1. What role should ethics play in the writing of a proposal such as this? Did the PEO do the ethical thing for David? How much money should the PEO have tried to make? What would you have done if you were part of management at the PEO?
2. From a deontological (duty) perspective and a teleological (consequences) perspective, how would you describe the ethics of the PEO?
3. Based on what the PEO did for David, how would you evaluate the PEO on the ethical principles of respect, service, justice, honesty, and community?
4. How would you assess the ethics of the PEO if you were David? If you were among the PEO management? If you were the salesperson? If you were a member of the printing community?
David Jones seeks to start a printing business and contacts a reputable professional employer organization (PEO) to obtain an estimate for human resource services. The estimate included costs for payroll, benefits, and the like and was sought before David opened or purchased his business.
David then purchased an existing printing company and contacted the PEO to sign a contract for human resource services at the previously quoted price. Sometime after signing the contract, the PEO realized that the price far exceeded any reasonable service offering. The contract was, indeed, unfair and not comparable to other contracts with similar businesses.
The PEO worried about changing the contract. Doing so would affect the commission and morale of the PEO salesperson and could result in losing David as a client. As well, the PEO worried because David was a minority client and it prided itself on affirmative action. In the end though, a new contract was created and agreed to that lowered David's cost.