & Bell, 2015)

Which alternative would be best suited for Victoria in order to resolve this issue in a professional manner and work with Luke on the project as well as not leave the job.

In the case, if the company and the dealers have a contract then this is considered to be an unethical strategy. Whereas, if no such contract exist then it would be legal for the company to do business through their tactics.

As a sales person, it is Ilene’s job to increase her company’s sales keeping in line with the legal regulations, whereas if she wishes to be on good terms with the contractors or dealers, Ilene would need to look for tactics and strategies to acquire maximum revenue for the company.

The practice is able to damage the company’s reputation with their contractors and it possibly will lead to an unstable pricing system to the end users, which in turn will reflect upon the reputation of the company with the end consumers.

Ilene, as a sales person will need to augment the profit of the company from within the company as well as from outside the company. Ilene will need to come up with a pricing system that is creative that enables her company to deal with the end consumers as well as all at the same time satisfy the chain of custody.

It is not ethically forbidden to move out of the sales chain, unless any other party is not caused any damage. The company can formulate strategies to target the end consumer but for that it will need to create a pricing strategy which does not disrupt the chain of custody as well as keep the reputation of the company intact with the end consumers as well as the contractors and dealers of the company. (Prinsloo, & Slade, 2013, April pp. 240-244).

References

Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Ayodele, A., Abdallah, N. M., & Issaka, Y. USING TESCO AS A CASE STUDY.

Hammad, A. (2015). Strategic Change and Its Management to Expand Business Through Implementation of Models: A Case Study of Boots UK.

Jenkins, W., & Williamson, D. (2015). Strategic management and business analysis. Routledge.

Grundy, T. D. (2017). Dynamic Competitive Strategy: Turning Strategy Upside Down. Routledge.

Medarac, H. (2014). Matrix Marketing and Technology Innovation-The Development of Strategic Marketing Model Building (Doctoral dissertation, PhD thesis, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK).

Prinsloo, P., & Slade, S. (2013, April). An evaluation of policy frameworks for addressing ethical considerations in learning analytics. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 240-244). ACM.

Accolla, A., & Garini, F. (2017, July). The Business Opportunity of Longevity. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 45-59). Springer, Cham.