. Purchasing Ethical Dilemmas. Over the years, Don Dremmen has been "on the road" selling a variety of industrial goods for several different distributors. He keeps a small diary of "problems" that he has encountered over the years that concern him. Among these are:

(a) A competing salesperson, selling a high-quality product at a high price, would routinely give tickets to Bulls' basketball games to the purchasing agents of certain large customers.

(b) A close friend, also a salesperson, died recently of serious health problems that Don thinks was brought on by excessive entertaining of potential clients for years.

(c) When he was selling certain heavy equipment, he had the most difficulty competing with a rival salesperson that actually moved a service representative into his territory to be close to several large construction firms headquartered there. The service rep visited with their service personnel almost every week and even taught maintenance courses for free.

(d) One particular customer worked out a schedule to have him and several other sales representatives bring in donuts for the office staff on Fridays. His turn was always the third Friday of the month.

(e) Another current customer called him last week and said, "You know that fastener we buy from you? I just got a quote from a Singapore supplier at \(\$ 23.50\) a thousand. You gotta meet it, or I drop ya. Well?"

Required:

Comment on whether these are a typical salesperson's laments or ethical issues?