1. Why do airlines resist the hard and fast time limit?

2. Why did not the senior pilot of the stranded jet take charge? 

3. What are the best and worst experiences students have had on airlines?

4. What groups will be benefited if the present “open air” benzene process is continued?

5. What groups will be harmed if the present “open air” benzene process is continued?

6. What groups will be able to fully exercise their rights if the present process is continued?

7. What groups will be denied some of their rights if the present process is continued?

8. Express the moral problems so that everyone involved will believe that their particular interests have been recognized and included?

9. What are the economic benefits?

10. What are the legal requirements?

11. What are the ethical duties?

12. What happened?

The woman given the disguised name of Susan Shapiro was a member of one of my corporate strategy classes at the University of Michigan. The background given in the case is accurate. She had served in the Israeli army. She had a degree in chemistry from Smith, and a Master’s Degree in chemical engineering from M.I.T. Susan went to work for a large chemical company very soon after graduation. During the first month of her employment she was taken on a trip, with other recent management hires, to visit a chemical plant in Louisiana. She immediately recognized what she felt was a very dangerous situation: benzene, a known carcinogen, was being used to “wash” (remove surface impurities) from a chemical product. This was being done in the open air, in a shed with a metal roof, so that it was technically legal, but the fume concentrations under that roof were far above federal standards. She complained to the plant manager, who said that he recognized the problem but had been unable to get the investment funds needed to change the process. When Susan said that she would go back to corporate headquarters and try to get those funds, the plant manager asked Susan not to get him involved.

I look upon this as a “where do you draw the line” case. Susan, within the first month of her employment, had encountered a situation that, as the plant manager warned her, could threaten her employment with the firm. I generally start the discussion by asking why the plant manager is so pusillanimous, so hesitant to push for a process improvement that he knows would improve plant safety and assist worker health. I would hope that members of your class would recognize that it is very much easier to suggest forceful actions to solve moral problems when you are a young student at college rather than a middle-aged manager at work. Middle-aged managers at work have multiple obligations – mortgages on their family’s home and savings for their children’s education – that we all know middle-aged persons in most occupations tend to accumulate over time, and that make them much more vulnerable to economic dislocations and managerial disappointments. 

I would also hope that members of your class would recognize that this hesitancy to get involved is one of the problems of large diverse companies in globally competitive industries. People at corporate headquarters in New York City who approve/disapprove of requests for funding from chemical plants in Louisiana do not see the conditions or smell the fumes at those plants, and they do not know and have not come to respect the workers affected by those conditions and those fumes. One of the basic truisms of managerial ethics is that it is hard for corporate managers to be sympathetic to people they don’t see on a daily basis. After you get these “why many managers don’t want to get involved” thoughts across to members of your class